Tourmaline

by Paul Park

  So she was not prepared to see him as she most remembered him, dressed in his velvet smoking jacket and his old-fashioned trousers and stockings, curled up in a corner of the big leather armchair she had brought from his laboratory in Saltpetre Street. His linen was white, and he had shaved. His eyebrows were thick as always, and his forehead shone. His long, sensitive fingers played always and forever with the medal pinned to his lapel, the eight-pointed Star of Roumania that Valeria IX (who now lay dying) had given him for his testimony against Prince Frederick. His face was covered with fine wrinkles, and his large ears were as delicate as bats' wings. But his eyes were as always, generous, calculating, kind.

  "My dear," he murmured, "it has been so long."

  "You startled me."

  "Did I? I beg your pardon, but you should not be surprised." On the rough matting, her bare feet were cold.

  "And not because you sent for me," he said. "These tricks"—he gestured toward the statue, quiet now—"would not have hurt the slumber of a mouse. I must insist you should be studying my work more closely. Though I've often come to help you, too, if you must know. That business with Monsieur Spitz and Livia Hirscher!"

  Always she had found his condescension irritating. But she was surprised to discover she was glad to see him. With the lantern light behind his head, he seemed to glow around the thin, flushed ridges of his ears.

  There was a time when she'd respected him, even perhaps loved him a little bit. He'd been the deputy prime minister, after all. And some of those feelings still persisted after her marriage. Now suddenly she remembered the first time she had run her hands under his shirt, touching the puckered scars where he'd been wounded in the Turkish wars. He'd been a hero and Prince Frederick's friend, until he turned on him.

  "What brought you, then?"

  "My dear, I never go where I'm not wanted. I'd see you every night if you would let me. Sometimes I have spied—I'm glad to see you're still wearing my ring."

  She drew it off, clenched it in her hand, surprised by her own pettiness. In some ways he had been an impressive man. In other ways he had been disgusting. "Let me tell you why you're here," she said. "I'm glad you remember Monsieur Spitz."

  He smiled, showing his false teeth. Sometimes they had given him pain. It irritated her to have to remember, but then suddenly he closed his mouth. When she said nothing more, he spoke. "My dear, I was proud of you. That night you took the first two steps. Now you have much more than I gave you. I regret that."

  How odd this seemed after so long! It was almost as if he'd never died. He seemed so lifelike, sitting in his chair. "Tell me about Kepler's Eye," she said.

  He yawned, covered his mouth with his long hand. "You know everything you need to know."

  "Johannes Kepler had a thousand lovers. Once I thought I had a million. But the girl tells me the jewel is false."

  Now in death she found him easy to read. Easier than when he'd been alive. There was a sadness in his pink and wrinkled face, and also some impatience. "I am not a jeweler. It was good enough to fool Claude Spitz. That should be enough for you, I think."

  But it wasn't enough for her. Honesty had always been her power and her strength. "Please, I must know."

  Again a small, impatient look. "Here you are living in the Winter Keep. Surely you have won the game. Why trouble yourself now about the rules?"

  But she must trouble herself. This was the night of Saturn's festival, a night for uncomfortable truth. In the countryside, among the common people, no one would tell lies on such a night. "What about the white tyger?" she asked. "I saw it in the pyramid one time and never again, although I looked and looked."

  "I see you are an idealist," he said after a moment. "This is true: I wanted to help you. Perhaps you remember how unhappy you were." She remembered.

  "I tried to give you things," he said. "The stone, the boy." What boy? But she knew.

  "I was happy to see you," the ghost continued. "Was I wrong to let you see yourself as others see you? Love yourself as others . . . I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I still think so."

  In a moment he went on. "It was confidence you lacked. Faith in your own power. Was it so terrible to lie to you?"

  The baroness felt tears come to her eyes. "What about the boy?"

  Sadness and impatience—"Dear, it does no good . . ."

  "I want to know."

  Uncomfortable truths are told on the night Saturn crosses over the city. Perhaps a sense of that tradition lingered in the ghost. He smiled and sighed. "He was my gift. A prisoner for you to make you strong. To help you in your conjuring."

