At first he didn’t recognize her. She was walking toward him across the plaza, still dressed in the blouse and riding pants of the night before but with her hair down now, swaying lazily behind her, and her face partially hidden by sunglasses. She was carrying a few books under one arm, leaving the other to keep time with her long stride, and stopped short when she saw him on the curb.
“Oh God, it’s you,” she said. “Now I don’t even have time to think what to say. I just hoped-you know, a few days and you’d forget.” He looked at her, not saying anything, and she took off her sunglasses, as if he needed to complete the identification. “Don’t tell me you have forgotten. Hard to think which would be worse. Emma.”
He smiled. “Yes, I know. How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad, considering. Look, I am sorry. I don’t know what got into me. You must think-well, I don’t know what you must think. Quite an introduction, being sick all over you.”
“No, you kept your distance. Don’t worry about it.”
“That’s something, anyway. How does one apologize? Do I send round flowers or something? Believe it or not, I’ve never done that before.”
“You could have lunch with me.”
“A bit early. Or is that a line?”
“No, it’s an invitation. I hate eating alone.”
She looked at him for a minute. “All right. I could do with some eggs. Been to La Fonda yet? Oh, I forgot, you’ve just arrived. Better see it, then. Come on,” she said, turning to her left, “it’s just up the street. They say it’s the best hotel in town. Which wouldn’t be hard. They also say the barman’s a spy-you know, one of your lot. FBI or whatever you’re calling yourselves these days.”
“Is he a good bartender, at least?”
“I suppose so. Actually, he’s probably just some nice little man. Everybody looking and pointing and putting their hands over their mouths-probably doesn’t have the faintest idea. Almost worth it to stick around after the war to see if he does go back to Washington or just keeps wiping down the bar.”
They had huevos rancheros at a table near the window, flooded with sun.
“Where will you go after the war?” Connolly said.
“You mean, where’s home? London, I suppose. It really depends on Daniel-my husband. Maybe he’ll stay here, assuming there’s anything to stay for. I don’t know. He could go back to the Cavendish, but perish that.”
“Why? It’s the best lab in England.”
“Yes, and think of all those lovely Sunday lunches on the Maddingly Road. Dreary old dons and watery sprouts and one glass of bad sherry. Sounds like I’m obsessed with drink, doesn’t it?”
“Sounds like you’d need it there.”
“You’re right. Not Blighty, then. Where?”
“But your husband’s not English.”
“He is now. By marriage, anyway. You mean the name. He was Polish. A Polish Jew. That’s twice nothing now, so he’ll have to be English, won’t he?”
“Where did you meet?”
“In Berlin. He was at the KWI.” She answered his unspoken question. “Sorry. I forgot you’re not an ‘engineer.’ Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. He worked with Lise Meitner.”
Connolly raised his eyebrows appreciatively.
“Yes, he’s quite a boy,” she said. “Look, did you ask me to lunch to talk about my husband? I’m not fishing, but I could think of a hundred more flattering things.”
“Such as?”
“Well, you could say you wish I didn’t have one, for a start.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” she said evenly.
He looked back at her. “At least we have that established.”
“Deftly, too, I hope you noticed.”
“I don’t miss much.”
“Then don’t miss that.”
“I suppose that’s by way of letting me down gently?”
She smiled. “Is there such a thing? Look, I’m a hopeless flirt. I can’t help it, I was brought up that way. We all were, in my set. Here I am now, being blinded by this light and still hung over, and I wouldn’t dream of picking up these sunglasses. It wouldn’t be polite to the man, you see. But you’ll have to settle for the charm. It doesn’t go any further.”
“Got it. It’s just eggs, you know,” he said, gesturing to the plate.
“It’s never just eggs. Now, tell me about you.”
“That’s not even subtle,” he said, smiling.
“Tell me anyway. What did you do before the war?”
“Newspaperman. In New York.”
“Real news or agony aunt or what?”
“I guess you could call it real news. City desk. Police blotter. Nothing very special.”
“And after the war? You just take up where you left off?”
Finished with the eggs, he lit a cigarette. “Sure. But where’s that? You spend most of the war wanting to get back before you realize it won’t be there anymore. It’ll be something else. But you don’t know what, so you just wait it out.”
