“Somebody had given them details of Iris von Lillienfeld. They knew everything about her. I always thought it was Ursula, my girlfriend, the upstart, who betrayed her. She and I were both in love with Adam. I knew I had no chance with him. Anyone could see how he loved Iris. He carried her picture with him all the time. It was enough for me that I was in his confidence. Well, it wasn’t enough, but it had to be. I had no choice. And it was better than nothing. I was part of his life. A big part. But Ursula, Ursula had these crazy ideas. She was convinced Adam would love her if there was no hope for him and Iris. Later, when he rejected her, threw her out, she couldn’t accept it. Wanted to pay him back. I never could prove it, but I had my suspicions.” Evangelika shook her head sadly. “Ursula had such high and mighty notions of herself. And such fears! She was such a mix of majesty and fear! Well. To make a long story short, Adam needed money. A lot of money, and I didn’t have it. Nobody did. There was a family living in the village. In Saint Hildegard’s proper. Very wealthy. Their name was Asam. A nice family. They had a daughter, Kunigunden. She was sweet and fair and pretty. There was one problem: she was pregnant. And a bit of a fool, people might say. A little bit ‘touched.’ But just a little. Well, it was time for Kunigunde to marry, and the father must have been dead. Anyway, he was nowhere to be found. A lot of the men were gone. Adam, of course, had to stay because someone had to run the Mill. His mother wasn’t well enough to handle the whole Mill. Saint Hildegard’s has always been a self-sufficient, working mill. The water mill powers the mill grinder for the grain. Bread was as important as weapons. Adam had to stay.
“Well. Herr Asam was pleased by the idea of the marriage for Kunigunde. It wouldn’t hurt for her to marry an Adliger. A noble. They had the money, the Asams, but no aristocracy. Old Herr Asam was a self-made man. He started as a stone mason. I knew he would love for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Adam’s family would consider the union a horrible step down. Despite the money. But never mind. They were desperate.
“I made up a story. I told the Polizei that it was all lies about Adam and his mother knowingly hiding a Jew. Adam was engaged to Kunigunde Asam. I told them. They had been in love for months but had to be secretive about anyone finding out before they told his mother, Adam’s mother. She had been ill.
“‘Da hat sie schon recht,’—There she’s right—the one Polizist, the policeman, told the other, ‘Frau von Grünwald was never a healthy woman.’
“Yes, I said, she would be devastated if she heard it from someone else. But now—here I pretended to be embarrassed—’now Kunigunde is schwanger, pregnant,’ I told them. They would have to marry.
“‘Ja, ja, ja,’ the Polizei agreed, ‘they would have to marry!’ Every villager knows the shame unmarried people would live with. Things were not like they are today. You wouldn’t believe what it was like. You see old World War Two films on the television, and you think you know, but you can’t. Nowadays, there’s no such thing as scandal. Everything’s out in the open. Back then … Well, anyhow, it was known in the village that Kunigunde was reclusive. So it all seemed to fit. I made it sound as though they were pulling the story from me. I could see them giving each other meaningful looks, those two policemen. They knew Herr Asam had friends in high places. It was not a good idea to arrest the wrong people. It could cost you your career. The policemen finally let me see Adam. I told him my plan. He was agreeable, but only to save his mother. All he cared about was that I should write to Iris, get in touch with her in England and make sure she was all right. He knew she was staying at a small hotel in Hampstead. It was a respectable place. She was still very sick, but she was alive. There was a fine man there, he was a professor. His name was Dr. Opal. Young. He gave the Jewish refugees lessons in English for free. So that’s where she was staying, and I should write to her there. Well. I wrote to her. But I did something else. I told her what had happened, too. I explained about the Asam girl, Kunigunde, and how it was the only chance for Adam. They were to be married that week. There was no other way. I explained that they would send Adam’s mother to a camp if she was in any way associated with Jews. Iris knew Adam loved Saint Hildegard’s. She knew what it meant to him. I said if she really loved him, she would not write to him. If she loved him, she would never come back. Then I went to see Herr Asam.”