  When she said nothing, he went on. "Let me tell you. When our son Felix was born, I resented the time you spent. I was angry at night because your door was closed to me. So I took him away, and I regretted it. Later in the power that comes from death, I wanted to replace the son I took. I wanted to give you someone to love you every day. Someone to do everything you needed. It was my way also to be close to you and see you through his eyes. Please don't look so horrified! I think my two gifts made you what you are."

  He was talking about the false stone and the false son, Kepler's Eye and Kevin Markasev. After a moment he went on again. "Did you think it strange he had no past, or that his past was whatever you suggested? Or he did everything you asked? I put him in your hands in Cluj. He was like a puppet that I made and gave to you, though I kept hold of the strings. Dear, you look so angry. Don't tell me you never guessed. What is a child, except something you create through miracles?"

  The baroness turned away to hide her face. She glanced out of the window. If she'd been able to concentrate, she might have seen a moving shadow between two government buildings on the other side of the piata. But she couldn't see farther than the windowpane. The reflection cast her back into the room.

  "How do you think a man can make a child?" the baron continued. "No, that is true alchemy. After Felix was sent away, I had no opportunity. I mean in the normal way. I had some of your blood, some of your hair. Some part of myself and a connection to me. Then I put him with a farmer in the country. But I almost lost him several times. Always I could see you though his eyes. Do you want to know where he is standing now? Right now?"

  She closed her eyes. "Why did you?" she asked.

  "My dear," murmured the ghost. "You must know the reason."

  It was because he loved her. She knew from the peculiar simper in his voice that he was primed to talk about how much he loved her. Every day the subject had dripped out of him the last months of his life. Death had not, apparently, exhausted it.

  But she couldn't feel anything but anger, a sudden rage. It burned away all caution. High up in her palace room, she made one of the unbalanced, daring leaps that were the secret of her creative art. "A miracle? It didn't feel that way. You must know Felix was not your son."

  This was a lie. Now she opened her eyes, saw her reflection. Was it possible for a ghost to feel pain? She thought if he could love, then maybe he could feel some jealousy. Oh, he had robbed her, and she would rob him, too. "Do you remember there was a Danish ballet company at the Dinamo that spring? Do you remember the lead dancer, Koenigslander? We had fun, I tell you!"

  This was a double lie on a night of truth. Never with anyone had she found pleasure of that kind. Miserably she stared at the glass pane.

  If she'd been able to look past the reflection in the window, she might have seen a moving figure under the streetlight. It was Kevin Markasev in the rain, looking up at her window. She couldn't see him, even though she was thinking about him at that moment. How could she have treated him so cruelly for so long? But instead she saw her sour, small-featured, beautiful face as if in a mirror. She couldn't see the ghost in back of her beyond the armchair's studded wing. As she stood at the window examining her expression, she smelled the odor of the pig again redoubled—a hot smell of garbage.

  She didn't want to turn and look. She saw fear in her own face. She imagined the ghost
was changing, and she didn't want to see the pig itself, or some devil, or some rotted corpse. She thought if she didn't look, then she'd protect herself. She was waiting for the ghost to speak.

  "Turn around and look at me," he said, and his voice was not the grunting of a pig, the wheezing of a corpse. But it was soft, sweet, and hesitant, a young girl's voice, and maybe that was worst of all. The baroness squeezed her eyelids shut. She dropped the golden ring and put her hands over her ears, but still could hear the words. "Dear, you were always crude, a country girl, a peasant from the mountains. The white tyger? No. Turn around and tell me to my face."

  In a moment he went on, "But if you could have seen yourself on the stage of the Ambassadors in that performance of Klaus Israel's Cleopatra—do you remember? In the last moment with the snake in your hand, your bosom was entirely uncovered. I went three times a week and von Schenck laughed at me. He said you'd never look twice, a broken-down old soldier.

  "Tonight is the night to confess these things. I admire your bravery, as I admired it then—I proved him wrong. I thought you'd look at a deputy prime minister and better things to come. I thought—you see? The court-martial, the testimony against my friend. It was the price I paid. It made a beggar out of me. Look behind you."

