Different Seasons(54)

Dussander smiled and felt for his cigarettes. He could see them perfectly well, but it was important to make not the tiniest slip. Monica put them in his hand.

“Thank you, dear lady. The meal was superb. You are a fine cook. My own wife never did better.”

Monica thanked him and looked flustered. Todd gave her an irritated look.

“Not personal at all,” Dussander said, lighting his cigarette and turning to Bowden. “I was in the reserves from 1943 on, as were all able-bodied men too old to be in the active services. By then the handwriting was on the wall for the Third Reich, and for the madmen who created it. One madman in particular, of course.”

He blew out his match and looked solemn.

“There was great relief when the tide turned against Hitler. Great relief. Of course,” and here he looked at Bowden disarmingly, as man to man, “one was careful not to express such a sentiment. Not aloud.”

“I suppose not,” Dick Bowden said respectfully.

“No,” Dussander said gravely. “Not aloud. I remember one evening when four or five of us, all friends, stopped at a local Ratskeller after work for a drink—by then there was not always Schnaps. or even beer, but it so happened that night there were both. We had all known each other for upwards of twenty years. One of our number, Hans Hassler, mentioned in passing that perhaps the Fuehrer had been ill-advised to open a second front against the Russians. I said, ‘Hans, God in Heaven, watch what you say!’ Poor Hans went pale and changed the subject entirely. Yet three days later he was gone. I never saw him again, nor, as far as I know, did anyone else who was sitting at our table that night.”

“How awful!” Monica said breathlessly. “More cognac, Mr. Denker?”

“No thank you.” He smiled at her. “My wife had a saying from her mother: ‘One must never overdo the sublime.’ ”

Todd’s small, troubled frown deepened slightly.

“Do you think he was sent to one of the camps?” Dick asked. “Your friend Hessler?”

“Hassler, Dussander corrected gently. He grew grave. ”Many were. The camps . . . they will be the shame of the German people for a thousand years to come. They are Hitler’s real legacy.”

“Oh, I think that’s too harsh,” Bowden said, lighting his pipe and puffing out a choking cloud of Cherry Blend. “According to what I’ve read, the majority of the German people had no idea of what was going on. The locals around Auschwitz thought it was a sausage plant.”

“Ugh, how terrible,” Monica said, and pulled a grimacing that’s-enough-of-that expression at her husband. Then she turned to Dussander and smiled. “I just love the smell of a pipe, Mr. Denker, don’t you?”

“Indeed I do, madam,” Dussander said. He had just gotten an almost insurmountable urge to sneeze under control.

Bowden suddenly reached across the table and clapped his son on the shoulder. Todd jumped. “You’re awfully quiet tonight, son. Feeling all right?”

Todd offered a peculiar smile that seemed divided between his father and Dussander. “I feel okay. I’ve heard most of these stories before, remember.”

“Todd!” Monica said. “That’s hardly—”

“The boy is only being honest,” Dussander said. “A privilege of boys which men often have to give up. Yes, Mr. Bowden?”

Dick laughed and nodded.

“Perhaps I could get Todd to walk back to mine house with me now,” Dussander said. “I’m sure he has his studies.”

“Todd is a very apt pupil,” Monica said, but she spoke almost automatically, looking at Todd in a puzzled sort of way. “All A’s and B’s, usually. He got a C this last quarter, but he’s promised to bring his French up to snuff on his March report. Right, Todd-baby?”

Todd offered the peculiar smile again and nodded.

“No need for you to walk,” Dick said. “I’ll be glad to run you back to your place.”

“I walk for the air and the exercise,” Dussander said. “Really, I must insist ... unless Todd prefers not to.”

“Oh, no, I’d like a walk,” Todd said, and his mother and father beamed at him.

They were almost to Dussander’s corner when Dussander broke the silence. It was drizzling, and he hoisted his umbrella over both of them. And yet still his arthritis lay quiet, dozing. It was amazing.

“You are like my arthritis,” he said.

Todd’s head came up. “Huh?”

“Neither of you have had much to say tonight. What’s got your tongue, boy? Cat or cormorant?”

“Nothing,” Todd muttered. They turned down Dussander’s street.

“Perhaps I could guess,” Dussander said, not without a touch of malice. “When you came to get me, you were afraid I might make a slip ... ‘let the cat out of the bag,’ you say here. Yet you were determined to go through with the dinner because you had run out of excuses to put your parents off. Now you are disconcerted that all went well. Is that not the truth?”

“Who cares?” Todd said, and shrugged sullenly.

“Why shouldn’t it go well?” Dussander demanded. “I was dissembling before you were born. You keep a secret well enough, I give you that. I give it to you most graciously. But did you see me tonight? I charmed them. Charmed them!”