She looked at him thoughtfully, lighting her own cigarette. “They don’t think that on the Hill,” she said finally. “They’re having the time of their lives up there.”
“And that bothers you?”
“No, I envy them. They’re not filling in time and wondering what’s next. You’ve got that right. They’ve no idea how boring it is for the rest of us while they beaver away.” Then she brightened. “Still, they’re happy. Daniel’s happy.”
“So you’re jealous of the project?”
“Bloody stupid, isn’t it? No, I’m glad for him-it’s what he was meant to do. They’re making history. Oppie keeps saying so, anyway. You can’t ask more than that. I just wish I knew what I was meant to do.” She stubbed out the cigarette with some of her old fierceness.
“So what do you do, while you’re waiting for the call?”
She looked at him, then laughed. “I’ll have to watch you. You catch me out, making a fool of myself, and I don’t mind. Why is that, do you think?”
“Maybe I don’t scare easily.”
“Oh, scare. That’s what it is, then. I’ve always wondered. I thought it was my charm that sent them all packing. But not you.”
“No, I’ll stick around.”
“I give you that. After last night I thought I’d seen the last of you.”
“Don’t apologize again. We’ve done that.”
“So we have. What’s next, then?”
“I wish you weren’t married.”
“We’ve done that too. Look, I’d better go. Let’s get the bill.”
“Now I’m scaring you. I’m sorry. I was just being cute. Don’t run off-here, look, I’ll stay on my side of the table.”
“I still have to go.”
“I thought you were going to show me Santa Fe.”
She laughed. “You’ve seen it.” She stopped and looked at him, as if trying to make up her mind about something. “I tell you what, though. If you really want to see something-the country, I mean-I was just on my way to a friend’s ranch. Out past Tesuque. You could come along. Would that interest you?”
“Yes.” He paused. “If I ask you something, will you answer me honestly?”
“No.”
“Would it interest you?”
“Honestly? Well, if memory serves, darling, you boys in G-2 are rolling in coupons and I’m always running out. It was your car I had in mind. Honestly.”
They drove north on the Tesuque road, past old adobes settled in cottonwood groves, shady and cool, but when the outskirts of town were behind them, the landscape opened up again, miles of country stretching off to the Jemez Mountains on their left. He stared straight ahead, concentrating on the road, but he could feel her next to him, one leg pulled up away from him on the seat as she blew smoke out the window. She was leaning back, her sunglasses on against the glare of the day. He couldn’t tell whether she had her eyes open, but he imagined them closed, so he could take her in with quick side glances without her knowing. He could smell her skin.
“I thought you weren’t allowed to fraternize with the locals,” he said.
“Oh, Hannah’s different. The project used her ranch before they built all the housing. They had us stashed all over the place in the early days. Before the fences went up.”
“So she was your landlady?”
Emma laughed. “Well, a landlady. I never thought of her in that way. You’ll see what I mean when you meet her.”
“A local character?”
“Hm, but not local. She lives in Los Angeles. Something or other in the movies-sets. Here she’s an artist. Quite a good one too, actually. Daniel and I kipped in her studio-the others were in the main house. So I spent my first few weeks here surrounded by corn.”
“Corn? The vegetable?”
She laughed again. “Yes, maize. Giant ears of it on these whacking great canvases. She calls it her corn series. Says she spent two years living in corn. I can well imagine. Anyway, so did we, at least for a few weeks. In some ways, it was my favorite time here. I think that’s when I really fell in love with the place. All this space. She lent us her horses, and you could ride for hours and not see a soul. I thought it was about as far from England as you could get.”
“And that’s what you wanted?”
“Oh, no one wants to get away like the English. Unless you’re one of those who don’t want to go anywhere at all. I couldn’t wait to get away. And this,” she said, opening her hand to the view. “You can breathe here.”
“But your family’s still in England?”
“Yes. I couldn’t wait to get away from them either. Still, I suppose it’s a bit hard on them-I mean, they haven’t a clue. Box 1663, Santa Fe. That’s all they know. It can’t possibly mean anything to them. We’re not supposed to make any reference to the place or the work or anything, really.”
“So what do they think you’re doing here?”
