Blood Ties

by Warren Adler

  Karla, too, encouraged the suggestion.

  "It is pointless to be alone here, Charles."

  "I have my work," he had protested. The suggestion of early marriage had always struck him as offensive, even from his sister. Besides, his meager sexual needs were easily bought among the maidens of the farm hands. The fact was that the smallness of his organ kept him secretly in perpetual terror. Marriage, on the other hand, provided its own fear. He wanted a virgin who would not, he hoped, have any real basis of comparison.

  But these were private thoughts, impossible to share with anyone, even his sister. Yet, the other part of her argument had logic. What was the point of rebuilding the family business, carrying on, if there was no generation beyond his own? Karla had already had two sons, but they would not be von Kassels. The von Berghoffs had their own venerable name to propagate. Wolfgang's offspring, if he had any, would be lost in the ideological slime of Bolshevism. It was not a question of personal preference. It was duty.

  So in his mind, he chose Emma von Heimberg as the best of the lot physically. She was scatterbrained, giggled a lot, and was abysmally ignorant of most things except what was considered then purely feminine matters such as clothes and embroidery. She did not even have the head for bridge, which bored her, as did most things. If he had applied himself, he might have chosen wiser, but other than the exercise of her body's reproductive process he had little interest in any other facet of her. She was, fortunately, the daughter of one of the most important Baronial families of Estonia. His grandfather, he knew, would have surely approved the choice.

  The courtship of Emma was a blur in his recollection. He bought her things, fluffy feathery things and she tried them on for him and giggled as she primped and posed in the mirror while her mother fussed and scolded and he sat bored watching the exercise. When he was alone with her, the conversation consisted of his compliments and her blushing acceptance, but little else.

  "How beautiful they look together," was the refrain of the shrunken Baronial society that continued to act out the charade of their importance. Even Charles knew the end was near, although he continued to hope that German rearmament might one day bring the Ostlanders into the Germanic fold.

  The wedding was held in the old Lutheran Church in town. The remaining families hosted a series of dances, followed by dinners and teas for the ladies at which he was expected to appear, after an appropriate interval, for further exhibition.

  "She is an idiot," he finally confessed to his sister in letters, filled with a self-pitying longing for the old days. A word from Karla would have surely dissuaded him. But she continued to encourage him.

  "Better get this behind you," she had advised. "And get immediately into von Kassel production."

  He took Emma back to the country place after their marriage. Despite her physical charms, her big upturned bosom and wonderfully constructed legs, she was a sexual disaster. The whole process was a matter of complete indifference to her. He wondered, of course, if the fault was his, but it was a self-recrimination that he quickly suppressed. He, too, was ignorant of such matters.

  Conversation was limited to the food which their chef prepared, the decorations she pursued on the house, and the various agonies of her life in the country, which she detested almost immediately.

  "I want to go back to Tallinn, to be near Mama," she begged, like a spoiled child.

  "Not now," he commanded. He was waiting for her first pregnancy at which time he would ship her back, gladly.

  "Why can't I go now?"

  "Because I need you here."

  "No you don't." It was absolutely her only real insight.

  He spent as much time as he could away from the house. Thankfully, the business was excellent. He had by then already made contact with scattered cousins in other countries: Adolph's father, the father of Wilhelm and Frederick, and Klaus in Australia, and was beginning to understand the virtues of family involvement in a worldwide sense. A whole new source of custom was open in China where feuding warlords vied for supremacy and Adolph's father was already sending huge orders from Shanghai. He had calculated that China would be his first stop after he had shipped a pregnant Emma to Tallinn.

  But after three months nothing happened, although he performed his duty almost on a nightly basis to which she submitted with her usual total indifference. She had by then developed a fondness for rich foods and chocolates, and was beginning to expand rapidly and her breasts, thighs and belly began to balloon before his eyes.

  "You're getting fat," he told her.

  "You think so?" She apparently had blocked out the vision of her fattening, although all her dresses had to be let out and she continued to order mounds of chocolates from Brussels which she depleted at an astounding rate. She did little supervision of household chores. Since there was no family as yet she simply took to spending her time either sleeping, eating or gossiping with her Estonian maids, most of whom she apparently chose for a similar obtuseness. As she fattened and grew more slothful and cranky, he began to ignore her. And without any signs of pregnancy appearing, he grew increasingly irritated, as if somehow he had been betrayed.

  He sent for a doctor from Tallinn, who examined her and noted a less than perfect rupture of the hymen which he corrected surgically and pronounced her fertile with no visible inhibiting signs for a natural pregnancy. He did not submit himself to examination.

  "She wasn't completely done," the doctor said, hesitating to go further. "She should be more likely to conceive now."

  Weeks stretched to months, marked in his mind by the coming of her period. Seeing the first spots of blood would prod him to deep rages.

  "She is not conceiving," he wrote his sister, pouring out his frustrations in long whining letters. "I am going mad." When this theme became repititious, Karla, alarmed, paid an unexpected visit. Charles was overjoyed at seeing her and the two spent long hours in contemplative conversation.

  "I had no idea," Karla had said, not long after her first glance at her now grossly fleshed out sister-in-law. "She's gross."