  She didn't turn around, didn't open her eyes. But she could hear the soft, breathy voice again. "Dear, you have climbed a long stair to this room. But I think there's a short way down."

  The lantern blew out, and when she opened her eyes she was in darkness. Save for herself, the room was empty.

  THAT NIGHT THE CLOAK OF Saturn, god of death, passed over Germany as well. In the countryside there were some hidden celebrations, seances and family gatherings behind locked doors. As on most of the feast days of the old calenders, the police were in the streets, watching for any public demonstration. In years past the peasants and the townspeople had painted their faces to look like skulls. But this could not be tolerated in wartime. News had just arrived of a bloody battle near the city of Pskov. It was one car in a baggage train of victories, but many men had died.

  In Ratisbon, two men drank a toast of Roumanian brandy. They were not believers in the ordinary way. They approached these mysteries with the coldness of scientists, and the service that they paid was an ironic one. Arslan Lubomyr, glass in hand, recited a few lines of an old monastic chant, praising the wines at Saturn's wedding feast.

  In the gas-lit chamber at the top of the high house, perched on a cedar bench next to an inlaid table, the elector was in an anxious mood. All evening they had been discussing politics and the elections to the Reichstag. "Humor me tonight," he said. "Let me ask you. Why do nations go to war?"

  Then after a pause, "What is there in Russia that is worth these miseries? Already oil and sugar are rationed in the Kirchenstrasse market."

  As usual he was dressed in evening clothes. He said, "My friend, I'm glad you've come to visit me at last. Now I can look into your face when I talk to you. It is easier to see if you are telling me the truth. Do you believe the justifications of the foreign minister? I read the transcript of his speech in the Gazette. Do you think we have a duty to take over the affairs of these corrupt and backward governments—a moral duty, whatever the cost, as he explains it?"

  The lieutenant-major was a handsome man with dark, thin, Asiatic features. He was in uniform—brass buttons, silver braid. He sat in a stuffed armchair, his boots stretched out.

  "Humor me," his host continued. "Is there no room in Europe to contain some backwardness? Perhaps the mark of a great nation is to leave others in peace."

  Fascinated by the ugliness of his host, Lubomyr sipped the liquor in his glass. He looked away, then back again, studying for an instant the elector's nose. He had his own political opinions, his own fears that Germany's success in battle could be stolen away by cowardly politicians. The war coalition was a fragile one, and it depressed him to think about it.

  Instead he saw a way to introduce a subject to the conversation. He'd been looking for the chance since his arrival the night before. "I think those countries have a clearer duty to resist," he said. "I mean whatever the benefit."

  It was hard for Lubomyr to judge expressions on his host's ruined face, though he now saw the elector was peering at him keenly. "My friend, I think so, too. So the force comes from our side. Why is it, do you think?"

  Lubomyr brought his hand up to hide his eyes. He was irritated by these constant declarations of friendship, the use of the familiar forms of speech— irritated and obscurely touched. Once again he made a motion toward his subject. "I think all nations are like animals. Some are sheep and some are wolves."

  He crossed his legs and the elector shook his head. "I have a sympathy for sheep. It's all right for a handsome fellow like yourself. But I've spent a long time in this room. These things are revealed at death and not before. They say Alexander of Macedon was a prong-horned snail. And I believe I have discovered some sheeplike characteristics . . ."

  Around them at the borders of the room stood several of the elector's simulacra. They came and went, engaged in unknown tasks. Lubomyr was used to them by now. They were blond, moustached, identical.

  "My friend, I see you are surprised. It's because I have depended on the courage of others. Yourself, for instance."

  Lubomyr shook his head. "You have defied conventions. That takes bravery."

  "Ah, my friend. That is only because I had no choice. Without choices we are all champions."

  Lubomyr took another sip of brandy. His subject was close at hand. "I can see you're in a melancholy mood," he said. "And I don't understand. I came here to offer our congratulations, unofficially, of course. You had your part in our success on June the seventh. There are people on the staff who understand our debt to you, and in the highest reaches of the government. I am sure that when the war is over, unofficially—"

  "Of course."