“Haven’t the faintest. They know I go riding and they know Daniel’s a scientist, but since that doesn’t make sense, they’ve probably given it up as a puzzle. Of course, Mother’s been puzzled for years. She just rattles around this barn of a house while my father drills the locals in some awful Home Guard practice, and everybody’s happy in their own dotty way. God, it’s lovely to be here.”
“Brothers or sisters?”
“You can read my file, you know. Yes, two sisters. Thoroughly satisfactory. Deb balls, good marriages, dogs-the lot.”
“Which leaves you.”
“Yes. I’m not satisfactory at all.”
“You’re delighted to say.”
She glanced over at him and nodded. “I’m delighted to say.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“Better save something for another day. You can peel me away, like an onion.”
He grinned at her.
“It’s a turn of phrase, dear,” she said. “Nothing more.”
After a few more miles they took a right, up a dirt road that paralleled the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
“How big is this place?”
“Not very. Hannah’s got horses, but it’s not a working ranch. You need thousands of acres for that. She started with just the adobe and then added the studio and the stables when she could put the money together. She’s been here on and off for ten years or so.”
“How did she end up in Hollywood?”
“Well, actually, she ended up here. She started there. She left Germany early, in ‘thirty-four-there was a whole group that went straight from UFA to California. I don’t know how she got here. You could ask her.”
“Is everyone around here foreign?”
“Careful.”
“I didn’t mean you.”
“I know. Sometimes it does seem that way, doesn’t it? Packing us all away here. Odd they should have picked a place that doesn’t look American, though, don’t you think? I mean, you’ve got all these expats thinking America’s like-”
“Spain.”
“No, not Spain,” she said, slowing down. “I’ve been there. It’s nothing like that. Awful place. Of course, there was a war on, which didn’t help.”
“What were you doing there? Driving an ambulance or something?”
“Mostly just sitting around hating the place. Lots of little men strutting about like stout Cortez. You can’t imagine the dreariness of it. Not like here at all.”
“Why Spain?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It was the thing to do, like some finishing school for English girls. The unsatisfactory ones, anyway. All sorts of us went out-you know, fight the good fight against fascism. And take a Spanish lover into the bargain.”
He looked at her, interested. “But not you.”
“I didn’t say that. I just said they weren’t my cup of tea. Maybe it’s the mustaches-too silly.”
“I’m glad I shaved.”
“You’d have made a hit with Hannah. She loves a big mustache. Well”-she giggled-“big everything. Wait till you see Hector.”
“Her husband?”
“Her foreman. Hand. Lover, according to everybody.”
“He’s big?”
“Hm. They should have called him Ajax. I love the way the Mexicans use these classical names. Anyway, he’s strong as an ox-he can move anything. He’s got a construction job on the Hill now that she’s closing the ranch, and Hannah claims she’s heartbroken. She dotes on him, but he won’t go to Los Angeles. I don’t know, maybe it suits them both. Hannah says he’s an Aztec god, but then she treats him like a servant. I can’t imagine what they talk about. Maybe they don’t. I’m fond of Hannah, but every time I see them together I have to laugh. They look like one of those adverts for sex clubs in Berlin.”
“The things you know,” Connolly said.
But in fact she was right-the odd pairing was almost comically sexual. Hannah turned out to be a slim, petite woman still wearing the short-cropped bangs of the 1920s, as if she had just stepped off Pabst’s set. Next to her, bending over a tub of mud, was a large Mexican, stripped to the waist, his back rippling as he stirred the wet earth with a paddle. When he stood up at the sound of the car and wiped his forehead, his frame seemed a wall of muscle. Ladders had been placed on the side of the house, and two Indian women, entirely covered in long skirts, were applying the wet mud to the walls, smoothing it over with their hands in long, regular strokes. They moved with a sure, unbroken rhythm, practiced for centuries. Against this background, Hector seemed even more a primitive figure, a builder of ancient cities.
“Emma!” the woman shouted happily, extending her arms. “You came!”
Her voice was German, deep and thickened by years of smoke but not at all heavy. It seemed to float instead with an ironic playfulness.
“Just in time for the last coat. You see my enjaradoras?” she said, pointing to the Indian women. “Hector found them at Acoma. Aren’t they wonderful? So smooth, look at the walk-like new.”