  "Her only interest is what she can put in her mouth."

  "My poor brother." She caressed his hand.

  He barely spoke to Emma by then and politeness between them disappeared. Mounting her was like straddling an animal.

  "She is a defective, "Charles pointed out. "It's obvious she isn't normal."

  "What about divorce?"

  "Without her consent it would be difficult. Apparently, she is not as stupid as she appears."

  "No one can be that stupid."

  "I was. I married her."

  "I'm sure you'll figure out a way to be rid of her, Charles," Karla said, her meaning clear. He had, of course, already begun to chart a course, although the consequences of his projected action frightened him. In an effort to avoid it, he had even agreed to let her go back to Tallinn.

  "No," she had said. Her fat had seemed to give her courage.

  "But I thought that was what you wanted," he had protested, puzzled.

  "I like it here."

  "How can you like it here," he asked. "You are alone, except for those idiotic maids. And you're eating yourself into a puddle of flesh." She shrugged and reached for another chocolate. Her refusal to leave the country seemed providential. The choices narrowed.

  By then she had become so gross that he could not bear to sleep with her. Intercourse with her was out of the question and he finally accepted the fact that she could not reproduce. There hardly seemed any alternative. By any means.

  The idea had not arrived in his mind by sheer accident. It had simmered there for weeks. He brooded over it, searching for the perfect strategy that would blunt any chance of serious inquiry. In the old days, there was nothing that could interfere with Baronial justice except the action of the Committee of Barons. Now there were Estonian authorities who searched for legal ways to intimidate the Barons. He would have to be extremely clever.

  Paramount to any plan was the question of app
earances. He had to change totally his attitude toward her. Where he was indifferent, he resolved to be attentive. Where he was quick to anger, he summoned repression. He became outwardly affectionate, the hardest tack of all. It was, he knew, a charade for the servants. He began to call her "darling." If his sudden change confused her, she rarely noticed. Her brain along with her tissues had clogged with fat and beyond her digestion and the sensual pleasure of eating there was little that interested her.

  He took her on long rides in the horse-drawn carriage, one of the few remaining relics of the old days, although when they were out of sight of the servants, he slashed the whip across the horse's rump and moved swiftly and bumpily along the tire rutted path, watching her squirm with discomfort, tittering in fear. He also took her rowing on the lake each afternoon. It became, over a period of two months, a ritual when the weather was good. Actually, it turned out to be an amusement to the servants, who snickered as the huge hulk of Emma moved clumsily into the boat, sinking it almost to the rims.

  His sudden interest confused her but he had reinforced the outings by providing huge boxes of chocolates for each trip. He felt no sense of horror in what he was doing. There was not the slightest hint of gathering remorse, guilt or regrets. The perpetuation of the direct von Kassel line was an all-encompassing rationale. Understanding his own obsession, he had no difficulty in manipulating an obsession in others. She would do anything to get her mouth around sweets. And he had carefully set about taking possession of every bite of the supply.

  "Please, Charles," she would beg, sometimes bursting into his sleep in the middle of the night, her breath labored with the movement of her bulk and the anxieties of her addiction. He would listen patiently to these entreaties, yielding only after she had reached crescendoes of irritation.

  Yet, he lingered over the action long after he felt the servants were convinced of his husbandly affection. He was always presenting himself challenges. Imaginary goals set to near impossible standards to prove his capacities. How long could he go without sleep, without food? How much time to tire a horse? Like his grandfather, he took to haunting the cemetery at night, relishing the image of continuity, of his destiny, as he poked among the graves of his ancestors. With little effort, he could slip into a state of fantasy and imagine himself in their company. Time frames shattered. He could commune as easily with the armored Knight of the Old Order still breathless from the retreat from Tannenberg as with a von Kassel from the Napoleonic era, who had sent scavengers to gather arms from the little Emperor's defeated and dispirited army retreating from Russia.

  The plan for Emma's disposal had begun in spring. Late summer had arrived. The leaves were turning and the outings chilled her. She seemed to yap at him like a trained seal, offering pleasantries and tricks for her ration of chocolates. He became fascinated with this ability to manipulate her, pushing her to monstrous humiliations.

  That day, he drove her down to the lake in the carriage. As usual, he carried a wicker basket filled with chocolates which she eyed with lust through flesh-pouched eyes. The large rowboat bounced against the little pier and the boatsman came up to greet them, since it required at least two men to remove Emma from the carriage and place her in the specially rigged seat that had been constructed to accommodate her.

  When she was ensconced, he took the oars and waited for the boat to drift sufficiently away from the shore before dipping them. The boat moved swiftly outward. Usually, he would hand her a box of chocolates immediately, but now he withheld the prize while she fumed and fretted with greedy anticipation.

  "Now, Charles?" she asked imitating a begging child, offering a grotesque smile in a dimpled puddle of flesh. The day was overcast, the wind whipped across the lake, churning up little whitecaps and rocking the boat.

  "Please, Charles," she begged, the smile becoming a contortion. "You promised." Like Pavlov's dog, a well-rutted path was cut into in her mind. But he ignored her, continuing to row with the wind, watching the shore fade in the distance.