Claire’s mind reeled. “So it was you. You were the reason Iris von Lillienfeld and Adam von Grünwald never got together.”
“I told Iris that she had to let Adam go, yes. Kunigunde could marry him then, and the Mill would be saved.”
“The Mill. All this for the Mill.”
“Not the Mill. What the Mill represented. I almost didn’t save it. Ursula, the girl I had with me, she accused Adam of making her pregnant. Well, he was in prison, still. But she told me. She said as soon as he got out of prison, she would make him marry her. She confided in me. She also told me that he would pay for what he had done. Well. I knew she was lying. Just trying to be like Iris. I don’t believe Adam ever slept with Ursula. I didn’t believe it then, and I still don’t believe it now. She had a loose way with her, as I said. Adam might have been the only young man in the village, but there were still plenty of old ones at that time. Oh, she knew which side her bread was buttered on, that one did. She was good enough to blame Adam for another man’s shame. She knew where to go for the money, all right. So. I knew what I was dealing with here. I told her good. I explained to her that I knew what she was up to and if she interfered, I would swear that it was all lies. I would go to the Polizei and swear that she had told me she just wanted money from him and that had been her plan all along. You should have seen her. I thought she was going to kill me. I was frightened. Really frightened. But then something clicked in her, and she changed. She remembered I had the diamond Iris von Lillienfeld had sent me. She knew I still had it. She said if I gave it to her, she would leave. She would go away and never come back.”
Claire had stopped peeling the asparagus. She leaned forward. “But why didn’t Adam use the diamonds? Iris had sixty valuable diamonds. And why didn’t he use them to get out of jail?”
“Ah. That was it. The diamonds were to be their future. When they went to look for them, they were gone.”
“Wow.”
“Someone had stolen them.”
“So the diamonds were never found.”
“Never found. That’s why people talk still of the treasure at the Mill.”
“Where were they supposed to have been?” Claire asked.
Evangelika shrugged. “Adam could never find them. Kunigunde used to say, ‘Oh, they’re safe. The good Lord watches over them,’ she’d say. God knows where they are.”
Claire wondered if Iris had thought Adam had stolen the diamonds. Just put them to the side. No. Iris had been vehement in her belief that Adam would keep them here for her. Claire was sure that Iris had never doubted this promise. “So then what happened?”
Evangelika folded her hands. “That’s exactly what Ursula did. She left. And she left for good. I suspected that she was pregnant, but I was highly doubtful that it was from Adam. I was taking a chance, threatening her with the Polizei. But people were afraid of any dealings with the Polizei. They would send you off for the littlest thing. Ursula was terrified of being locked up. She had been locked up when she was little. You see, Ursula lived in such fear as a child. I knew she was despicable, but I also knew why.
“Her family had a farm, very small and rather broken down, but a farm, just at the edge of Diessen. Her mother would come and do work for my mother. She wasn’t very efficient, and we didn’t have much ourselves, but my mother had pity for her because she had such a difficult husband. He beat her. The whole village knew. He was a terrible man. Filthy. Unshaven. A frustrated man. Always blaming everyone else for his troubles. He even blamed my father. Especially he blamed the von Lillienfelds. Said they had taken the villagers’ chances for success, buying up land that belonged to the locals at a cheap price. Called Iris’s
father a big Jew, of course. The usual. Anyway, the mother would come sometimes to the back door, looking for work. My mother was soft-hearted and knew she had the little girl, Ursula. You could see the woman was worn out. She would give her little odd jobs to do. I guess everyone did because the husband did nothing to earn, but the poor woman could never get ahead. Everyone thought, oh, you know, he’s just another good-for-nothing done in by the drink, but it wasn’t just that. There was something else wrong with him. Not everyone knew about that. Or they knew and they didn’t talk about it. In those times you didn’t talk about everything. You know. The way people do now. He was somehow perverted.