“Hello, Hannah,” Emma said, embracing her quickly. “I’ve brought a friend. Actually, he brought me. Michael Connolly, Hannah Beckman.”
Hannah held up her muddy hands and bowed in greeting. “Forgive me,” she said, smiling at him. “Today I’m a worker. I couldn’t resist-the feel of the earth on your hands is something wonderful. I wanted to build my own house, just like the three little pigs, yes?”
She wiped her hands on a cloth. Neither Hector nor the Indian women paid any attention. They continued plastering the wall, their faces grave and impassive. Hannah took a cigarette out of her jacket pocket.
“But I am so glad you came. I thought I would not see you before I left. How is Daniel-he’s well?”
“Busy.”
“Ah. That’s good, yes?”
“Well, it’s good for him.”
“Then it’s good for you, my darling. So,” she said, glancing at Emma’s pants, “you came to ride and I’ve sent all the horses away. Now you’ll be disappointed.”
“No, I came to see you. We can’t stay long. Isn’t it early to be plastering?”
“What could I do? Next month is better, but I have this week. Pray for me. Appease the gods.” She looked up. “No rain, please, so Hannah’s house can dry.”
But the day was hot and clear and she spoke as if she knew luck was running her way. The house was a large square adobe with a hacienda-style overhanging porch decorated with long ristras of dried chiles. In the bright sun, the old tan walls had faded to the color of buckskin, accented by the traditional sky-blue paint around the door frame and windows. The wet mud would dry smoothly, without a crack.
“But why go to the bother if you’re shutting up the house?” Emma said. “Can’t it wait till you come back?”
“And when is that? No, you see the cracks from the winter? If you protect the bricks, they last forever. If not-” She left the consequences to their imaginations. “It must be done before the storms come in July, so better now. While Hector will still come. You’re filling his pockets with gold up there. Maybe he’ll never come back.”
She spoke as if he were not there in front of them.
“Come. We’ll have some tea, but first come watch my enjaradoras. You see how they measure the layer? Their hands tell them. Not too thin, but not too thick or it will fall off. They feel the mud and they know. They’re great sculptors, these women, and everything they make is from the earth. Think of it-earth and water and straw, that’s all. Buildings of earth. Paintings of sand. Ah, but you disapprove, Mr. Connolly, I can tell.” She turned to Emma. “He thinks I’m being a romantic.”
“Not at all,” Connolly said. “I was wondering how often this needs to be done-the walls.”
Hannah laughed. “You see, I was right. A pragmatist. Every few years,” she said to him, “depending on the severity of the winters.”
“So not so very different from painting an ordinary house.”
“But think what it means. You take the earth and build it all over again-your work is in the house. Not some cosmetic, not a Max Factor.”
Connolly smiled. “Except for the blue eye shadow,” he said, nodding to the window frames.
“Yes. The blue keeps the evil spirits away. Everyone knows that,” she said lightly.
“Why blue? Because of turquoise?”
“It’s odd you should say that,” Hannah said. “The Navajos believe that turquoise keeps evil spirits away. But these doorways-these came from the Moors. They brought the custom with them when they took Spain. So it’s nothing to do with the Indians at all. But blue-the same in both cases. It’s odd, yes?”
“Maybe it has an appeal for desert people,” he said. “A feel for the sky, something like that.”
Hannah beamed. “Well, a romantic after all. Quite a catch, Emma.”
It needn’t have meant anything-a turn of phrase with nothing implied-but Connolly was pleased that Emma let it stand uncorrected. It was only a moment, but he took in it the furtive pleasure of conspiracy.
“Hector, I must give our guests some tea,” she said, taking Emma by the arm. “Shall I make some for you?”
“Later. I need to finish up the flashings on the canales,” he said in flat, unaccented English that slid into quickly inflected Spanish. He nodded to Emma and Connolly, his only greeting, and returned to his work.
“As you wish,” Hannah said, her arm still linked in Emma’s as they walked toward the house. “You see,” she said, leaning her head toward Emma, “he’s angry with me. Should I be pleased? I don’t think so.”
“But you’ve gone away before,” Emma said.
“Yes, but this is different. The straw on the camel.”
“Nonsense, he’ll be here when you come back. He always is.”