  "I'll be a good girl," she pleaded.

  He continued to row, the sweat boiling on his back, rolling down from his forehead.

  "I'll do anything, Charles." She was quickly reaching a point of desperation. "I want my chocolates," she screamed. "I want my chocolates."

  His hands hurt and his back began to ache. Near the center of the lake, the wind made screeching sounds, partially drowning out her shrill entreaties. Finally, when he could no longer see the shore, he drew in the oars, letting them lean against either side of his seat. Then he edged himself to the prow where he had put the wicker basket. It was, he knew, a charade for the benefit of any prying eyes. The sight of him moving to the wicker basket had quieted her and she watched greedily, as he showed her the contents, then put the basket on the seat he had just vacated. She watched the basket, her eyes flitting nervously to search his face. She was confused. Then she smiled.

  "Give me the chocolates, Charles."

  "Take them," he said gently. "They're all yours."

  Her smile faded slowly. From somewhere deep inside of her, he could see the briefest flicker of understanding. The boat was rocking badly. To traverse the distance to the chocolates meant she would have to climb over another seat, a task of almost insurmountable challenge to one of her bulk.

  "Come on Emma," he taunted. "Come get your delicious chocolates. Nice, juicy, tasty chocolates."

  Nerves began to twitch in her face and her fat fingers played nervously with each other.

  "I can't," she cried. The fear had begun to play in her eyes. He pointed, palm upward in an offering position, to the wicker basket.

  "Come get your chocolates," he called, mimicking in childish sing-song.

  He watched her weigh the possibilities, her tongue flickering against her lips.

  "You can do it, Emma," he called. He saw her hands tighten around the rims and she made the first movement to rise, the sweat of effort quickly filming her face.

  "Sure, my darling, come get the chocolates," he taunted.

  Finally, she managed to move her vast bulk upward while he shouted encouragement. Then she was actually standing.

  "I knew you could do it," he cried. She reached forward with her chubby hands, tipping the delicate balance as the rocking boat forced her sideways, throwing her bulk over the edge. Without a sound, she slipped into the water and sank immediately, like a giant stone.

  He waited for a long moment, then dived in, following the path of her descent in the remarkably clear water. The depth was nearly ninety feet at the lake's center, but he could see her body drifting on the bottom, the face distorted even beyond the original bloat, the blonde hair stringy and floating upward. There had been, after all, little choice. It was simply a distasteful duty to perform. A test of his resolve.

  He stared at her until his lungs reached the bursting point. Then he let his body shoot upward to the surface. Climbing back in the boat, he rowed swiftly to shore where he told the boatsman his story and collapsed with feigned exhaustion.

  Except for a few brief recollections at the funeral, mostly of her bloated face as he first glimpsed it on the lake's bottom, he had not thought of it, not this clearly, for nearly fifty years. Nor had there been the slightest remorse. Not the slightest. He was not even sure he was feeling it now, although there had been this sudden cold shiver as the image burst into the surface of his consciousness.

  "What is it, Charles?" It was Karla hovering near him. He was sweating and she wiped away the moisture with a tissue.

  "I was thinking of Emma," he whispered.

  "Emma?" She seemed startled at the idea. He did not pursue the subject. He had never discussed the method of her disposal with Karla. Between them, there was never any need to explore the obvious.

  "I was thinking of her," he repeated. Perhaps now, he wanted to confess it. Why? It is ancient history, he thought. Was remorse pursuing him over the years? He had done what had to be done.

  "Rest. I will wake you for the lu
ncheon."

  Her familiar footsteps departed. Memory intruded often now, diluting the sense of present reality.

  A telephone rang in the distance. He heard Karla's voice. Age had not diminished the power of it. Her voice rose, oddly, but he was sliding again into a crater of sleep. Helga! Had he heard her name? More memories. Then he slipped deeper into the crater, exhausted.

  CHAPTER 10

  Helga emerged from a deep stupor. She felt the stiffness in her joints, knowing that her first movements would be painful. Days began differently now, uncertain. With Martin, time was anchored. Days had begun with the abrasive ringing of the alarm of the old fashioned round tick clock.

  Rising then, she would slip into the tattered flannel robe, a relic from still another life, and, in floppy slippers, shuffle into the kitchen for the inevitable flapjacks and bacon with steaming coffee and grits. Distance romanticized the vision. Years of habit induced longing now, although she had not thought of Martin or her life with him for the full six months she had traveled aimlessly after Midge had flung her out of the house with the admonition that she was a "selfish bitch."

  But none of them, neither Midge, whom Martin had unknowingly legitimized, nor Martin himself had any inkling of Helga's history, only that she had been a refugee from Hitler's Germany, which accounted for the accent and that she had a small inheritance from a war claim reparation. They had bought her off for $5,000 yearly, payable monthly, which had seemed like a fortune to her at the time. They let her take her jewels and the Baron had given her a check for $10,000, but that had disappeared swiftly in Zurich where she had waited out the war, brooding over the lost Konrad and their three sons, sustained by alcohol, men, and her hatred of the Baron and his beast of a sister.