The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man

by Alfred Alcorn

  He glanced at me anew, his mobile face — his mouth and the finely wrinkled flesh around his eyes — registering a realization and some faint amusement. “That is very well said.”

  Diantha came over with the tea and the babushka. “Nana’s teaching me Russian,” she said with a little laugh. “Spassiba, Nana.”

  The old woman smiled a gummy smile and retreated.

  Diantha, whom I found to be disconcertingly at home, sat in the armchair across from me and poured tea. “Isn’t this an amazing place,” she more exclaimed than asked.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” I said honestly.

  We made small talk. Mr. Bain, standing in front of the large, busy fire, was very much the man of the manor. He was definitely Diantha’s point of reference, the recipient of her smiles and small attentions. It dismayed me that she could be so taken with him. His charm struck me as an elaborate pose, a kind of parody he put on for his own amusement. He smiled as he related, with a kind of mock homage, how he had visited the museum several times over the past year.

  “I like primitive art because it is primitive,” he said. “Its savagery has an honesty we have lost.”

  I nodded, but noncommittally.

  Diantha said, “Dad thinks that all art forms have their own integrity.”

  With a knowing laugh, Mr. Bain said, “Except for that noise your friend Mr. Shakur makes.”

  What didn’t he know already about Diantha and me? I wondered.

  At intervals Mr. Bain’s pocket phone would ring, and I found it curious that he usually hung up after a word or two in a foreign language that may have been Russian or German, then excused himself to use a regular phone. At one point a man with a head of shorn, pelt-like hair and wearing a hip-length leather jacket appeared near the entrance and beckoned to Mr. Bain to join him elsewhere in the building.

  I suppose I am too scrupulous in these matters to have taken the opportunity to disparage Mr. Bain and his effects in his absence. I doubt Diantha would have listened anyway. She seemed utterly oblivious to any of the more indirect cues I offered her as to my real feelings about the man. And each time he returned, her eyes would brighten and she would hang on his every word.

  As I was making motions to get up and go, Mr. Bain produced a bottle of expensive vodka and insisted I join them in a shot for good luck. That led to a second small glass, knocked back with ceremony. And while still capable of driving home, I was inveigled into staying for dinner. It didn’t take much convincing, I’m afraid to say. The thought of returning to an empty house left me vulnerable. And I nursed a faint hope that Diantha might change her mind and return with me to Seaboard.

  You may imagine my surprise when the babushka, answering the sound of a gong, went into the small foyer at the main door and returned with Celeste Tangent in tow.

  I expected from the lab assistant a start of surprise, a frown, a look of alarm, even. But after she had finished a loud and elaborate exchange of greetings with her host, she turned to me with an irresistible charm of smiles, voice, and gesture. “Norman, how delightful to see you again.”

  “Miss Tangent,” I said, inclining my head, standing my ground.

  She gave a quick, toothsome laugh. “ ‘Miss Tangent!’ Oh, I love it. So full of restraint. Not that this place is a stranger to restraints. And, Di, princess!” She turned to Diantha. “How are you? You’re so right about Norman. He is precious.” Then to me again, her hand sweeping the vast room, her silver bracelets jingling. “Isn’t this wild! Don’t you love its …”

  “Extravagance,” I offered, finding my voice. I was, despite myself, under the woman’s spell.

  “Yes. Yes.” She took off her long thick fur to reveal attire that, though quite casual, slowly mesmerized me. I mean the pre-faded expensive jeans over nylons and thick-heeled pumps, a low-cut black jersey that molded her breasts just so and displayed her gorgeous throat and neck. And then her lustrous blond hair piled wantonly on her head.

  “You will stay for dinner?” Freddie Bain intoned.

  “Of course. Norman needs a date.”

  So I had a partner for dinner while not really wanting either. I should have made some good excuse for excusing myself. I could have pleaded guilt or insanity or grief or all three. I felt complicit in some tawdry enterprise, but nor could I withstand the fantasy to hand, so to speak. Because Miss Tangent had me quite bedazzled, sitting next to me on the sofa, her shapely limbs articulate as she shifted around. In what remained of my detective’s instincts, I understood then how she could have made slaves of Penrood and perhaps Ossmann. With my proclivity for self-delusion, I told myself I might be able to get her, in a weak moment, to tell me about what was happening in the Genetics Lab. But I can see, looking back, that all the weak moments were to be mine.