“Well, always,” Hannah said dubiously. “Nothing is forever, my darling. Just the bricks. People have to move on. I think, you know, this will be the end of Hector.”
“Why go, then?” Emma said as they entered the house.
“My new master. They don’t like these long vacations at Fox. On the lot every day. What can I do? No more freelance. Mr. Zanuck says I have responsibilities now. Yes, sir.” She raised her hand in a mock salute. “So I obey. The good soldier.”
“You?” Emma said. “He doesn’t know what he’s letting himself in for.”
The wide center hall, with two rooms off each side, was cool and dim, but it led to a large open room in the back that ran the entire length of the house, bordering the patio. It was an artificial room, clearly made by combining several smaller ones, and its whitewashed walls were Hannah’s art gallery, filled with large, vivid canvases. She painted in closeup. Over the fireplace, Connolly noticed two paintings from the corn series, massive abstract ears of multicolored kernels, but there were other subjects as well-desert landscapes, still lifes of chiles, an adobe wall lined with morning glories, so like the actual courtyard wall outside that it made a trompe l’oeil effect in the room. There were large terra-cotta jars on the tile floor and the geometric colors of Indian rugs. Single low-lying shelves held found objects-a rusty farm tool, little piles of pink rocks. Nothing was out of place. It was one of those rooms entirely arranged to serve an aesthetic.
The tea was ready so quickly that Connolly guessed she kept a kettle always near the boil. It was served, incongruously, in pretty Meissen cups, floral and delicate in the severe Southwestern room, like some gap in taste she could not leave behind.
“It was different before, of course,” Hannah said. “At Paramount they didn’t care. Well, maybe they did, but they didn’t say. When Mr. da Silva was there-Buddy da Silva,” she said, rolling his name. “So appropriate, you know. My Buddy.” She lowered her voice to imitate the song and laughed. “You could come and go there. They appreciated the artists at Paramount. From the first. Think of Von Sternberg, what they put up with from him. Such behavior. But now it’s a mess. Nobody knows anything. Before it was Marlene. Now Betty Hutton. It was time to go.”
“Hannah, you’ve been complaining about Hollywood for as long as I’ve known you,” Emma said.
“Yes? Well, that’s not so long, is it? No, it was different before. I was different, perhaps. So now I go to design musicals. Boost morale. Make Mr. Zanuck happy,” she said, smiling.
“And will that be any better?”
“But, my darling,” Hannah said, laughing, “think of the money. They have so much money now. Why not take some? If I stay on the lot and keep everyone happy, I can come back here for good. Just paint and paint and paint and let them tap-dance until they fall over.”
“You won’t,” Emma said. “You love it there.”
“No,” Hannah said seriously, “now I love the money. Besides, it’s finished for me there. Europe is finished. They used to call me for the ‘European touch.’ They would say it just like that. ‘Hannah, give it the European touch.’ What is that now? A bomb shelter? Rubble? No, no more Europe here, I think. It’s too serious now. This is a country of children.” She glanced at Connolly. “Oh, my country too. But now it’s for children. Mr. Zanuck and his polo friends. I don’t think he wants that European touch.”
“What does he want?” Emma said.
“Now?” Hannah replied, her mood light again. “Havana nightclubs. Palm trees. Girls. More girls. So now we go to Havana for a while and have fun. And then I come home to paint.”
“You’re really going there?” Emma said.
“No, no,” Hannah said. “They don’t want to go to Havana, just the nightclubs. It’s always the same nightclub. I went to Ciro’s. They have a long staircase there. You stop at the top when you enter, you stop at the top on your way out- two appearances, you see. All the producers go there. So they see my set and they say, yes, this is a nightclub. Wonderful. Hannah’s done it again. Maybe now I’ll have the Ciro’s touch.”
