“I regret, my dear Countess,” the man had said, “that you will be forced to use one of the other eleven telephones my records show you have available to you in the palace.” He was unmoved when she told him that eight of the twelve telephones in the palace were in the shut-off portions.
The nearest working telephone to the Countess’s bedroom was in the corridor leading to her apartment from the first-floor sitting room.
It was-like the porcelain stoves–American. The Countess was convinced that it was faults in the Hungarian Post Office wiring rather than in the American telephone that forced her into the corridor.
She picked up the telephone, and as she did, she glanced at her serf in the gilt-framed mirror on the w’l. She shook her head at the way she looked. j’my dear von Heurten-Mitnitz,” the Countess said. “How nice to hear from you! Are you in Budapest?”
“I have been appointed First Secretary of the Embassy,” von Heurtenmitnitz said.
“May I offer my congratulations?” the Countess said.
“That’s very kind of you, Countess,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“I arrived last night,” he said.
“Beastly train ride, isn’t it?” she said. “You must be exhausted.” “Actually, I drove,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said. “Standartenfuhrer Muller has also been assigned here, and I brought his car down for him.
“That’s your friend? That plump little Hessian, the one who looks like a pickle barrel?” the Countess asked.
Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz laughed.
“Indeed,” he said.
“The situation–I won’t say politics’–” the Countess said, “makes for strange bedfellows, doesn’t it?” It was a rather mobbisb thing for her to say, von Heurten-Mitnitz thought.
But she is a countess, and my brother is no less a snob.
And then he thought of something else, and said it.
“That’s an Americanism.” “Is it really?” the Countess said.
“I realize this may well be an imposition,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said, “and I will certainly understand if you have other plans–”
“But?” she interrupted.
“What I had hoped to do, on this very short notice,” he said was to ask you to take lunch with me–”
“I accept,” the Countess interrupted again.
“–for owing which,” von Heurten-Mitnitz went on, “would you be good enough to serve as my guide around town? I’ve been given the addresses of several available flats, and I–” “But of course,” she said. UOFFER me a good meal, and I am yours.” Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz laughed, just a little uneasily.
“I’m at the Imperial,” he said. UTO judge by dinner last night–”
“Not what it once was,” she interrupted once again, “but passable.”
“Precisely,” he said. UWHAT time would be convenient for you?”
“Come by at quarter to one,” she said. “You know how to find it?”
“Holy Trinity Square,” he said.
“Quarter to one, then, my dear Helmut,” the Countess said.
She hung up the telephone and went back into her apartment.
She opened one of three ceiling-high wardrobes and selected from it a dress meeting two criteria, warmth and style, in that order. She settled on a black wool dress and laid it on her bed. Then she went to a chest of drawers and searched through her alarmingly dwindling selection of lingerie.
She chose in the end to go “L black, although there was a temptation to go all red. There was still a rather nice red silk chemise and slip.
She considered a bath and decided against it. For one thing, there was barely time. There was no longer hot water on demand. The hot-water heater in the bathroom was fired up only when a bath was planned.
And, she thought, there were some men, and she suspected Helmut von Heurtenmitnitz was among them, who preferred the smell of woman to the smell of soap. Or, she corrected herself, the smell of a perfumed woman.
Besides, she still had adequate supplies of scent. When Manny had gone to Paris, he’d bought everything he could lay his hands on for her.
She laid on the bed one of her remaining half-dozen pairs of silk stockings beside the black dress and the black underwear. Then, taking a deep breath as if facing an ordeal, she very quickly slipped out of the sable coat and the sweaters and the skirt. Then, naked save for the knitted stockings, she ran to her dressing table and liberally anointed herself with Chanel #5.