The Saint-Germain Chronicles (16 page)

“Yes, Alexis. The government. Of course I have dealings with Americans. I have business holdings there and ventures here,” he whispered. “My taxes are paid and my attorneys are respectable. What is the difficulty with the government?”

Alexis sighed. “In a bit,” she said, listening again to the music. If only, she thought bitterly, her brother had not let drop that question about Ragoczy. She would not be in this awkward position. She sat back and listened to the delicious sounds of Hugo Wolf. When the song was finished, she leaned forward again. “You know how things are in the States right now; investigations and security checks and all the rest of it. That senator, the one from Michigan or Wisconsin or one of those states, is looking for communists everywhere, and those idiots in Congress are helping him. They’ve got people fired for being in support of the Spanish Civil War. Can you imagine!” She had let her voice rise, and was shocked to hear it over the dying clapping. Chagrined, she slipped back in her chair, and watched while the mezzo continued.

“I am aware of these problems,” Ragoczy said at the next break, his face still toward the stage. “But what bearing does it have on me?”

“Well, if I’m not being indelicate, I understand there is a great deal of money involved, Francesco. Your money.” Her gown was quite low in front, so that whenever she moved closer to him than required by decorum, she brought her hand up to her décolletage, not realizing that her attempts at modesty only served to emphasize what she intended to conceal.

“Well, that is how most of us do business these days,” Ragoczy said with a slight smile.

“But that’s just the
point
!” Alexis protested. “Don’t you see, if there weren’t so much money involved, they would probably leave you alone. But there you are, a very wealthy foreigner with fingers in all kinds of pies…” She broke off and leaned forward. “My Lord! That man’s as handsome as an Italian Gregory Peck.”

“Actually, he’s Greek,” Ragoczy corrected her mildly.

“A Greek Peck then. Where has he been all my life?” She laughed briefly, in the hope that the handsome man might turn toward her and show some interest. But this did not happen. “Do you know him, Francesco?”

“Slightly. I’ll introduce you at intermission, if you wish.”

“I do wish, if you please.” She folded her hands in her lap, and added, “Chester said that all of Capitol Hill is coming down with security worries. They’re all trying to prove they’re not going to help the country go to hell, or sell out to communism.” She was about to go on, but the music began again, and she was glad of it, because it afforded her four minutes to stare at the back of the handsome man’s head. He was tall, she decided, and that pleased her, because at five foot eight she often felt she dwarfed the men around her. With tall men, she was less reserved and could play at being girlish now and again. At the end of the song, she touched Ragoczy’s sleeve. “You’ve got to be careful. I mean it, Francesco. They’re going through one of their crazy phases in the States, and it might be hard on you and the people who work for you.”

“I thank you for the warning,” he said sincerely, not entirely sure yet what he could do about it.

“It’s not as if you could be asked to take a loyalty oath, but your employees probably will be. And they’ll want to go into your background.” She applauded more loudly as the mezzo bowed a third time before relinquishing the stage to her baritone partner.

There is a lady sweet and kind

Was never face so pleased my mind

I did but see her passing by

And yet I love her till 
I die.

“What could they do?” Ragoczy asked when the baritone had finished his first song. “I’m in Europe, and, as you say, a foreigner. I have papers as a displaced person they might check out for themselves.”

“Oh, they’re all cooperating: Italy, France, that Interpol network. At first they thought they wanted escaping Nazis, but now it’s communists. Chester told me that anything that smacks of social reform has only got to be called communist, or the people who support it, communist sympathizers, and that’s the end of it.” Her eyes were on the handsome Greek again, fixed with all the intensity of a searchlight.

Per la gloria d’avorarvi

voglio amarvi, o luci care,

Amando peneró,

ma sempre v’ameró, si, si

Nel mio penare.

Peneró, v’ameró, luci care.

“He’s pushing on top, don’t you think?” Alexis said when the baritone had finished.

“It’s not easy to do those upper phrases pianissimo,” Ragoczy answered neutrally.

“I suppose not.” She looked at her program. “Intermission isn’t for almost twenty minutes,” she sighed.