Connolly watched them as they smoked and talked, a quicksilver flow of gossip, and saw that for Emma it was like leafing through some colorful magazine of the outside world. Selznick’s divorce. The mad sets Dali designed for Spellbound, which Selznick was making because of his own psychoanalysis. Brecht, who never washed. Thomas Mann, who had recreated his Berlin apartment in Santa Monica. The difficulty of photographing Veronica Lake without making her look foreshortened. All messages from that world far from the mesa, where no one worked behind barbed wire and worried about algae in the water, where you could talk about anything. But what did she make of it? And as he watched her he realized, with a start, that she was watching him and that Hannah was aware of them both. They talked around him-he didn’t have to say a word-but Emma would glance over at him secretly, to see what he thought, his expression conversation enough. He became in some curious way their audience, without either of them addressing him directly. The talk was as ephemeral as column filler, and after a while he felt that neither of them was really paying attention, Emma because she was caught up in some disturbance he caused, Hannah because she was watching a drama play out. He felt like someone brought home to dinner on approval and wondered if Emma regretted bringing him, now that it was his approval she seemed to care about. When he lit a cigarette, she was alert to the sound of the match, and when he looked at her through the smoke, she flinched involuntarily, as if she felt him touching her. It was Hannah who rescued them.
“But enough of this foolishness,” she said, standing. “You must think I’m selfish, Mr. Connolly, talking only of myself like this. I’m afraid Emma’s to blame-she likes to listen to me, and you know, I can’t resist that. I don’t see many people. Now you must tell me about you.”
“He works up on the Hill,” Emma said protectively, before Connolly could answer. “Here, let me help you with the washing-up.”
“Ah, then I mustn’t ask any more. So all my chattering, it’s just as well. I know the rules. Emma told you maybe that some of your colleagues lived here at the beginning? With the scientists, no questions.”
Emma was collecting teacups and made no move to correct her, so Connolly said, “That must have been frustrating.”
“For me? Not at all,” Hannah said gaily. “I love secrets. And everyone was so charming. How is Professor Weissmann? Does he still play chess with Dr. Eisler? And that funny boy from New Jersey with the nice wife?”
“I never see them anymore,” Emma said. “Everyone’s scattered. Busy. I never see you anymore, come to that. It’s like people you meet on holiday and then lose touch.”
“Not you, my darling. Here you are, coming to see me off to Havana. And now you want to play hausfrau. Very well, here’s mine too. You wash up and go be nice to Hector, say nice things about me, and I’ll show your friend the ranch and say nice things about you.”
Emma glanced at her, disconcerted. “That won’t take long,” she said.
“That depends on how much he wants to know. You see that I’m a terrible gossip,” she said to Connolly. “Would you like that?”
“Very much,” he said, smiling.
Emma, holding a cup in each hand, gave a helpless shrug. “Do be back for supper.”
Surprisingly, Hannah leaned on his arm as they walked slowly toward the corral, not saying anything, an old couple. Even the silence seemed an unearned intimacy.
“She wants me to like you,” she said finally. They had reached the corral and stood at the fence, looking west toward the mountains.
“Do you?”
“Me? It doesn’t matter. She likes you.”
“Look, I don’t want you to think-”
“Ssh.” She put her finger to her lips. “It’s all right. Sometimes, you know, it’s easier to say something to a stranger. Do you mind if I say something to you?”
He looked at her expectantly.
“Be careful with her. I’ve been worried lately. I knew something was troubling her-now I see it was you.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“No. We can be honest with each other. Like strangers. I can see that you’re-well, ‘in love,’ what’s that? Something for the nightclubs, a fantasy, yes? Something for the children. No. Involved with her. That’s something too, you know. You can’t help it either, I see. You watch her all the time.”
“Do I?” Connolly said, trapped now in her premise, wanting to see where it would go.
She smiled. “Of course. That’s why I’m saying this to you. I think you can be good for her. At first I thought it was the boredom, something to do. The same way she studies those Indians. But now I see it’s more. With Emma, it’s always something more, you know? She can’t be casual. So you cannot be casual either, my friend. Don’t hurt her. She deserves to be happy.”
“Everyone deserves to be happy.”
“Do you think so? Such an American idea. No, not everyone. But this time, yes.” She patted his arm. “So make her happy.”
“She’s in love with her husband.”
“Ach,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “Don’t be foolish. She’s in love with her own heroism. She got him out, that’s why she married him.”
“Out of Germany?”
“Yes, out of Germany, where else? She didn’t tell you? It was the only way he could leave-become a British citizen. She married him to save his life.”
“They’re still married.”
