Write me a Letter

some aspect of Jewish history. One, Hugh Trevor-Roper’s The Last Days of Hitler, I’d even read part of once. Or maybe I just saw the movie. I have to confess my ignorance of works by Shirer, Spicehandler, Mann, Speer, Rabinowitz, and all the others.
    ”Looking for something to read in the john?” Annie said.
    ”Not in this library,” I said. ”Unless he’s got some Elmore Leonard westerns tucked away somewhere.”
    Oh. There was one more item on the walls aside from the ones I’ve mentioned—a large and elaborate family tree, done with exquisite penmanship—by Nathan, I found out later. I noticed that one whole branch of his family, those living in and around Riga, were marked by an asterisk, signifying they had been killed in 1941 in the Holocaust. I wondered if Riga was anywhere near Estonia, and made a mental note to look it up next time I was in the office. I did—it turned out to be the capital of Latvia, Estonia’s neighbor to the west. I also wondered briefly if Miss Ruth Braukis just happened to be an acquaintance of the Lubinskis, too, as she was of the Lewellens; maybe the whole wedding was merely an Israeli intelligence ploy to get me into Nathan’s office for nefarious purposes as yet unrevealed.
    Before I got out of there, I asked Annie how many guests were expected. She said about 120, and thanked me for getting her in on the act as there was no reason Frank couldn’t have retained the guest list and done all the vetting by himself. I said, ”What are friends for,” told her to hang in there, and departed.
    I was outside admiring the rhododendrons when a dulcet voice I’d heard before once or twice in my life called out from somewhere above me, ”Yoo hoo!” I looked around and spied Evonne waving at me from the sun roof above one of the bedrooms, from which from time to time came the sound of female laughter. I climbed up the spiral staircase nearest to her—there were four in all, one in each corner of the patio—and stole a sip of her champagne. Aaron Lubinski was twirling the rest of the bottle in an ice bucket on the counter of a small wet bar that was nestled under a striped awning in one corner.
    ”It’s lovely from up here,” Evonne said, ”except for champagne thieves who are too lazy to get their own glass.”
    ”Here, enjoy,” Mr. Lubinski said, pouring me out one. ”When are the guests due?” I asked him.
    ”As soon as they uncover the chicken liver,” he said. ”Like vultures they’ll gather.”
    ”Let me ask you something,” I said to him. ”Do you put all the wedding presents on display, like they do at Italian weddings, I think it is?”
    ”It is, and we don’t,” he said. ”A lot of the guests, though, will be giving the happy couple, I hope, money, like our Italian friends also do at a wedding.”
    ”Money money?”
    ”More likely check money,” he said, refilling all our glasses. ”Did your cousin call his insurance guy like I suggested?”
    ”He did,” Mr. Lubinski said. ”I was there.”
    ”What was that for?” Evonne wanted to know.
    ”Normal precautions,” I said. ”Although it’s not likely anything will happen with me and you and Frank and Annie here, you never know. There’s going to be over a hundred guests all dressed up in pearl chokers and gold cuff links and there’s a roomful of wedding present loot somewhere, to say nothing of the Renoirs in the living room.”
    ”Renoirs they’re not,” Mr. Lubinski said. ”They were painted by a Jewish artist who died in one of the camps. I forget which one, Nate would know.”
    ”About how many were there, just out of curiosity?” I said. He shrugged. ”Auschwitz, Chelmno, Sibibor, Majdanek, Belsec, Treblinka, of course, there was Belsen, Stutthof, Neuengamme, Dachau, Flossenburg, did I say Buchenwald? There was Sachsenhausen, there was Mauthausen, Riga, Theresienstadt, Ravensbrück. Enough? You want more, ask Nate, or the rabbi, when he comes, they’re the experts.”
    ”No, no,” I said hastily. ”That’s more than enough, thanks, Mr. Lubinski.”
    ”So why all this interest all of a sudden?” he said, looking up at me.
    ”No real interest,” I said. ”I was just in his den, that’s all, having a word with Annie, and saw all the stuff he had on Jewish history. Anyway, Evonne,” I said, changing the subject rather clumsily, ”aside from all the guests wandering around and dancing the hora you’ve got all the catering staff, plus a bunch of chauffeurs, no