Idiot's Delight

The Great War has disrailed what was the promising pre-war performing career of ladies' man Harry Van. Upon his decommission following the war, the best he can find is a mind reading act with dipsomaniac Madame Zuleika, who is often drunk on stage. That act and Harry are one step up for a young woman named Irene, an acrobat on the same one-week vaudeville bill in Omaha as Harry and Madame Zuleika. Irene is as attracted to Harry as she is about becoming exotically rich and famous. She tells Harry not only of her dreams and aspirations but also fantastical stories about her past, which Harry knows are lies. After their one week stint, they part company heading in opposite directions, but not before a mutual romantic interest in the other is declared. Fast forward twenty years. Harry is traveling through Europe with his latest act, a song and dance troupe called Harry Van and Les Blondes. On the day they are scheduled to cross the border into Switzerland for a stint in Geneva, they along with everyone else are stopped from crossing the border because of what looks to be the imminent onset of another great war. They take refuge in a mountaintop hotel whose other stranded guests include wealthy munitions dealer Achille Weber and his exotic and seemingly wealthy Russian socialite traveling companion, who looks remarkably like Irene. After talking to her, Harry is almost certain that she is Irene as her background is as Irene had described both her own made-up background and her dream future. But this woman does not acknowledge knowing or ever meeting Harry, or that she is the Irene that he knows. As war is indeed declared, war related actions of those at the hotel may bring into certainty whether she is indeed his Irene and what the immediate future holds for her.