by Lou Allin
He followed her through a wide doorway into the kitchen, where shiny copper pots hung over a mammoth wood cookstove. Belle strolled around the room, conscious of the Old World flavour in the paintings: King Ludwig’s castle and some dark nineteenth-century Flemish works, their varnish spiderwebbed with age. In the only modern note, a Böse stereo system and radio. No television. Despite the dry winter air, a croton spread riotously in a large pot by the picture window, its leaves a rich tapestry of burgundy, green, and yellow. She moved over to the mantel above the massive stone fireplace. A picture of Franz, compelling even as a youngster. Who was that actor in The Blue Max? George Peppard? Several others depicted a balding man displaying fish catches. The father? But a photo of a young girl on a diving dock puzzled her. Who could that be?
Over the coffee, as they sat in front of crackling birch logs behind a brass fire screen, Belle petted Blondi and praised her obedience. With a flicker at the corner of her mouth, Marta slipped the dog a morsel of cake. “Mit Blondi hier, I fear nothing. We don’t have many guests, but the snow machines, what a nuisance.”
Belle sat back on the soft couch. “It’s so comfortable. How old is the original building?”
Franz answered with pride in his voice. “Older than anything in the region. In 1820 a Hudson Bay factor had the first cabin raised in an effort to regulate the fur trade, decades before any mineral exploration or logging. This room would have been the original shelter. Look at the darkened beams above the fireplace. What a desolate and fearful place it must have been in those days, almost like a fort. Of course everything has been redone with each new owner. We are always discovering small evidences of their lives every time we dig the gardens. Bits of crockery, clay pipes, coins and the rare shard of glass.”
“Like living in a fine museum, but with all the conveniences.”
Marta gave her son a wink. “Not as many conveniences as I would like. Wolf and I, Franz’s father, who is gone from us now,” (she crossed herself) “was not only a master carpenter, but an electrician and a plumber. For power, you saw the wind generator.”
Belle nodded. “Enough to run your appliances?”
“It’s the heating devices that drain the batteries. And as you can see, we have the fireplace and a cooking stove. We can store from the wind for only so long until we must start that awful gas generator. So loud that I hate to have Franz pull the cord. But my radio can use batteries.”
“Do you enjoy classical music? It’s frustrating up here,” Belle said, “Only the satellite can pull in those selections.”
Marta reached forward and touched Belle’s arm gently, looking deeply into her eyes. “It doesn’t matter to me, Liebchen. You see, the radio is the voice of freedom. During the war, we were forbidden to listen to the BBC. Mutti would turn it on so very quietly that we would sit with our ears on it. Once a nosey neighbour came and she had to switch it off quickly. Mutti was so frightened, but she laughed as if it had been a mistake. And we children laughed, too.”
No one spoke for a minute, until Franz asked, “How are the Burians, Belle?” He turned to his mother. “I haven’t seen them since the funeral. Sometimes there is smoke at their lodge when I pass, but I don’t want to intrude.” Marta excused herself and went into the kitchen.
“As well as you’d expect. They’re strong people. Probably won’t be at their lodge much anymore, Ben said. How long have you known them?”
“Oh, only to say hello. Jim was a good deal younger, but I got to know him when we organized the rally against the park. As the representative from the Forestry Management program, he was covering the impact to the woodland.”
“I’ll try to be there. None of us wants this development. It’s going to bring chaos to the lake.”
“And besides the destruction, the new access roads bulldozed across the forest will be even more of a problem. There is a First Nations burial ground not one hundred feet from the proposed shower site. And of course the pictographs on the canoe routes. Just imagine what will happen when those become accessible from the main entrance. They cut the timber a hundred years ago, and now they want to rape the land again. We must take a stand or explain our cowardice to the next generation.”
“There was something else I wanted to ask you, Franz. It’s about Jim’s death. I’m still trying to gather information in case he stumbled upon something in the bush. A drug transfer, perhaps. I can’t imagine what else. Melanie said that you had heard small planes recently, just like he had reported.”
