“It isn’t.” I’d forgotten Lotty was standing behind me. “It’s one of those medieval totemic names, wolflike ruler, something like that.” She added something in German to Paul.
Paul started to answer her in German, then stuck out his lower lip, like Calia’s when she was being stubborn. “I will not speak the language of my slavery. Are you German? Did you know the man who called himself my father?”
Lotty sighed. “I’m American. But I speak German.”
Paul’s mood shifted upward again; he beamed at Lotty. “But you are a friend of Max and Carl’s. So I was right to come here. If you know my family, did you know Sofie Radbuka?”
At that question, Carl turned to stare at him. “Where the hell did you come up with that name? Lotty, what do you know about this? Did you bring this man here to taunt Max and me?”
“I?” Lotty said. “I—need to sit down.”
Her face had gone completely white. I was just in time to catch her as her knees buckled.
XVII
Digging Up the Past
Morrell helped me support Lotty into the sunroom, where we laid her on a wicker settee. She hadn’t fainted completely but was still pale and glad to lie down. Max, his face pinched with worry, covered Lotty with an afghan. Always calm in a crisis, he sent Don to the housekeeper for a bottle of ammonia. When I’d soaked a napkin with it and waved it under her nose, Lotty’s color improved. She pushed herself to a sitting position, urging Max to return to his guests. After assuring himself that she was really better, he reluctantly went back to the party.
“Melodrama must be in the air this evening,” Lotty said, trying unsuccessfully for her usual manner. “I’ve never done that before in my life. Who brought that extraordinary man here? Surely that wasn’t you, Victoria?”
“He brought himself,” I said. “He has an eel-like ability to wiggle into spaces. Including the hospital, where some moron in admin gave him Max’s home address.”
Morrell coughed warningly, jerking his head at the shadows on the far side of the room. Paul Radbuka was standing there, just beyond the edge of the circle of light cast by a floor lamp. Now he darted forward to stand over Lotty.
“Are you feeling better now? Do you feel like talking? I think you must know Sofie Radbuka. Who is she? How can I find her? She must be related to me in some way.”
“Surely the person you are looking for was named Miriam.” Despite her shaking hands, Lotty pulled herself together to use her “Princess of Austria” manner.
“My Miriam, yes, I long to find her again. But Sofie Radbuka, that is a name which was dangled in front of me like a carrot, making me believe one of my relations must still be alive somewhere. Only now the carrot has been withdrawn. But I’m sure you know her, why else did you faint when you heard the name?”
A question whose answer I would have liked to hear myself, but not in front of this guy.
Lotty raised haughty eyebrows at him. “What I do is no conceivable business of yours. It was my understanding from the uproar you caused in the hall that you came to see whether either Mr. Loewenthal or Mr. Tisov were related to you. Now that you’ve caused a great disturbance, perhaps you would be good enough to give your address to Ms. Warshawski and leave us in peace.”
Radbuka’s lower lip stuck out, but before he could dig his heels in, Morrell intervened. “I’m going to take Radbuka up to Max’s study, as V I tried to do an hour ago. Max and Carl may join him there later, if they’re able.”
Don had been sitting quietly in the background, but he stood up now. “Right. Come on, big guy. Dr. Herschel needs to rest.”
Don put an arm around him. With Morrell at his other elbow, they moved the unhappy Radbuka to the door, his neck hunched into his oversize jacket, his face so expressive of bewildered misery that he looked like a circus clown.
When they’d gone, I turned to Lotty. “Who was Sofie Radbuka?”
She turned her frosty stare to me. “No one that I know of.”
“Then why did hearing her name make you faint?”
“It didn’t. My foot caught on the edge of a rug and—”
“Lotty, if you don’t want to tell me, keep it to yourself, but please don’t make up stupid lies to me.”
She bit her lip, turning her head away from me. “There’s been far too much emotion in this house today. First Max and Carl furious with me, and now the man himself shows up. I don’t need you angry with me as well.”
I sat on the wicker table in front of her settee. “I’m not angry. But I happened to be alone in the hall when this guy came to the door, and after ten minutes with him my head was spinning like a hula hoop. If you faint, or start to faint, then claim nothing was wrong, it makes me even dizzier. I’m not here to criticize, but you were so upset on Friday you got me seriously worried. And your agony seems to have started with this guy’s appearance at the Birnbaum conference.”