  The elector sighed. He put his small, elegant hand out to the table in front of them, and almost touched a bronze statue of Tsong Kapa, the Buddhist deity. Several small objects were scattered over the complicated surface. "It's a delusion," he continued, "that cowards have a lot to lose. But I will miss my beautiful things."

  "Your grace, this is morbid—"

  Ratisbon smiled. "It is the night for truth-telling. And you have made me drunk. I feel it suddenly. But I'm talking about something else—a danger."

  There was an empty vase on the table and he reached for it. His expression was difficult to interpret. But his small grasping hands were eloquent.

  "There's always danger," said Lubomyr tolerantly. "Our own politicians are a venal lot. If it wasn't for von Stoessel and the ministers—three men! And the Russians!"

  "No! Not from that side. But from underneath. You understand?"

  He had scarcely tasted from his glass, which he now placed clumsily in the center of the table. He did seem drunk all of a sudden, Lubomyr thought. Perhaps it was for the best, but perhaps it was a complication. "Underneath?"

  "My friend, this brandy you have brought has poisoned me. It is too sweet. From Roumania, I think."

  Baffled, Lubomyr nodded. "They have signed the treaty of alliance, as you know. They are fighting beside us in the Ukraine."

  He took an ostentatious sip from his own glass, and then continued. "But your patriotism is to be commended. As I say, these things have not escaped the notice of the general staff. Let me tell you I am here to welcome you to Berlin or wherever you wish to go. You must keep appearances, of course."

  "Of course."

  "There is one thing," continued Lubomyr. And now he had arrived. "I don't know how to put it. The office of the foreign minister has given me a message. There is a story that you might be keeping two Roumanian subjects here for patriotic reasons. One is the child of Madame Ceausescu."

  Now he sat forward in his armchair, glanced into the elector's face. "The minister believes the time has come to reward her for her change in attitude. He wants to invite her
to Berlin and reunite them publicly—you understand. We are signatory to provisions for the ethical treatment of prisoners. With your new passport, I have a letter in my bag that explains the particulars," he said. "Tomorrow . . ."

  He let his voice trail away. He found himself watching the elector's hands. There was a bowl of nuts on the Chinese bench next to the man's knee. Lubomyr watched him pick up a macadamia nut, covered with white dust.

  "And Clara Brancoveanu?"

  "Her, too."

  Still chewing on the nut, the elector put his forefinger onto the surface of the table. He stared down at the assortment of objects for a moment, as if contemplating a problem on an invisible chessboard. But when he raised his head, Lubomyr could see the ridges of his smallpox-ravaged face were tinged with sudden color, white and red. His lips were twisted back to reveal pearllike teeth. Only his large eyes were calm, expressionless. He cleared his throat. "Weren't you listening to me? Are you all fools? Roumania, that's where the danger is. Roumania."

  When he was talking about cowardice and sheep, Lubomyr had not imagined what a frightening figure the man could make when he was angry, as now.

  "You make me want to puke," he said. Around them in the darkened room, four blond, moustached, identical servants paused to listen.

  Only the elector's brown eyes were calm while the rest of him twitched and fidgeted. He held his hands above the inlaid surface of the table, which now seemed to reveal a kind of pattern in the marquetry. "Look," he said, "are you insane? Do you think you have the knowledge to protect yourselves without my help?"

  He was referring, Lubomyr knew, to the hidden world. This kind of talk was rare in Germany, a shared interest that had brought the men together. After the elector's expulsion from Roumania, Lubomyr had written him a letter from the university. In five years of correspondence he had learned much, benefited much.

  "Look around you! Don't you see the beauty of my collection? But you want to take away the prize! You must know how those two wronged me and wronged all of us. Nicola Ceausescu robbed me of the most valuable jewel in Europe, a German national treasure. Clara Brancoveanu betrayed me when she was my guest, when she was twenty-three years old and pregnant, too. There were anti-German riots all over Transylvania, Bucovina, Bucharest itself after the empress had her husband murdered. I offered that girl the hospitality of my house for her sake and for Schenck von Schenck—I didn't turn her away when she was pregnant and without funds. And I thought she'd be happy to learn that we were marching on Roumania to protect her interests and our people. We were going to avenge her husband. But she betrayed us. Six kilometers!"