“Yes, at my camp near Cott Lake, but I’ve never pinpointed any landings. It’s always dark when the sounds come, which drew my suspicions. One of these days when I finish my projects, I’ll put on my snowshoes and have a good look around.”
Belle nodded her agreement as Marta returned to pass around a plate of strudel. A leather-bound volume of poems on a side table caught Belle’s eye. “May I?” she asked, lifting it with reverence.
“Of course. Not too many people appreciate the old things,” Marta said. “Franz tells me that one day no one reads books anymore. Only computer screens.”
“Now really,” he chided gently, “that is an oversimplification of my ideas.”
Belle ran her finger over the page as they watched in polite amusement. “Fraktur. Can’t read this Gothic very well, although I studied German in university.” She closed her eyes. “Möwen, Möwen, sagst du, wir haben Möwen in dem Haus?”
They both stared at her as if she’d suddenly gone mad.
Belle couldn’t suppress a grin. “Oh, I know. ‘Seagulls, seagulls, do you say that we have seagulls in the house?’ Useless, those silly sentences which we had to memorize. Better if I could order schnitzel.” As they both joined her in laughter, she sipped the last of the coffee. Strong and rich, oddly aromatic, she told Marta.
The older woman’s face lifted at the praise, her eyes sparkling. “We make it with the bitter chicory, in the continental style. You can buy the essence at the Health Food Store, but I grow and dry the plants myself. It has a lovely blue flower. And the blue flower, now, was a concept of the book you hold by Novalis. It represented the romantic ideal, a symbol of eternal search much like the Holy Grail.”
“Knights, quests, you’re inspiring me. I’m going to have to get out my German grammar books and start from scratch.” Belle said as she stood. “But now I must be going. Thank you so much for your hospitality. I have admired your gardens from afar in the summer.”
Marta took Belle’s hand and broke into a smile more dazzling than Dietrich’s Blue Angel’s. “Then you must surely come back and see them in their glory.” She gathered the dishes and went into the kitchen.
“And thanks again for your heroic efforts, Franz.”
“Der Ritter is at your service.”
Belle stopped at another picture of the young girl, fair-haired, vital and energetic, pointing up in childish delight at a ten-foot sunflower. “An old girlfriend, Franz?” she asked on a whim.
His voice grew soft. “My sister.”
“I didn’t know you had any brothers or sisters.”
“She moved to the States. Lives in Boston. She wanted to get to the big city, never liked the bush.”
“Lucky her,” Belle said, summoning a joke to cover the awkwardness she suddenly felt. “This wretched winter, I feel like driving non-stop to Florida and throwing myself on the mercy of the welfare system just to enjoy the sunshine.”
“Better not,” he advised, his tone lightening. “They don’t pay as well as Ontario.”
Franz showed her to the washroom before she left. A very expensive electrical composting toilet system she had read about in Cottage Life, but what else would work on that rock? A faded embroidery on the wall read, “Ein gutes Gewissen ist ein sanftes Kissen.” A good something is a soft something else? Too rude to ask for a translation of their bathroom art.
Marta stood by the door and pressed a warm, fragrant package into her hand. “Strudel for you to take home. Give a little bit to your dog
, too. Soon you come again.”
On the way down, Belle noticed a small grotto of cemented stones surrounding a female statue. “Mary? Aren’t most Germans Lutherans?” she asked. Around the region, in French areas especially, she had seen many similar shrines, some even illuminated. This one was carefully swept with a small bunch of frozen carnations at its feet.
“My father’s family were Junkers, a landowner class, who took part in the Kulturkampf, the nineteenth century struggle between the Roman Catholic church and the German government,” Franz explained. “Mother keeps the traditions. Since we don’t go to church here, she has her own way of worshipping. This isn’t Mary, but Dymphna, an old Belgian saint from where my grandmother lived. I built it to practice stone masoning.” He shrugged. “Me, I’m just a garden variety agnostic like most scientists.”
Blondi had followed them down to sit dutifully at her master’s boots. “From her looks and her comportment, her pedigree must be excellent,” Belle remarked.