“Yes, it’s as I say. Never casual. She had an impulse, she does a wonderful thing for him. A favor. A political act, even. Except with Emma, everything is personal, not political. So then? Does she live with that for the rest of her life? Evidently. She follows him to America, to this camp. She plays hausfrau while he goes to the laboratory. She studies her Indians. Anasazi.” She pronounced each syllable of the word, a foreign-language joke. “Is that a life for her? So stubborn. This marriage-what is it? Some duty? I used to ask myself this. Now maybe you’ll give us the answer.”
He felt as if he had been pulled down a rabbit hole between past and future, his leg held in the grasp of her internal logic. To contradict her now seemed itself illogical. Like Alice, he began to doubt his own sense of things, and let go to follow his curiosity. She didn’t know what she was talking about; she might be right.
He must have been staring at her, because now she patted his arm again and said, “Yes, but not today, eh? Enough from this busybody, you think. But you don’t say. You are polite. Not angry, I hope?”
“Neither. I just don’t know what to say.”
She sighed. “Then that is the best answer.” They began to walk back toward the house. “You are right, of course. How can we know anything? We can only meet our destiny and then we know.”
“Do you really believe that?” he said, eager to change the subject.
“Oh yes, of course. I’m a great believer in destiny. All Germans are. Maybe that will make it easier for them when their destiny arrives, now that those idiots have destroyed them.”
“They don’t seem finished yet.”
“A death rattle, my friend. They are destroyed. There will be no Germany left at the end. Nothing. At least it will be the end of the gangsters too.” She tossed her head, as if to shake off her somber mood. “But that is what we’ve been working for, yes? You with your work, me with my palm trees. The end of the gangsters.”
“But if that was their destiny all along?” he said, sparring.
She smiled at him. “That is what makes destiny so interesting. Sometimes it needs a little push.”
Emma was waiting for them at the house, visibly anxious to be off. Hector was now on the roof, and she stood alone by the new wet wall, which glistened in the drying sun.
“I’m glad you came to see my land,” Hannah said to Connolly. “This is my whole country now.”
“But you have to leave it,” Emma said, joining them.
“I’ll come back. I have nowhere else to go. Hollywood is not a place-you can’t live there. This is a place.”
“Can’t you find someone to live here?” Emma said. “Then at least you wouldn’t have to send the horses away.”
“No, it’s better this way. I don’t want other people here. You come once in a while and be my caretaker. You always know where the key is,” she said, looking directly at Emma. “Anytime. Then I won’t worry.”
Emma, flustered, simply nodded her head.
“I don’t mind friends,” Hannah said to Connolly. “It’s the idea of strangers I don’t like.”
“But you had people here before,” Connolly said.
Hannah looked at him, puzzled at his interest. “Well, I couldn’t refuse then. Robert asked me.”
“Robert Oppenheimer?”
“Yes. Robert asked all the old-timers. We all knew him, you see. What could we do? Some army man said it was our patriotic duty-you know, they talk like that-but Robert, he was clever. He just said he needed a favor, and, you know, he’s charming, no one could refuse him.”
“I’d forgotten he had a ranch here,” Connolly said, backing off.
“Yes, in the mountains. For years. He loved to ride in those days. Does he still?”
“You haven’t seen him?”
“No one has. He never comes here. Is he still up on the Hill, or is that one of your classified questions?”
Connolly shrugged.
“Well, then, I don’t ask. But if you do see him somewhere, give him my regards. He should take care of his health, that one. And tell him that we’re still waiting to hear what it was all about. Making history, he said. Oo la, that sounds important, but what kind of history, eh? Anyway, never mind about history, my darling,” she said to Emma, giving her a goodbye kiss on her cheek. “Be happy.” She shook Connolly’s hand. “And you. Good luck with your destiny.”
“And yours,” he said, smiling.
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” she said, “I have the Ciro’s touch.”
Emma asked to drive back to Santa Fe, and he was surprised to find her inexperienced, coming up fast on curves and then jerking the clutch at the last minute as if she were pulling on reins. He was by now so used to her self-assurance that this inadequacy behind the wheel seemed touching, an opening. She held the wheel tightly, afraid the car would bolt.
“Sorry,” she said after an audible moan from the gears. “I haven’t got the hang of this one yet.” She spoke straight ahead to the road, unable to switch her concentration.
