In old houses, the worst furniture was banished to the highest floors. As Helen descended, she expected the furnishings to become newer, lighter, prettier, if just as dusty. In the main rooms, the ones Peter’s mother would have used, the furniture was the same: blackened oak carved into intricate birds, fish, and beasts. The sort of furniture that infested Black Forest hunting lodges, but raw and awkward, as if one of the family’s great-uncles had taken up a late-in-life passion for wood carving and filled the house with his amateur efforts.
Still, if she could get the servants to clean it properly, she might adopt the large sitting room as her own. She could teach Peter just as well there as in the nursery. It would save her from climbing up and down stairs all day long. And though the sofa was backed by a winding serpent with a gaping maw, it was still a more likely setting for seducing a nursemaid than a drafty nursery window seat.
Under one of the beds she found a thin rib from a rack of lamb, riddled with tooth marks. Somewhere in the house was a dog. She’d have to take care to make friends with it.
Still no sign of Peter. Perhaps he was a troubled child, despite his placid looks. If so, this summer wouldn’t be the holiday Bärchen had promised. She’d found him in a booth at Bistro Bélon Bourriche, downing himself in cognac. Within five minutes, he’d offered to pay her to join him for the summer at his family home and teach his nephew English. It would be easy, he said. Bärchen knew how badly she needed money. He was always so kind—famous for his generosity among the boys of Montparnasse and Pigalle.
Helen tapped the rib in her palm as she descended to the ground floor. There, the staircase widened and spread into the foyer, forming a wide, grand structure. At the back of the foyer, the stairs continued through a narrow slot in the floor. To the cellars, no doubt. Exploring down there would be an adventure.
Helen’s trunk still sat by the front door, waiting for the steward to bring it upstairs. On the near side of the foyer, tobacco smoke leaked from the library. It smelled heavenly. She hadn’t been able to afford cigarettes for months. She’d almost ceased yearning for the taste of tobacco, but her mouth watered for it now. Bärchen would give her a cigarette, if she asked for one. But no. She wouldn’t disturb him. He had kept a brave face all through their journey. He deserved some time alone with his grief.
She padded into the murky parlor opposite the library and pulled aside the heavy green drapes, holding her breath against the dust. The sun was high above the mountains. The lake gleamed with light. Dust motes swarmed the air. The sunlight turned the oak furniture chalky, the heavy brocade upholstery nearly pastel. The walls were festooned with hunting trophies—stuffed and mounted heads of deer, wild goats, even two wolves and a bear. Their glass eyes stared down through the cobwebs as if alarmed by the state of the housekeeping.
She skated her finger through the dust on the windowsill. P-E-T-E-R, she wrote in block letters. When she began the boy’s lessons there’d be no need for work books and pencils. Any flat surface could be used as a slate. It might embarrass the servants into doing their work.
Stepping back from the window, her foot jittered over a lump on the floor. Two tiny bones nestled under the carpet’s green fringe—dry old gnawed leavings from a pair of veal chops. She tucked them in her pocket with the lamb bone. Then in the dining room she found a jawbone under a chair—small, from a roast piglet. She put it in her pocket.
Helen found her way to the kitchen at the back of the ground floor. An old woman chopped carrots at the table, her wrinkled jowls quivering with every blow of the knife. Beside her, the steward crouched over a cup of coffee. He was even older than the cook, his skin liver-spotted with age. They watched as Helen poured herself a glass of water from the stoneware jug.
“Peter likes to play games,” she said in German. “I can’t find him anywhere.”
The cook began fussing with the coffee pot. The steward kept to his seat. “We haven’t seen the boy, Fräulein York.”
“I hardly expected bad behavior from him on my very first morning at Meresee.”
“The boy is with the nursemaid. He is always with the nursemaid.” The steward’s tone was stern.
“How can you say that? He’s certainly not with her now.” She brushed cobwebs from her dress. “I’ve searched the house thoroughly, as you can very well see.”
“You must continue to look for him, Fräulein,” the steward said.