  For the nonce, it was Mr. Bain who saved me from any overt foolishness. For reasons I cannot fathom, the man seemed determined to impress me. Glasses in hand, we began a tour of the art that hung both in the main room and along the balconied walls. Diantha kept glancing to me now, as though trying to divine whether I approved. I didn’t. To me the stuff — Dalíesque vistas foregrounded with muscle-bound blond men and great-breasted naked Valkyries with heroic buttocks doing violence to subhumanoid forms — appeared to be utter kitsch. Or kitsch so kitschy it achieved a kind of parodic authenticity. Art as a serious joke, so to speak. Not that Mr. Bain betrayed any self-amusement as he led us around.

  “And what do you think, Norman?” Miss Tangent had hooked her arm in mine, had taken virtual possession, and now delighted in putting me on the spot.

  Influenced by Dalí and perhaps by Wyeth, N.C., not Andrew, I responded, fending her off with a smattering of erudition.

  The works on the third tier included a Werner Peiner landscape, an Ivo Saliger nude, and a large mural of muscular Aryans, men and women, at various kinds of outdoor work. “Looks like Communist art,” I said to Miss Tangent out of earshot of our host. “I suppose you could call it National Socialist Realism.” But my bon mot did not appear to register.

  Instead, Miss Tangent unhooked her arm and took me by the hand. “You want to see my favorite room?” I didn’t have a chance to answer as she led me along the balcony to a door behind where the fireplace chimney joined the wall. It opened into a large bedroom with a row of pointed Gothic windows on either side. A rug comprising two polar bear pelts lay in front of a smaller fireplace while a bed capacious enough for giants to copulate on stood to one side under two angled gilt-framed mirrors. These hung from a ceiling where the beams stood out bold and formed with the joists a coffered effect. A painting over the fireplace depicted a knight in shining armor and a large-limbed maiden vaguely of the Pre-Raphaelite school.

  I didn’t try to conceal my wonderment at it all. Because it wasn’t until I glanced out of one of the windows that I realized we were in a kind of wide bridge between the main pile and the side of the mountain in the back.

  “Is this the master’s bedroom?” I asked, deliberately employing the Saxon genitive.

  “Oh, no, that’s upstairs. That’s restricted territory. It looks like this only … it has a winding staircase that goes up to the top where there’s a greenhouse and a pool.” She gave her wide-mouthed laugh. “Maybe we’ll all end up there … for a swim.”

  Which left my head swimming a little at the prospect. I walked over to the fireplace and, pretending some interest in Sir Galahad kneeling before the diaphanously clad beauty, asked, “Do you work for Freddie?”

  “Don’t we all?” Her laugh had a bitterness to it this time. “Oh, Norman, stop playing detective. It’s a real turnoff.”

  “Miss Tangent …”

  She had taken both of my hands in hers, and it seemed unmannerly to shake them off. “Seriously, Norman, you’re off duty. Officially. Until morning. Then we’ll straighten everything out for you.”

  But Miss Tangent remained very much on duty. She let go my hands and reached up to give me a kiss, opening my mouth with hers a
nd for the barest moment entwining her tongue around mine. At the same time, she reached a hand down and brought it up softly against the crotch of my worsted trousers with a gesture so light and fleeting it might never have been. “I can tell, Norman, you’re not the kind of older guy who needs much help.”

  I maintained enough presence of mind to ask, “Perhaps that’s something you could tell me about?”

  She pulled away. “If you’re going to be a bore, I’m not going to get naughty with you. Or perhaps I’ll just have to spank you.”

  It would be less than honest to say I wasn’t tempted. Most immediately by this attractive woman, by the thought of a night with her on that vast bed, along with God knows what combinations of Diantha and Freddie Bain, the two polar bears, and the little old babushka, for all I knew. Because Miss Tangent’s jean-clad haunches swung before me with maddening palpability as we descended the stairs to the main floor. And as real as they seemed, I felt a deeper, more irresponsible temptation. To simply let go. To smile, finally, to laugh, to loosen my bow tie and give in to the allurements shimmering around me.