“Her parents were Schutzhund Threes. We can trace her lineage to Axel von der Deininghauser Heide, a legendary sire,” Franz recited with clear pride, “but then so can most people who own purebreds. Axel’s there somewhere on the chart. Perhaps Blondi and Freya are related very, very far back, do you think? As for her training, we didn’t see the necessity of putting her through such severe paces since she is a family pet.”
“I know what you mean. She’s a friend first. And please thank your mother again. It was a privilege to meet her. You must love her very much.”
“Her heart is not good, I fear,” he said, tightening his lips in a resigned gesture. “You heard the cough. And of course we run a risk out here on the island, though there is the air rescue.”
“You’re in the right town for heart and cancer specialists, Franz. Anything else and it’s Toronto. I wish her well.”
Belle waved as she headed off across the frozen wasteland. How did they manage to live here all year? Franz must have to stay in town at freeze-up and ice-out. As she throttled up, behind her the island got smaller and smaller. Knowing how disorienting distances could be, she aimed directly across the lake, sighting off a bare hill near her house, watching the landscape enlarge at warp speed. Whether from her canoe or from her Bravo, the sight always thrilled her, the sun gleaming off her windows and the russet siding glowing in sunlight. Xanadu, a golden pleasure dome, even without Alf.
Later that night with the help of her German dictionary, Belle translated the motto from the embroidery in the bathroom: “A good conscience is a soft pillow.” She hoisted her glass with a grin. “ ‘Malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.’ And single malt, now that can justify anything.”
TWELVE
The Sudbury Star reported that the rally was scheduled for noon at Shield University. The crowd would hear speeches and then march downtown to the provincial government buildings where Franz would present a petition to a Ministry representative. Concerned citizens from the community were urged to join the assembly.
By nine, Belle was climbing the stairs to the university library, a place of monastic peace overlooking Lake Ramsey. Once the elitist haunt of the nickel barons with their stout brick and fieldstone homes from the twenties and thirties, the lake was now home to doctors, lawyers, politicians, academic upper management and business magnates. Happy pensioners whose tiny cottages had sat there for decades traded their lots at $100,000 or more as the newcomers cantilevered their modern stone and cedar structures over the water. The futuristic complexes of nearby Science North, the Northeastern Ontario Regional Cancer Treatment Centre and the new Superhospital complemented the lake on postcards, along with the ever present stack in the far background, reminding the city of its roots.
In the companionable silence of the tower, Belle recalled the first time she had driven up from Toronto with Uncle Harold at the wheel of his Packard, chrome-heavy and as comfortable as a galleon. She had yawned at the farm fields reaching toward Barrie, then perked up as they crossed the Severn River. “Entering the Grenville Province now, girl,” he had said. “You’re going to see the rocks at the very centre of the world.” And she did, massive outcrops for the next 150 miles which explained why people shuddered at the reports of a driver “hitting a rock cut”. Three hours of bush later and Sudbury had appeared to her like the city of Oz. Returning to smoggy Toronto at the end of every summer always depressed her, especially as those cliffs and boulders flattened into the boring plains of Southern Ontario.
To kill an hour before the rally, Belle paged through bound volumes of century-old Canadian Mercury magazines and browsed in the excellent fiction collection. Then she hit the periodical rack for current computer information, copying pages of printer reviews and scanners so that she and Miriam could upgrade their system before tax time.
Belle yawned, checked her watch and hunted down a restorative coffee in the little refectory in the basement. One rock wall remained, a common basement decor in older homes built when blasting had been prohibitively expensive. The effect was medieval, short a few sets of iron handcuffs as a backdrop for the Prisoner of Zenda. Too bad about the melamine, though, Belle thought as she looked at the modern tables. In the corner, Melanie sat buried in a ponderous textbook. Her sweatshirt featured a bleak clearcut with the slogan, “Pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth.”
“Perfect verse for a nurse,” Belle said as she put down her coffee. “Do you have room for one more at the rally?”
