So we wrote to Nicholas Wenckheim as follows:
Would he go with this approach? The answer seemed to be ‘yes’.
Other jurisdictions do bad things, too, he seems to concede.
Also, some astonishing figures came out of this correspondence. Not least, the enormous number of works he had translated into Spanish for the Argentine theatre. On top of whatever fortune he might have rescued on his flight from Hungary, he was clearly not short of a dollar or two. To the point, indeed, of funding the publication of his works in the US.
But then, this…
We didn’t give up.
Neither did he.
So at last! We were to meet this romantic, upper-class refugee.
Some time in the autumn of 1978 Nicholas Wenckheim arrived at number 10 Irving Road – my house in Hammersmith – for our first meeting.
Outwardly, he was the very model of a central European aristocrat – old style.
End Part Six