“But he will not escape before then,” Ragoczy told her with an amused smile.

“No.” She closed the program abruptly. “They’ll have photographs and fingerprints and all the tax information, I guess, and they’ll probably find a way to get a look at everything but your Swiss records. You must have Swiss records, since half the world seems to.” She reached down for her beaded handbag and opened it. When she had found her lipstick, she opened her compact and began to apply it with a great deal of care. “I know this is probably rude, but…”

“Go right ahead,” Ragoczy said, and crossed one leg over the other.

“It’s just that he’s so handsome. Well, you are, too, Francesco, in your way, but I’m at least two inches taller than you are, and in heels, it’s simply impossible.” She flashed a freshly-encarmined smile at him.

“I am desolated to be such a disappointment,” Ragoczy told her, and turned toward the stage once again, where the mezzo and baritone were about to do a duet.

“Um,” Alexis murmured, bending forward to stare at the Greek again.

“Why should your investigators bother over me?” Ragoczy asked when the two on stage had stopped singing.

“Because you’re foreign and rich. They can point to you as another example of questionable foreigners preying off hard-working Americans. There’s a lot of that, with inflation going up. Everyone thinks that Eisenhower should do something, but what?” She checked the low V of her neckline, not entirely sure now that it was wise to wear nothing more than the diamond choker Italo had given her for her birthday.

“How long is this likely to last?”

“Oh, who knows? As long as the Congress can get the papers to cover it, I guess. Most of them are using it to get votes, naturally. They like their jobs. What would Speaker Sam do if they ever made him go back to Texas?”

“Your brother told you this?” Ragoczy asked again, wanting to be sure.

“Poor Chester, yes. He’s flown over for a couple of weeks, and he’s been telling me about some of the things that have been going on. It’s shocking!” Her dress, of flowing layers of silk chiffon, slid and drifted as she changed her position in her chair.

Mes vers fuiraient, doux et frêles

Vers votre jardin si beau,

Si mes vers avaient des ailes

Comme l’oiseau.

“What’s he like, the Greek?” Alexis asked.

“I don’t know; we’re not well acquainted. I know him through the woman with him.” Ragoczy did not allow his glance to linger on the beautifully coiffured head, nor the angle of her bared shoulder.

“What’s
she
like?” The question was sharper than the previous one had been.

“She is an old and cherished friend of mine, Alexis,” Ragoczy answered with just enough warning implied that the American woman with the Italian title looked up, startled, and knew that in some way, she had overstepped the bounds.

“I didn’t mean…” She could not unsay the words, so she shrugged and went back to safer ground. “Is there anything they might find out about you or your relatives that they could use against you?”

“My relatives?” Ragoczy repeated. “What significance are they? Or are they still playing that ‘you have relatives in the Old Country’ record?”

“Something of that nature, I’m afraid. If you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who might think communists are all right, if they find it useful, it might come back to you. In your case, you are an unknown quantity, and they can imply any number of unpleasant things.”

“No, infer. I would have to imply,” Ragoczy corrected her gently. “It makes little difference.”

“They can get a political tempest in a teapot.” Alexis lowered her voice as the long musical introduction began, and whispered the last. “You ought to be careful. I’ve promised Chester to present him to you, but I don’t think he’ll want to talk about any of this.”

“Probably not,” Ragoczy agreed.

After the song, there was intermission at last. The singers bowed, the pianist bowed, and they left the stage as the house lights came up and the audience sighed and rustled and moved like a waking dragon.

“Where will the Greek go?” Alexis asked Ragoczy.

“I don’t know. I presume he will have a drink,” was the answer as he held her chair for her to rise, and then parted the heavy curtain of sculptured velvet at the back of the box.

“I wish it weren’t so crowded,” Alexis complained as she put her hand through Ragoczy’s proffered arm. In three-inch heels, she was quite noticeably taller than he.

“We will find him, never fear.” He took her down the plushly-carpeted stairs to the inner lobby where a portable bar was set up. “Does Italo know of your little… adventures?”

“Not exactly. He knows that I have them, but prefers to know nothing more.” She could feel her pulse against the choker, as if the diamonds had grown tight.