“Ursula was terrified of her father. And with good reason. He kept her tied up, in a stall off the house. She would cry out when we would pass her father’s broken-down farm. Everybody heard her. But, you see, times were different then. If a parent punished, beat a child, no one thought it was their business to interfere. Everyone knew if you heard little Ursula yelling. ‘Uh-oh,’ you would say, ‘Ursula’s gone and got herself punished again.’ Once, I heard that child yelling, and I started to weep myself. I pulled on my mother in our cart. We were passing on the way to Diessen to market, and my mother wouldn’t hear of it. It was their business, she said. But I knew she didn’t like it either. I knew she was shocked because I heard her telling my father about it. ‘The child was crying out in fear of her own father,’ I heard my mother tell my father. ‘That’s nonsense,’ said my father. He wouldn’t believe her. And I, who had been listening beside the Kachelofen, the tiled stove, ran out. ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘I saw him come out from the outhouse where he kept her when he heard our cart. He must have beat her,’ I told them. My mother was angry I had been listening. ‘It wasn’t an outhouse,’ she shushed me. ‘Yes, it was,’ I insisted. ‘Her father, Herr Braun, had his trousers down and unfastened when he came outside.’”
Evangelika looked meaningfully at Claire and sighed. “My parents went to see Herr Braun after that. They took some small crockery and went over there one Sunday. Pretending to bring a small neighborly gift of my father’s ‘Topferei,’ his ceramics. Only nothing came of it. I heard my mother tell our other neighbor that they didn’t even get to see Herr Braun. Only Frau Braun came out and took the crockery and thanked them and they went away. That was the end of that. My father said that would be the end of him scaring that child because he knew we were on to him. But it didn’t stop him, I think. I think they knew it, too.
“The thing was, I always felt I had this bond, a sort of bond with Ursula. From guilt. Not mine. I was just a child. But my parents. I felt bound to her by the guilt of my parents. Maybe they could have done more. Ursula was just a few years younger than me. I thought if I gave her the diamond, she could go and start over, start a new life away from everything. Away from Deutschland. Away from her terrible past. So I gave her the diamond, and she went away.”
Evangelika sniffed. “So you can figure her story was all lies. But I was glad when she left. I was relieved. It was like a dark cloud was lifted from the Mill. Her presence was so … so oppressive. It was worth the diamond to me to be rid of her.” Evangelika shuddered. “There was something very wrong about her. The day after she left, I went up the hill, walking. I went to the Isar banks. I saw something, a purple sack, tied to the old mill wheel. It was tangled and hard to drag up, but I pulled it out. You know what it was? It was Muschi, Iris’s favorite old cat, drowned to death.”
Claire sucked in her breath.
“Ja, ja.” Evangelika nodded her head. “For spite. Ursula had drowned the thing Iris had loved so much. There should be nothing left of her. Nothing left.”
“Evangelika, did you write to Iris and tell her to come here?”
“I …” She hesitated. “That was Fräulein Wintner. I let her find Iris’s address with all Adam’s papers and she sent a brochure. Hans found her address some months before he died. He kept it on his desk. Like everyone else, she got a brochure. I was afraid she would come. When you came, I was relieved. And then you called her. I listened on the extension. Oooh! It was terrible for me! I felt like my teeth were coming out all at once.” To demonstrate this emotion, she shocked Claire by reaching into her mouth and pulling out her false teeth. She put them on the table with an emphatic clack. Her cheeks were sunk in and she looked a hundred years old.
Claire gripped her chest.
Evangelika put her teeth back in and had another schnapps. “And as bad as that was,” Evangelika went on, “I was almost disappointed. I was, in a strange way, looking forward to seeing Iris, who Adam had so loved. This reserved young girl who had changed so many lives. I wasn’t really frightened of her. Just the changes she would start up. I was only afraid Fräulein Wintner would convince Hans to sell the Mill. I couldn’t let Hans sell the Mill. What would happen to Cosimo? Where would he go?” She sniffed. “Fräulein Wintner. She was saving her nest egg. She was going to make a business in the Seychelles with Hans one day, she thought. A hotel, but first she would make Saint Hildegard’s Mill making money again, real money. She had it all planned. She was writing to all the guests of the Mill. All the people who ever stayed here got a brochure. She thought she could do whatever she wanted. Step on everybody’s toes. She thought Hans would just go off and leave the children. She was completely stupid, as clever as she was. That was the one thing he would never do, desert his children. He would have taken them with him.”