The cook bit into a carrot. Her jowls wobbled with every crunch.
They were united against her, but it only made sense. They were old country people and she was just an English stranger in a dirty, dusty dress. Raising her voice would win her no friends.
“Could you bring my trunk up to my room?” She smiled brightly. “I’d like to change out of my traveling clothes.”
“Yes, Fräulein York,” the steward said.
The cook went back to chopping carrots. The steward sipped his coffee. Did they expect her to retreat now?
“There is still the matter of Peter,” Helen said.
The cook’s knife slipped. Carrots scattered across the floor.
“The French girl takes care of the boy.” The cook’s words were barely understandable, some kind of antique form of Bavarian. “He’s not allowed in the kitchen.”
The steward’s mouth worked, thin lips stretching over his stained teeth.
“Is that true?” Helen asked the steward. “Why not?”
The steward covered the cook’s hand with his own. “The boy’s welfare is your business now, Fräulein.”
• • • •
Helen found Peter at the back of the freezing cellar, hunkering in front of a door set deep into rock. The walls were caked with frost. The boy’s breath puffed like smoke.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked. “Come back upstairs now.”
“Bitte, miss,” the boy said. He wedged two fingers under the door, then crouched lower, head bobbing as he worked them deeper and deeper. His hair was neatly parted, two blond wings on either side of a streak of skin pale as a grub.
Whatever he was up to, whatever he thought he was going to find on the other side of the door, he was fully engrossed by it. Helen let him have his fun for a few minutes while she poked around the cellar, ducking under the low spines of the vaulted ceiling. On the wall opposite the door, bottles were stacked into head-sized alcoves in pyramids of six. She wiped the dust off a few labels. French, and not that old. Champagne, Bordeaux, Burgundy. More than three hundred bottles. Enough to last the summer.
The cellar smelled salty. It must have been used for aging and preserving meat, in the past. The cold air’s salty tang flooded her dry mouth with spit. What she wouldn’t give for a piece of pork right now, hot and juicy. Her stomach growled. Perhaps the cook could be persuaded to let her explore the kitchen larder.
Helen wandered back to the boy. “Come along, Peter, that’s enough. Mimi is waiting for you.”
The light from her candle jittered across the brass plate bolted to the door’s face. The tarnished metal was crusted with frost. She stepped closer, lifting her candle. It was a shield—griffins, an eagle, a crown.
She nudged Peter’s foot with her toe. “Time to go back upstairs.” He was stretched out on his belly now. “Peter, come along this instant.” An edge came into her voice. She was tired of being ignored by everyone in the house.
He pulled something from under the door and put it in his mouth.
“Stop that.” She grabbed Peter’s collar and hauled him across the cellar to the stairs. He pitched forward onto his hands and knees. The object popped out of his mouth and bounced off the bottom step.
Helen picked it up and turned it over in her palm. It was a tiny bone, slender, fragile, and wet with spit.
She stared at Peter. “That’s disgusting. What are you thinking?”
“Mama,” he sobbed. His thin shoulders quivered under the velvet jacket. “Mama.”
Remorse knifed through her. She tossed the bone aside, scooped him into
her arms, and hauled him upstairs. “Hush,” she said, patting his quaking back as he sobbed.
Tobacco smoke leaking from the library had turned the air in the foyer gray. Her trunk still crouched by the front door.
Helen lowered Peter to his feet. He was heavy. She couldn’t possibly carry him up to the nursery. She’d be gasping.
Helen squeezed his bony shoulders. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” He wiped his nose on his sleeve and nodded. “Good, no more crying.”
She lugged the trunk upstairs and dropped it in her room. Then she took the boy’s hand and called up the spine of the staircase for Mimi.
When her pretty face appeared at the top of the spiral, Helen shooed the boy upstairs.
“Take care of him, won’t you?” Helen said. “There’ll be no lessons today. Not tomorrow, either. Then we’ll see.”
“Oui,” Mimi said.