“And does that trouble you?” He guided her toward the bar. “If nothing else, this is an excellent vantage point.”

“I hope so,” she said, and ordered champagne. As the cork was popped, she thought over what he had asked her. “At the moment it pleases me. When I am fifteen years older than I am now, I might change my mind. Italo knows that there are advantages in a wife like me, and since I am from New Hampshire and not Rome or Naples or Venice, I’m not a blot on the escutcheon of Italian womanhood. It makes a kind of sense.” She took the glass held out to her. “Aren’t you having any?”

As Ragoczy paid the ridiculously high price for the champagne, he said, “Alexis, you know I do not drink wine.”

“That’s right,” she agreed a little vaguely. “Well, cheers.”

“Good fortune, my dear.” His dark eyes wandered over the rest of the people in the lobby. “Which may have just come to you,” he said, nodding toward the tall Greek making his way through the crowd with a short, curvaceous Frenchwoman on his arm. He stepped forward. “Signor Athanasios,” he said, pitching his voice a bit louder than usual so that it would carry over the drone of conversation.

The Greek looked around, then, at the prompting of the woman beside him, nodded toward Ragoczy. “Yes. My Hungarian friend. I did not see you at first.” He came through the crowd, tall and imperious, his smile showing fine white teeth.

“Good evening,” Ragoczy said as they shook hands. “Have you met Baronessa dalla Piaggia, Signor Athanasios?”

“Baronessa?” Athanasios repeated, taking Alexis’ hand and kissing it. “But you must forgive me—you must be an American.”

“I am,” Alexis said, pleased that he had already paid her so much attention. “It is my husband who is the Barone.”

“That would be Italo dalla Piaggia?” Athanasios ventured. “I know something of his reputation, which is formidable.” The smile, this time, was predatory, but Alexis did not mind. “Oh, and my companion. This is Professor de Montalia,” he said in an off-handed way. “She has been doing explorations in my country and has helped much in preserving our national treasures.”

“Professor?” Alexis said, surprised at the title for a woman who looked little more than twenty.

“Of archeology, Baronessa,” was the answer as Madelaine de Montalia put out her hand. “I enjoy my work a great deal, but it is most pleasant to spend an evening listening to music instead of the sounds of bugs.”

“I must imagine,” Alexis said, recalling the dreadful days she had spent at camp in the summer, when miserable heat and the bites of mosquitoes and can’t-see-‘ems had made the whole experience torture.

“It takes a particular sort of woman to live as the Professor does,” Yiannis Athanasios said with an arch look at Alexis which told her that such a woman was not the kind he preferred.

“How do you come to be aware of the Professor’s work?” Alexis asked the tall Greek, meeting his eyes recklessly.

“I have some mining interests which now and again turn up artifacts. Of late, the King has said he wishes all Greek subjects to report such finds.” He made a gesture to indicate that he would comply with anything the Greek King requested. “I see your glass is empty, Baronessa. Would you permit me to refill it for you?”

“Why, thank you,” Alexis said, dropping her eyes and then lifting them to Athanasios’ face.

As the two were talking, Ragoczy put his hand through Madelaine’s arm and drew her aside. “How do you come to be in his company again?” There was no trace of jealousy or annoyance. “I thought you did not like him?”

“He has half an eleventh century B.C. village buried where he wants to put a mine shaft. I have been trying to explain to him how he can have his mine and I the village without either of us losing anything.” Her violet eyes flashed. “All compliance to the Crown, is he? That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Then why this gallantry?” The crowd was growing denser around the portable bar, and the bartenders were becoming more harried. Ragoczy moved a bit further away.

“Because he wants to reduce me to a mere woman. If he wines me and dines me, you see…”

“Not an easy thing to do,” Ragoczy interrupted with a gentle smile.

“So he has found out. As to bedding me, I’m not having anything like that between my sheets, thank you.” Her gown was of a very pale lilac silk, designed by Jacques Fath with a long waist and full elaborately pleated skirts. She touched the lowered waistband. “I haven’t felt this girded into a dress in years. I should be grateful we’re not back to the whalebone of my youth.”