The girl smoothed her shirt and gave an A-OK gesture. “We need all the help we can get. Maybe I should comb through the wards on the way and pick up the ambulatory patients.”
“The premier’s closing beds as fast as he can anyway,” Belle said. A restructuring due to massive provincial cutbacks had left only one hospital out of three. “So what are you studying? Did you did pay by the pound?”
Mel hefted the book like a weightlifter. “You bet. More than for filet mignon. Medical texts are ridiculous. But this $150.00 model gives valuable pointers on geriatric care. I’m in my last year and hope to specialize in that field.”
“You’re in the right place. It’s becoming the denture capital of the world.”
Melanie piled her books neatly. “You look calm enough, so can I conclude that you didn’t get to see Ian yet?”
With a shake of her head, Belle described her maniacal rendezvous. “You are well out of that relationship. Amusing though he might have been in a warped way.”
“Well, I’m sorry that the leg ruled him out. He would have made a great villain, a regular sociopath. We’ll just have to keep on looking.” As she shrugged philosophically, a distant chime rang the half-hour, and they both watched students heading for the door, talking and waving.
“I guess it’s nearly post time. How is Franz arranging the rally?” Belle asked.
“He told me to meet him in his office. I’ll show you where it is.” She hesitated, a slight frown crossing her face. “I guess you didn’t get to the camp yet, Belle. You haven’t mentioned it.”
Belle gave her a friendly but firm smile. “I’m not a PI, Mel. My job and an old man called my father make demands on me. I had planned to go the other day, but then I got home in that storm to find my dog attacked.”
“Belle, no! What happened? Is your dog all right?”
“Just a slight concussion. I think she stopped a break-in. Anyway, to keep it short, I got off the road in that blizzard, and Franz rescued us, drove us right to the vet. He saved the day.”
“That was lucky!”
Belle sipped from her cup and rolled her eyes at the taste. “Yuck. I wish his mother made the coffee here. I went out to the island to thank him and was fortunate enough to meet her. Quite the lady. And what a house. How long have they lived here?”
“Came here in the fifties, he said once, like a lot of Europeans—‘DPs,’ my parents called them.” She frowned in embarrassment. “Not too politically correct today. There was plenty of work in the mines in t
hat boom time. I suppose the island came cheap. But it must be so inconvenient to live out there and commute.”
“Did you ever meet his sister?”
Melanie turned her head in surprise. “His sister? How did you find out about her? That seems to be a forbidden topic for Franz, and of course, you have to respect people’s privacy.”
Belle felt a tiny twinge of guilt, but pressed gaucherie-override and pried further. “I saw a picture of her at the cabin. What is she like?”
“There’s not much I can tell you about the mystery girl. We weren’t friends. I might have seen her once or twice. Eva was studying history, and nursing is a fierce little world of its own; we stick together because of the heavy hours and clinicals. The school paper carried a story about her scholarship. Then she dropped out suddenly in her sophomore year, just disappeared.”
“Grade problems?”
“Hardly. Eva was a top student. She had a couple of publications in a history journal. Could have been a breakdown. You’ve read that book about passages. Twenty, thirty, forty, as our psych prof says, the beginning of a decade can be stressful. And perfectionists crack. We’ve lost about 30 percent of our initial class.” She shrugged philosophically, tapping her temple in the traditional gesture. “And sometimes I worry about myself.”
A few minutes later, they headed toward a cubbyhole at the end of a corridor. Franz was on the phone, talking excitedly and waving his free hand. When Mel touched his arm, he looked up with a broad smile.
“See you outside. I’ll just round up another supporter,” she explained, disappearing with a wave.
Franz’s handshake was firm and his smile welcoming. “Belle, glad you could make it. Pull up something and relax. The rally’s not for another half hour. I’ve just been calling the marshalls. No parade permit from the city, probably afraid to step on toes, so we’ll be marching down the sidewalks, stopping at lights. Kind of a hitch, but we’ll improvise. Have you picked Freya up yet?”
“Later today, thanks to you.”
