Tempting Fate (58 page)

“What?” Ragoczy studied her, searching for the cause of her sudden reserve.

“It isn’t right that I should talk to you this way.” She said it so quietly that she was almost inaudible.

“Isn’t right? How? What makes you believe that?” He was perplexed but asked his questions lightly, with a touch of amusement in his dark eyes.

“You are my guardian,” she recited. “I have an obligation to you for your kindness and care, and—”

“What nonsense is this? You make me sound like an ogre.” He laughed gently.

“You’re fine,” she said in a soft voice, and then grinned. “You’ll take me to Venice, though, won’t you?”

“You have my word on it.” He offered his hand to her and she took it gravely, her young features settled into as adult an expression as possible.

“In April.” She stared at him, determined to fix the date.

“In April.” He had come to admire her intensity, and was pleased when she fixed him with her deep brown eyes. This girl would not be bullied, he told himself proudly. She would not become one of those passive, flowery women he had seen often in the past sixty years. Nor would she take the giddy, decadent course, striving for that frenetic gaiety that marked the bright places in Paris and Berlin. She would keep to her own path.

“What are you thinking, Papa?” she asked, folding her arms.

“I am thinking that you are intelligent and independent, and that I am fortunate to know you.” He sat down on the bench and began to play a Chopin étude that he knew Laisha liked. As he played, he remarked, “You know, a hundred years ago, pianos didn’t sound this way. They were softer. Not as wide, with lower bodies, very thin, and they didn’t always hold their tuning very well. There’ve been a great many changes made in the last century.”

“Did you like those other pianos better?” she asked, more of her attention on the notes than on what he said.

“No. At my age you either learn to enjoy progress and change or you begin to retreat. I’ve played those pianos, and these, and the newer ones being made. Each has its virtues, and each its disadvantages.” He finished the étude and turned to Haydn’s
Gypsy Rondo
, playing it lightly.

“How long have you had this piano?” She rubbed her hand over the extravagant ormolu ornamentation.

He almost told her, but caught himself. “It was brought here immediately after it was made. That was about 1890, I believe.” He had purchased the piano in 1887, but decided not to be too specific: Roger had told him that Laisha occasionally of late asked very pointed questions about her guardian.

“Thirty-five years ago.” She ran her finger around one of the more elaborate decorations at the top of the treble front leg.

“Roughly,” Ragoczy said, missing one of the octave bounces and striking a jarringly wrong note.

“You were younger than I am?” She could not think of him as a child, no matter how she tried. Yet she wanted to piece together his life, as if it might be a substitute for what she could not remember of her own.

Ragoczy stopped playing. “You’re fishing for something, Laisha. What is it?”

She flushed but did not deny it. “I’ve been trying to learn about you. Roger says that I should talk to you. He doesn’t answer my questions.”

“That is very wise of Roger,” Ragoczy observed with a smile. “He is much in my confidence, and has been with me … half my adult life.” It had been almost two thousand years since Roger had become his manservant, since he had found Roger being abused in the rain near the incomplete Flavian Circus, yet he had not lied to the girl.

“He comes from Cádiz?” Laisha persisted.

“Yes.” It had been Gades when Roger lived there.

“He doesn’t look very Spanish,” she said. Now that Ragoczy was willing to talk with her, she wanted to make the most of her opportunity.

“I suppose he doesn’t. But think of all the peoples who have come to Spain. Visigoths, Moors, Franks, Romans—there’s no end to it. You’ve seen blonde Italians, haven’t you? There are also fair Spaniards.” He played a few inexpert bars of a Cimarosa sonatina, then broke off and began one of the Beethoven “Bagatelles.”

“I suppose so,” she said uncertainly. “I haven’t traveled very much—”

Ragoczy laughed unhappily. “You’ve traveled a great deal, child, but not for pleasure.”

“And I haven’t
seen
much,” she went on, admitting to herself that what he said was correct. “I’ve only been to Zurich and Turin, and that was over a year ago.”

“And this spring you will see Venice, it is a beautiful place, filled with splendor and illusion. The Venetians are handsome people, very much like their city. La Serenissima; Venezia, whose mists are bright.” He began to play Offenbach’s
Barcarole.

