“I don’t know,” Marco replied, suavely enough. “She clearly has no problem with that phrase, ‘Land of bankers,’ which you have to admit has a certain Julius Streicher-esque ring to it . . .”

“But I mean, didn’t you tell us when you came to visit that she was even further to the left than you?”

“That was when she was young. People adapt their politics to their circumstances. She certainly wouldn’t be the first unhappy person to get lost in these particular woods.”

“You don’t think it’s all just clumsy wording?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think, does it? What matters is what Renata Shenker thought when we brought it to her attention, and clearly she thought it was more than clumsy.”

“Well, Renata’s husband was a camp survivor,” I said. Then I realized I’d been a little slow on the uptake. “Oh, but you factored that in. I see.”

“We did think it might weigh in our favor. But even Julia’s reader friend seems to have been shocked. Listen to her report. Here’s what she says: ‘. . . I have to confess I fear my old chum might have gone off the deep end with this idea . . .’ ”

“Okay, it’s badly expressed,” I said, “but I still think it’s obvious what she’s trying to say. She’s admiring the woman’s stubbornness, not her actual beliefs . . .”

“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it did the trick.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to quarrel with Marco, and I wasn’t even sure why I was defending Julia in the first place. I had to admit I found her interest in this uberfrau from the Third Reich depressing, regardless of where her sympathies precisely lay. But I suppose I wanted the fight between her and Marco to be about what happened or didn’t happen in that Belfast hotel room. I didn’t want to see her brought down by some stupid smear, even if it turned out to be deserved. Also, I didn’t like the thought of dear old Renata Shenker being, effectively, blackmailed.

Marco must have taken my silence for disapproval.

“Look, all we did was send Renata a copy of both documents with a note saying she might be interested in taking a look. For all I know she was grateful to have had it brought to light before she went ahead and published. Might have been embarrassing for her if it came out after . . .”

“Oh, I’m sure you’d have kept it decently under wraps,” I said.

“Now, now! Nobody threatened her. We certainly didn’t force her to dump the book.”

“I’d say it was a foregone conclusion, given who she was married to. Not to mention the Whitethorne Press being a major publisher of Holocaust memoirs.”

He chuckled.