• • • •
When Bärchen came to dinner he was already drunk. The scarlet cheeks above his brown beard were so bright it looked like he’d been slapped.
“So many letters. My brother’s desk is stuffed to bursting.” Bärchen offered Helen a cigarette. “I can’t understand them. I have no head for business, Mausi.”
Helen blew smoke at him. “You always say that, but you seem to manage your own affairs well enough.”
“I must go to Munich for advice. I’ll be back soon, I promise. Two days at most.”
“Don’t stay away too long. You’ll come back to an empty wine cellar and a pregnant nursemaid.”
He giggled. “If that happens, it must be God’s will.”
Helen opened her mouth to make a joke about the furniture, but managed to stop herself in time despite the free flow of wine. The dining room chairs were particularly awful. Each one was topped by a sea serpent, thick and twisting, with staring eyes faced with mother-of-pearl. Under it was a rudely-rendered pair of human forms, male and female. And beneath them were thumb-sized lumps the shape of fat grubs. They dug into the small of Helen’s back.
Portraits glared down at the table from the surrounding walls. Wan blond children with innocent, expressionless faces. Handsome, smiling men and women, brown-haired and robust just like Bärchen. And sickly-looking older people, prematurely-aged, with smooth gray skin and straggly black hair framing hollow, staring eyes.
When the clock struck seven, they were halfway into the third bottle of claret. Bärchen was diagonal in his chair.
“Time for me to play pater familias.” He called out, “Mimi! Ici!”
Mimi appeared at the door, clutching Peter’s hand.
“Now, Mimi,” Bärchen slurred in French. “Is Peter behaving well? Is he in good health?”
“Oui,” said Mimi.
Helen watched close as the girl spoke. Yes, some of her teeth were missing, but how many? Helen pretended to yawn, making a dramatic pantomime of it and sighing ecstatically.
Mimi’s eyes watered as she tried not to yawn in response. When her lips curled back Helen caught a quick glimpse into her mouth. Her front teeth were gone, gums worn down to gleaming bone. Candlelight glinted on metal wire twisted through her molars.
Mimi clapped her hand over her mouth. Helen reached for a cigarette and pretended she hadn’t noticed. Poor girl. Nothing more sad than young beauty in ruin.
“Peter, come here,” Bärchen said.
With rough hands, he examined Peter’s fingernails and scalp, looked into his ears, then pried opened his mouth and poked a finger along his gums.
She knew what that felt like. Her father had done the same. His fingers had tasted of ash and ink.
One of Peter’s front teeth was loose.
“You’re losing your first tooth,” he said. “Does it hurt?”
Peter shook his head.
Bärchen wiggled it with the tip of a finger. “Let’s pluck it out now, and be done with it.”
Peter ran to Mimi and hid his face in her skirts.
“Oh come, Peter.” Bärchen laughed. “I’ll tie it to the doorknob with a bit of string. It’ll be over in a moment.”
Peter clutched Mimi’s waist.
“No? Then we’ll get an apple and you can bite into it like this.” He mimed raising an apple to his mouth and chomping down. “You can do that, can’t you?”
“No, Uncle.” Peter’s voice was muffled against Mimi’s hip. The girl had backed against the wall and was inching toward the door. Bärchen was taking this too far.
“It’s late, Herr Lambrecht,” Helen said. “Let the girl take Peter to bed.”
“Well then. The tooth with fall out on its own and then this will be yours.” Herr Lambrecht put a silver coin on the table. “Miss York will keep it for you.”
Mimi and boy slipped out the door.
“How was my performance?” Bärchen asked. “Was I convincing?”
“Very. I can hardly believe you never had children.”
“God forbid.” Bärchen shuddered and drained his wine glass. “Did I ever tell you about my nursemaid? Bruna was her name. She was devoted to me. You would have liked her. Very pretty. But like Mimi, not much of a talker. Not like you.”
“Nothing can keep me from saying what I think.” Helen reached into her pocket and set the bones on the stained tablecloth. “For example, your servants are lax,” she said.