  Strangely enough, it was Freddie Bain who saved me. Not that I didn’t have misgivings, about Diantha’s situation, for instance. What kind of sordid, silken rat’s nest had she gotten herself into? Perhaps, I kept thinking, I should have been more forthcoming about my suspicions before we went snooping around his gift shop.

  All the while, vodka, and then wine from Georgia — the republic — kept flowing. We arranged ourselves at the dining table, which was nearly square. I sat across from the host, the host from hell, as it turned out. I was sober enough, though, to realize that the meal the babushka set out on the dining table was far better than anything Mr. Bain served in his restaurant.

  As we finished supping a chunky borscht and began some delectable piroshki, the discussion turned to the music issuing from well-hidden speakers. I recognized it as Wagner, but couldn’t place it as his music seems to me one long continuum. Mr. Bain and I reenacted the Wagner–Brahms debate in a minor key. I stood my ground, saying that Wagner was for hearing and Brahms was for listening to. Mr. Bain, imbibing heavily and growing ruddy of face, waxed dogmatic and craven at the same time, boring in on me, as though desperate for my affirmation of his tastes and ideas. Was it Diantha? I wondered. Did he want me to approve of him for her sake? Or was he just one of those men who cannot imagine others holding opinions different from his own?

  I tried to involve the girls, as I thought of them, in other topics, including the food. The lamb shanks, baked to a turn in rosemary and served with a subtle gravy and garlic mashed potatoes, had me asking Diantha how to say thank you in Russian.

  But Mr. Bain proved relentless. He wanted to talk about art, which turned out to be a subterfuge for talking about politics. I didn’t mind when he excoriated twentieth-century art, especially the abstract stuff, calling it the greatest hoax of all time. I have heard those sentiments before. I comfortably demurred, confessing that I found a lot of the early Picasso delightful. I declared a partiality for the works of Max Beckmann, saying I paid homage to his Self-Portrait in Tuxedo whenever I went to Cambridge.

  “Beckmann!” He spit it out like an expletive along with bits of food he was chewing.

  “And Gustav Klimt,” I went on, baiting him a little. “I find his prostitutes touching and beautiful.”

  “Degenerates,” he said dismissively. “Weimar scum.”

  The pot, I thought, calling the kettle black. But I simply shook my head and tried to dissemble a distinct repugnance as I remarked to myself the congruence between my host’s opinions and the shirt of scarlet silk beneath his tunic and the welling Wagner and the flames from the roaring blaze in the fireplace reflecting off the polished walls and the deplorable oils, the whole effect creating a hellish Valhalla.

  It got worse.

  Mr. Bain leaned across the table and shook his head with exaggerated effect. “Do you know, Norman, who is the greatest artist of the twentieth century?”

  “I have some opinions, but I’m not very passionate about them,” I replied.

  “Adolf Hitler.” He paused for effect. “Der Führer.”

  “You’re not serious,” I said, rising to the bait with that queasy disquiet such topics elicit. Just a bad joke, I hoped. Because, guest or no, Miss Tangent or not, drunk or sober, I was not to be suborned into anything like admiration for or understanding of, however ironic, that archvillain.

  Mr. Bain’s smile had that Mephistophelean curve I had come to know. “Think of it, Norman. Think of it in terms of what we are told art must do. Épater le bourgeoisie. Well, Mein Führer épatered them to the roots of their little beings. He épatered them like no one else has before or since. He made us stop and think what it means to be human.

  “Or inhuman …”

  It was not really a conversation. My host had turned declamatory, his words coming like something he had gone over in his mind or rehearsed with others again and again.

  “War is not art,” I said.

  “On the contrary. World War Two was his masterpiece. The world itself was his canvas. He drew his brush across it. He carved and painted with men and machines …”

  “And madness.”

