(3 of 4)
Part of Frau von Coler's business was to "find out trends and moods in influential circles, and the character, beliefs and weak spots of decisive figures in politics." She also opened a chicken farm on the outskirts of Bucharest, a "blood and soil" touch that brought her into earthy contact with agricultural Rumanians. In her spare time ("It certainly seemed no sinecure to be Hitler's agent") she threw parties for the "right" people.
Kultur Cardinal. At one such party the Countess met a Nazi Kultur-attaché, "a thin, aristocratic Austrian" with "the face of a young 16th-Century cardinal, who now and then delivered a heretic to the stakes without fanaticism and without pity. ..." The cardinal glanced over at the sofa where Frau von Coler sat between "[a] Rumanian newspaper owner who looked like Haile Selassie, and the former Minister of Finance, who looked like a pasty-faced Rumanian. . . ." Said the cardinal, "Dear Edit has her hands full. . . . Until a few weeks ago all these Rumanians were pro-French, and we know it. Now they want desperately to be on the winning side, but feel embarrassed about switching so rapidly. Dear Edit has to convince them that they have been pro-German all their lives. . . . She is wonderful at such things."
Thereafter the Countess found the Count with the cardinal's face wherever she went. People warned her that he was a Gestapo agent. Once she asked him: "Do you watch me or do you just love me?" "He threw up his long, elegant hands in the exaggerated gesture of Bernini's saints and complained, 'Oh, don't go literal on me!' " They had great talks together. The Count told her the reason why the Graf Spee was scuttled and Captain Landsdorf killed himself. The reason: Landsdorf scuttled the Graf Spee on Hitler's personal order. Later it turned out that the British faked the order.
The Count also talked about the U.S. press ("He would discuss by the hour the relative merits of Mr. Bliven of the New Republic and Miss Kirchwey of the Nation"); about Jews ("Do you know, there is not one of us who has not a Gershwin record in the bottom of a drawer which he plays sometimes late at night?"); about a famous German beauty whose loyalty to Hitler was in question ("One more picture of her for Vogue . . ." said the Count, "then off with her to Dachau for life!").
Then there were the Rumanians. There was tall, dark, mystical Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, founder of the greenshirted Iron Guard. Carol's police had shot Codreanu before the Countess arrived at the Athene Palace, but his influence was everywhere. There was General Ion Antonescu, Rumania's Conducator (führer), for whose incorruptibility the Countess has great respect. There was Ernest Udareanu, all-powerful court chamberlain, who was said to powder and rouge, and whom young Prince Michael used to call "Murdareanu" (filth). There was King Carol, whom his subjects used to call "Mr. Popescu" (Rumanian for Mr. Big) when they discussed kicking him out.