He shrugged. “What can be done? They’re old. Who would choose to live here, if they could be anywhere else?”
• • • •
After dinner they took their wine out the front door and onto the wide front terrace. Evening stars twinkled above looming mountains and a lakeshore veiled in mist. The three sides of the terrace stepped straight down into the water, like a dock or jetty. The skiff bobbed alongside, tied to an iron ring.
That morning, the water had been an inky sapphire, the color so brilliant it seemed to cling to the oars with Bärchen’s every stroke. Under the darkening sky it was tar black and viscous. In the distance, a dark object broke the surface, sending lazy ripples across the water. Helen squinted.
Bärchen followed her gaze. “Just a log, that’s all. I have a present for you.”
He pressed a silver cigarette case into her hand. It was her own—she’d pawned it for rent money three months ago. And it was full—forty slender cigarettes, lined up with care.
She grinned. “If we were back at the Bélon Bourriche, I could put on a pair of tight trousers and sing you a song, as many a young man has done. But you don’t want me sitting in your lap any more than I want to be there. So I’ll just say thank you.”
“It’s nothing. Will you be happy here, Mausi?”
“Of course. It’s so beautiful. Though I’m not sure how long I can stand to live in a place where nobody appreciates my jokes.”
He laughed. “Meresee is beautiful, but it can be a little confining. I’ll show you.” He led her to the edge of the terrace to peer around the side of the house. Its walls jutted straight down into the water, raising the house’s profile far beyond the shore. Behind, the steep mountainsides advanced on the lake, threatening to topple the house into the water.
“You don’t want to fall in. It’s deep, and so cold it’ll knock the breath right out of you.” He braced himself against the wall with an unsteady hand.
“I suppose this was a fortress, once,” said Helen. “Holding the border of some medieval Bavarian principality.”
Bärchen patted the wall. “A fortress, yes, but it never protected a border. It protected the salt.”
“Your family had salt mines?” Helen asked. No wonder Bärchen was wealthy.
“The mines belonged to the Holy Roman Emperor. The crown owed much of its wealth to Meresee. More precious than gold, once, this salt. My family protected it.”
Bärchen peered over the edge of the terrace. The water clung to the sides of the house. A shadowed stain crept up the foundation.
“Don’t fall in,” he repeated. “In winter it’s somewhat safer. When the ice forms, you can ski across t
he lake, or skate, if the snow has blown away. But even then, you must be careful.”
She laughed. “You’ve convinced me. I’ll be careful to be far, far from Meresee by winter.”
“Of course, Mausi.” Bärchen forced a chuckle. “Naples for the winter. Neapolitan widows like tall Englishwomen like you. Or Athens, if you please. The world is open to us. We are rich, happy, and at liberty.”
Bärchen was trying too hard to be jolly.
“Your new responsibility is eating at you, isn’t it, Bärchen?” She threaded her hand through the crook of his arm and drew him gently away from the water’s edge. “Why worry? Send Peter away to school. In England, many boys are sent away at his age.”
“Maybe you’re right. After the summer, if you think he’s ready. I’ll take your advice.”
“What do I know about children? Next to nothing—I told you so in Paris. You couldn’t find a less experienced fraud of a governess.”
Bärchen patted her hand. “You’re a woman. It will come naturally to you.”
“I doubt that very much.” Helen pulled her hand away. “But how much damage can I do in one summer? I’ll teach him a little English at least.”
“That’s fine, Mausi. Do your best.”
She grinned. “Are you sure you’re not his father? Peter favors you.”
“A family resemblance.” The last trace of dusk drained behind the mountains, and Bärchen’s mood darkened with the sky. His gaze fixed on the floating log. “If you think I’ll develop a father’s feelings, you’re wrong.” Bärchen’s deep voice rose to a whine. “It’s not fair to shackle me to a child that’s not mine. And it’s not fair to the child, either. He should have a mother’s love—devoted and selfless.”
The Long List Anthology Volume 4 Page 34