“You’ve traveled a great deal, haven’t you?” she asked a few moments later.

“Yes. Not always by choice.”

“Where have you traveled?” She pounced on the question, her brown eyes wide and eager.

His answer was guarded, calculatedly flippant. “Oh, a great many places.”

She raised her voice. “Where?”

He considered another evasive answer, then changed his mind. “Most of Europe, of course. Russia. China. India. Persia, Africa. Egypt. I’ve been to Mexico once.” He looked up at her, a self-deprecatory smile on his features. “I much prefer to travel by land: being on the water always makes me ill.”

“But you swim,” she said, startled. There was a small pool at Schloss Saint-Germain, and Ragoczy often enjoyed an evening’s exercise there. Because of the severe winters, the pool was indoors, or at least, that was the explanation he gave.

“True, but that’s different.” The pool was sunk into an excavation lined with his native earth, which made the water quite pleasant.

“You mean you get seasick?” she asked incredulously. She took such pride in her guardian’s elegance and confidence that she could not imagine him in the throes of such an affliction.

“Unfortunately, yes. Most abominably.” Once again he changed the work he was playing, choosing this time the refined, didactic music of Padre Soler.

“Seasick. You.” In spite of her good intentions, she giggled.

“It’s not very amusing when it happens,” he said with mock severity. His symptoms were not the usual ones, but his discomfort was just as intense. “Be grateful I don’t take you to London. The Channel crossing inevitably upsets me.”

“I would like to go to London,” she said at once, hoping to take advantage of his willingness to include her in his plans.

“One day you will, doubtlessly. And perhaps, if I can bear the thought of the Channel, I will come with you.” He looked down at the keyboard. “Do you like Soler?”

Laisha sighed, recognizing in that deft change of subject that Ragoczy was not going to let her interrogate him further. “A bit. I like Handel better.”

“As you wish.” He stopped in mid-phrase and began to play Jupiter’s Song from
Semele.
He had reached the second part of the melody when there was a deferential knock on the door. “Come,” he called without interrupting the music.

Roger came into the room. “I’m sorry to interrupt, my master. There is a … gentleman here to see you. He insists that it is urgent.”

Ragoczy continued to play. “Who is this visitor?”

“He used to work for BKK, and now is employed by the
Völkischer Beobachter
in some capacity. Doubtless it has to do with finance. He claims to have met you, and he does not remember speaking to me.” Roger said this quite calmly, but there was enough indignation in his words to reveal his emotions.

“Rauch? What does he want, did he say?” Ragoczy frowned as he played, his divided attention making the simple piece more difficult than it should have been.

“No.” Roger snapped the word.

“Very well. Show him into the morning room and tell him I will be with him shortly. Have Enzo make up a tray of biscuits and cheese for him.” He glanced up at Laisha. “Will you mind, my child?”

“If you must speak to him…” She left the rest hanging, but did not truly object.

“Apparently it’s necessary,” he muttered as he brought the music to a close. “I don’t know how long this will take. If you would like to meet me in my study later, we might continue talking.”

“Papa,” she said impulsively as Ragoczy rose, “why did you look so sad when you were playing that last piece?”

“Did I look sad?” Ragoczy asked, genuinely startled. He thought a moment. “I had a friend, many years ago, who liked the story of Jupiter and Semele. I suppose I was missing her.”

This was an unexpected opportunity, and Laisha seized it anxiously. “Who was the friend?”

“Her name was Olivia. She lived in Rome.” He was not able to smile, but there was a gentling of his expression. “You would have liked her, and she you.”

Laisha experienced an instant of consuming jealousy that was gone almost before she felt the heat of it. Her father was a man, and she was not so naive that she did not know he had a man’s needs, but he had never before said a woman’s name with quite that inflection. Her father had never mentioned his women at all. Her father … she pressed her lips together, gazing seriously at Ragoczy as he crossed the room. He was her father, and she accepted it at last. Her parents were less than ghosts to her. She had no life that did not include him, or none that she could remember. She gathered her courage and called out as he stepped into the hall, “What became of her? You said ‘was.’”

Ragoczy turned back, and answered with old grief. “She died, my child.”

“Did you love her?” She had not intended to ask the question, but having said it, she held her breath for his answer.