“You mean, wait a minute. It wasn’t you who killed Hans?”
“Ich? Me? Why would I kill Hans? I loved him like my own. Fräulein Wintner killed Hans because he wouldn’t keep to her. He humiliated her with Isolde. That’s why she killed herself.”
“Drowned herself? Bibi Wintner? I can’t believe it. Go off on her own and start over, maybe. But kill herself? No.”
“That’s the way it was, though.” Evangelika sat down and brusquely resumed peeling her fat asparagus. This was her story. She should know. Why was Claire embroidering on it? If anyone knew the truth, she did.
Claire took out the miraculous medal and laid it on the table. Evangelika snatched it up. “Where did you get this?”
“I found it. The magpie had it in its nest.”
“It belonged to Imogene, Cosimo and Stella’s mother.” She pressed it to her lips.
“Thank you, Evangelika,” Claire said. “Thank you for telling me all this.”
Claire pushed her chair off, scraping it along the floor, and walked out into the sunshine. Otto von Auto was just coming down the drive, Temple at the wheel. “Here you are.” He smiled happily. “I got rid of Dirk. Left him with the au pair’s sister, actually. The au pair wasn’t there, so she said he’d stay with her until she got back from Mass.”
Was it Sunday then? Claire held her head.
“What’s the matter?” He came to her. “You look a sight. Here. C’mere. Sit down.”
“Temple, why did you come to Saint Hildegard’s Mill?”
“To shoot Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time, Claire. You know that.”
“Yes, but why here? Was there some reason you particularly came here?”
“We thought it would be perfect for the film. And, well, you know why else. We thought it would be good for Mara to recover here.”
“But who suggested coming to the Mill? Who knew of it?”
“Why, Puffin. He’d come here as a child. Don’t you know all this?”
“But wasn’t the story Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time supposed to be set in Italy? I mean, why come to Munich to shoot an Italian story when it certainly would have been warmer and healthier to go to Italy for Mara to recover?”
“Well, Puffin explained that the story was originally written for Germany and then changed because the author couldn’t get a buyer. The author rightly thought it would sell if it played near Florence. What is this all about?”
Claire remembered when she’d phoned her sister Carmela about the spelling of their name. She’d mentioned the award-winning book to her and had been
surprised when Carmela had never heard of it. Carmela was a bookaholic and read before she ate. It had struck Claire as odd then. Now it made sense.
“Temple, could it be possible that Puffin wrote the script of Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time? Could that have been?”
Temple looked incredulously at her. Then, slowly, she watched the scoffing expression in his eyes turn to skepticism, then doubt, then maybe, then, yes, yes, it might make sense after all.
“But why would he lie about that?” Temple shook his head.
“Why not? If it failed, it wouldn’t be his failure, but yours and the author’s. If it succeeded, he could surprise you with the happy news. A hero.”
“Yes.” Temple looked both sheepish and stunned. “It would be just the sort of thing he would do.”
“So let’s just think about this a minute now.” Claire got up and wandered, distracted, in a circle. Two people were dead. The real question was, what connected them? If she knew that, she would know why they’d been killed.
They were lovers, that was the obvious thing. Who else had been a lover of one of them? Isolde. However she juggled it, she always came back to Isolde. And yet something kept telling her that her old friend had not done it. There was something unconnected to the past, to the time when Iris had been at Saint Hildegard’s herself. It was all too coincidental otherwise. Had someone summoned her to Saint Hildegard’s Mill? Who else knew Iris back then? Was Evangelika capable of murder? Or was there someone, somewhere, who tied the ends together? Someone from long ago. What was it Father Metz had said? Something he had said had irked her and then she’d forgotten, lost it before she could turn it over in her mind. Something about Fräulein Wintner. She was upset because so much money had gone to England. Claire remembered the ledger of the Mill’s finances. And Puffin, laughing, scoffing at his own pretentious name.
Keeper of the Mill Page 24
