Midnight Train to Prague - Carol Windley Page 0,27
he lit a cigarette. She stepped back, into the trees. Had he seen her? Like a detective in one of Beatriz’s favorite mystery novels, she had put two and two together and had come up with a not implausible theory. First, Count Andorján was the owner of a motorcar. This was not mere speculation. She had seen him parking it on the road behind the Hotel Meunier. It was blue, low-slung, with racy lines, tall silver wheels, and identical to the one she’d glimpsed from the train, near Leipzig. The second clue was that the count and Fräulein Kuznetsova very much resembled the car’s occupants. Why should she be surprised? Natalia thought. Since leaving Berlin, nothing in her life seemed to make sense.
The count was smoking a cigarette and contemplating the path of moonlight on the water. She gathered up her shoes and sweater and ran to the hotel and up to her room, where she flung open the window and leaned out, the air cool on her face. She could hear the orchestra members in the pavilion talking as they gathered up their instruments.
The girls at the convent would think Count Andorján handsome; they would have crushes on him. He was handsome, undeniably, but he looked as if he never slept, his hair straggled over his collar, and his teeth were stained from smoking. Still, he had such a nice nose, a beautiful mouth, and when they were alone in the conservatory, she had seen lovely, mysterious glints of gold in his brown eyes. His gaze was warm, sympathetic. He wrote novels, and wrote for newspapers and knew everything that was going in the world. Perhaps he was as famous as Joseph Roth, whose feuilletons she had read in the Neue Berliner Zeitung and in the Frankfurter Zeitung, when she came across that paper. Last year she’d read a feuilleton by Joseph Roth in which he’d captured a newspaper reader’s personality completely by describing his eyes as being, for a moment, shy and mouselike. She had never forgotten that. Count Andorján was nearly as well-known as Joseph Roth; he was an intellectual and would not have taken any notice of her dancing beside the lake, and if he had, he’d think nothing of it. Anyway, she told herself, it was unlikely they’d meet again, at Lake Hévíz or anywhere else.
Then, several days later, on a Sunday morning, after she and her mother had been to an early Mass in Hévíz, Beatriz mentioned having sent Count Andorján and Fräulein Kuznetsova an invitation to dinner at their hotel next Friday evening.
“We don’t know them,” Natalia protested.
“You’ve met them, Julia knows them, and Herr Doktor Heilbronn says he’s read every one of Count Andorján’s books. Besides, they are the most interesting people here, and I would like to meet them.”
That afternoon, Fräulein Kuznetsova left a telephone message at the front desk, saying she and Count Andorján would be delighted to join Frau Faber and her daughter at dinner.
Beatriz reserved a table near a window and ordered fresh flowers for the centerpiece. When the evening arrived, she sat for ages at the dressing table in her room, trying to fix a Cartier bandeau to her hair to her satisfaction, and they were late going down to the lobby, where Fräulein Kuznetsova and Count Andorján were waiting. Natalia introduced her mother to the count and Fräulein Kuznetsova, who kissed Beatriz’s cheek and said, “What a pleasure to meet you, and what a delectable gown, Frau Faber.” “Coco Chanel,” Beatriz said, turning around to demonstrate the genius of a gown composed of two panels of light blue silk falling straight from her shoulders. Fräulein Kuznetsova’s dress, a wisp of ecru-colored silk, had rows of smocking on the elbow-length sleeves. Her dark hair was piled up on her head; her only jewelry was small crystal earrings. Natalia hated her childish pink silk nothing of a dress, which had a wide silk sash that kept coming untied. In the dining room, Fräulein Kuznetsova suggested they dispense with Teutonic formality and use first names. Beatriz agreed happily. The waiter filled their wine glasses. Beatriz and Count Andorján decided on the roasted game hen; Fräulein Kuznetsova chose a mushroom pilaf, and Natalia asked for chicken with asparagus.
Miklós was teaching her to drive, Zita said. “Men want you to believe it’s difficult, driving a car, but it’s not. I’m learning fast, aren’t I, Miklós? Every woman should learn.”
“As long as there are trains, and they can take me where I