“Very much. But if you are worried that this detracts from you, do not be. Until I found you, I never knew what it is to be a father, and for that I am grateful. That’s the least of it My daughter, my child, you are so precious to me that—”

“There you are,” said a stern voice from down the hall. “I have been waiting.”

Ragoczy met Laisha’s eyes before he closed the door, saying to his visitor, “I have been occupied with my … ward. It is my habit to see to her music instruction myself.”

“Isn’t that a bit indulgent?” Rauch suggested as he matched Ragoczy’s brisk stride. “It often spoils a child to have too much attention.”

“Does it. I will have to take your word for it, Herr Rauch,” Ragoczy said in a tone that did not encourage further discussion on that topic. He reached the door to the morning room and held it politely. “Pray, come in and tell me what it is you require of me so urgently.”

Rauch found Ragoczy’s manner a trifle disquieting, and he hesitated before crossing the threshold into the gold-and-rose-colored room. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from one of us before now?”

“One of us?” Ragoczy repeated as he pulled the door shut behind him. “No, I don’t believe so. You are employed by the
Völkischer Beobachter,
as I understand it. No one from that paper has talked to me.” He did not add that he found the rantings of that publication repugnant.

“Not the
Völkischer Beobachter,
no, the NSDAP. A representative of the SA has been talking to various landowners in this part of the country.” He glanced around at the French furniture and Italian paintings and could not mask his distaste.

“The NSDAP? What do they want?” Ragoczy kept up a pleasant expression, but he was wary of this man and the air of determination that clung to him like an odor.

“It’s the SA, really. You have heard of them? The Sturmalteilung? Herr Gansser mentioned it to a few of your neighbors, and we have assumed that you were aware of our requirements.” Helmut Rauch stood very still. Even in his business suit he gave the impression of wearing a uniform.

“No one has talked to me. On the other hand, I have indeed heard of the SA. From what I have learned, I doubt I would be in a position to help you.” He kept his manner polite, but there was not the least hint of cordiality.

Apparently Helmut Rauch did not notice this. “Oh, you’re wrong there, Graf. You are in a most excellent … location. Yes. This estate, with the mountain behind it and the lake so near, it’s ideal. You must realize that. There’s no better situated land around Schliersee.” He favored Ragoczy with a rapid movement of his lips that might be mistaken for a smile.

“I fail to see how that concerns the SA, Herr Rauch.” He was lying: already he was certain he knew the purpose of the man’s intrusion, and he grew increasingly apprehensive.

“That is because you have not been made aware of the great forces being marshaled in the cause of Deutschland. Too long have we been made to cringe under foreign tyranny and international disgrace.” He remembered Maximillian Altbrunnen saying something of the same sort and wished he had the same oratorical gifts of that young man.

“But I am not Deutsch,” Ragoczy reminded him quietly.

“Your name is a distinguished one. All of Hungary knows it.” He glowered at the other man. “You are of an age that you can still recall the glory of the Empire. Austro-Hungary and Deutschland together can change the face of Europe.”

“That has already occurred,” Ragoczy said, keeping his voice steady. “I am not one to wish for war, Herr Rauch.”

“Not war, Graf,
preparedness.
Our army is mocked by the cruel despots in Paris and the incompetents in London. We are not allowed weapons or armor to practice our drills in the field. What use is it to disguise a bicycle as a tank and pedal around an open field? That is where the SA comes in, and why I’ve come to speak to you.” He placed one hand on his hip and watched his host, waiting for the moment of realization to sweep over him.

That realization had come to Ragoczy already, but he had not welcomed the information it offered him. “I can see that an army should have weapons for target practice as well as armored Vehicles to take on maneuvers for training purposes, but how does the SA propose to alter this? The French and the English are not going to stand aside and allow the terms of the Versailles Treaty to be flaunted by the NSDAP or anyone else.”

“And you approve?” There was a controlled fury in his voice, and his hands clenched at his side.

“It is not for me to feel one way or another. My position here, being that I am a foreigner, does not provide for an opinion.” He regarded his visitor urbanely. “You were employed by Bayerisch Kreditkörperschaft and know fairly well how my affairs stand, including my alien status. There are those who would not look favorably on my interference, in any way, in your politics.”