  “Yes, but inspired madness. Der Führer was modern way beyond his time. While Picasso and the others were dabbling at their little experiments with reality, Adolf Hitler conceived and executed a fantastic, glorious war. He created new levels of reality. Do you have any idea of what life was like during the battle for Stalingrad? Do you know that human beings experienced there another order of existence?”

  “Is that art?”

  “By today’s standards, certainly. Think of it in conceptual terms. Think of it as a kind of installation …”

  “Not a permanent one, thank God.” I turned to Miss Tangent, thinking she would at least smile at my rejoinder. But she was under the man’s spell.

  Mr. Bain leaned across the table and jabbed the air with his fork. “What do those poncy little critics keep telling us every time someone slices a cow in half or buggers himself with a crucifix? They tell us it is art. And if we protest, we’re told it’s supposed to disturb us. Well, by that standard … I mean Der Führer disturbed all of us, didn’t he? He still disturbs us, doesn’t he?”

  I looked to Diantha and, even allowing for the amount we had all drunk, was appalled to see her apparently impressed with the rantings of this charlatan. Perhaps she had heard this all before. Which made it worse.

  “You are pushing the limits of irony,” I said, hoping for some relieving laughter.

  Freddie Bain shook his large head, and his expression showed a twist of demonic anger. “Irony? What makes you think I would stoop to irony? Art is supposed to show us as we really are. Der Führer held up a mirror to mankind and we remain horrified at what we’ve seen in it.”

  “But the Holocaust,” I said, my answering anger making me stumble over the words.

  “The Holocaust.” The man laughed, a laugh I can still hear. Then serious, boring in again. “The Holocaust was Hitler’s masterstroke. With the Holocaust he made himself immortal. Look around you, Norman. His monuments are everywhere. Every time the Jews put up another memorial or try to get the Gentiles to acknowledge their suffering, they honor Hitler’s achievement.”

  I took my napkin off my lap and put it on the table preparatory to rising. “Who are you?” I asked.

  He ignored my question. “Think about it, Norman. Think of those he killed. The Jews. Stalin killed more people, many more. Stalin had them shot. He had them worked and starved and frozen to death. But who did he kill? Kulaks. For Christ’s sake. Peasants with a couple of cows. A few intellectuals. Poets. Bureaucrats. Do you think if Hitler had killed twenty million Chinese anyone would care? Mao killed many more than that. No, Hitler killed Jews. The best and the brightest, no?”

  I was reduced to shaking my head.

  His eyes, cold and mocking in his inflamed face, bore into mine. “They wante
d, my friend, to be chosen. Hitler chose them.”

  “I am not your friend.”

  “As you please. I regret to upset you.”

  But he clearly didn’t. He was leaning even farther across the table, his voice a loud whisper. “Do you know what every Jew fears deep in his heart?”

  “People like you.”

  “No, no, I am not jesting. They fear, my friend, deep in their hearts, that Hitler was right.”

  “That kind of fear is only human,” I replied with some fervor. “Most people know in their hearts that Hitler was wrong.”

  “Don’t be so sure, Mr. de Ratour. You would like to think, wouldn’t you, that you would never have joined the Schutzstaffel, that you and those you know would be incapable of such a thing. But under different circumstances, in different times … People who thought of themselves as decent and law abiding and progressive joined the Nazi Party. The same kind of people joined the Communist Party …”

  Incredibly, he laughed. “They both got more than they bargained for, didn’t they? They got right up to their noses in the blood of others. And when the party was over and the fingers started pointing, they scuttled for cover like cockroaches.” Then he turned serious. “But my father never did. He never hid what he was.”

  “Diantha, I think you should come along with me now.”

  “You see, Norman, what we really don’t want to admit to ourselves is that evil can be fun. Think of all those films that have Nazis and ex-Nazis in them. That shiver of excitement when the swastika fills the screen.”

  “Hitler is dead.”

  “Then why do we have to keep killing him?”

  I coughed to clear my throat. “I’m finding this conversation more than distasteful.” I stood up to leave.

  He rose to his feet as well. “You’re running away, Norman. You’re running away from yourself.”

  “You are not I.”

  “Do not be so sure, Norman.” He made my name sounded like a mockery. He stood up as well and leaned across the table. “Tell me, are you a Christian?”