“It’s all right. It’s stiff.”
“No, it’s not. But thanks. How did you like Hannah?”
“She seemed to think we’d known each other for some time.”
“Did she? I wonder why. What did you say to her?”
“I didn’t get a word in edgewise.”
Emma grinned. “Yes. She can be like that. I wish she’d listen to Hector, though. There’s something wrong there. He was positively churlish. He’s usually rather sweet, in a way.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“No, really. But he seemed all on edge. Something’s happened.”
“The bust-up?”
“Maybe. Oh, don’t laugh. I know they’re an odd couple. Still, it’s sad to see any couple come to an end. They suited each other in a way.”
He felt for an instant that now they were a couple, falling aimlessly into a postmortem after dinner with friends. “What way?”
“Now you’re going to be impossible. I don’t know-the way people do. There’s no explaining it.”
“No.”
She glanced over at him quickly, then looked back to the road.
“She said you married your husband to get him out of Germany.”
“Did she?” Emma said nervously. “I married him. He got out of Germany. They’re not necessarily connected.”
“Not necessarily.”
She was quiet for a minute, avoiding the conversation. “Anyway, what does Hannah know about it?” she said, concluding an argument.
“I thought maybe you’d told her.”
“I didn’t. It’s her imagination.”
“Maybe she’s intuitive.”
“Maybe you’re not a very good intelligence officer. Do you always believe the first thing you hear?”
“When I want to.”
“Well, don’t.” She downshifted, flustered. “What else did she have to say?”
“Not much. This and that and Germany and destiny.”
“Quite a chat.”
“Very gloomy and Wagnerian.”
“Hannah?” She laughed. “You must bring out something in her. She doesn’t usually get much further than Louella Parsons. Louella O. Parsons. What do you think the O stands for?”
“Are you trying to change the subject?”
“Trying.”
“All right. How about banks?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is there a bank in Santa Fe everyone uses? Where do you go, for instance?”
She laughed. “That’s certainly changing it. I don’t go anywhere. We’re not allowed to have accounts off-site.”
“What do you do? Keep it in a sock under the bed?”
“There’s not very much to keep, for a start. What there is we keep in a post account. I suppose everyone does. Why do you want to know?”
“So if you made a large cash purchase, you’d have to withdraw the money from this account? I mean, you wouldn’t write a check?”
“No. Cash. I suppose if it were a lot, you’d get a money order from the post office. Except I never do. It always just goes somehow.”
Connolly was quiet for a minute, thinking.
“Now may I ask why?” she said.
“I was just wondering why anybody would carry a lot of cash, when a check is so much easier.”
“Not anybody. You mean Karl, don’t you?” she said, her voice suddenly tight. “They said he was robbed. Is that why? He was carrying a lot of money?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you-” She hesitated. “The police?”
“No,” he said easily, “but naturally we’re curious too.”
“Naturally.”
“I didn’t realize you knew him.”
“Everybody knew him. He was security. There’s no escaping you.”
“Did you like him?”
She seemed surprised by the question, at a loss. “He was all right, I suppose,” she said finally.
“So you weren’t tempted by his coupons?”
“What?”
“You said before that G-2 had lots of coupons.”
“Did I? Quite the elephant, aren’t you? No, I wasn’t tempted by his bloody coupons.”
“Just mine.”
She sat back in the seat, smiling involuntarily. “Just yours.”
“Well, that’s something, anyway. Maybe next time it’ll be for the pleasure of my company.”
“Is there going to be a next time?”
“Isn’t there?” he said quietly.
She turned to look at him. “I don’t know,” she said seriously. “Don’t ask me, okay? I don’t know.”
When she changed cars in Santa Fe, she shook his hand nervously and tried a casual goodbye, but since they were both heading back to the Hill, she didn’t leave him after all. He followed her car up to the Parajito Plateau, watching her glance into the rearview mirror as she spurted ahead, then waited for him to catch up, darting along the empty desert road like birds from the mesa in a courtship flight. She drove fast, carelessly ignoring the speed limit, but he trailed smoothly in her wake, close enough to keep eye contact in the mirror, until finally she laughed and waved and, allowing herself to be pursued, they drove together.