Blood Ties

by Warren Adler

  "She has gone," he said.

  No comment was required. He could not see her face, but her final consent gave him hope.

  "At nine then," he said. He had wanted to say Darling.

  After giving the waiter his instructions, he went down-stairs. Rudi and Mimi stood together watching their daughters' tournament.

  "They are perfectly matched, perfectly matched," Rudi said as he came near, as if the rancor of the morning had never occurred. Mimi looked at Albert briefly and turned away.

  "We must talk, Rudi," Albert said, his voice deliberately passive, knowing that his intrusion was unwelcome. He had decided that it was pointless to delay.

  "Later," Rudi said. His impending victory had already spurred his arrogance.

  "One cannot always choose the moment," Albert said. Rudi caught the firmness, but continued to watch his daughters.

  "Can't you see..." he hissed with some irritation.

  "Very well, Brother. I can see very well."

  The authority of the tone moved Rudi to turn from the game. Albert moved a few yards along the fence. Rudi followed and Mimi's attention, too, was deflected. The twins passionately proceeded with their perfectly matched game.

  There was no point in stringing things out, Albert thought, plunging to the heart of the matter. The conditions did not call for subtlety. Besides, he suddenly felt a secret joy in the spectacle of his smug brother basking in his sense of victory, the classic pose of the turned worm.

  "Did you really think you would get away with it?" Albert began quietly, his words precise. Rudi's jowls quivered slightly, and the eyes narrowed.

  "I don't understand," Rudi responded, probing the inference.

  "Nsemo. The whole stupid business."

  Thankful for the light, Albert could view the entire spectrum of changes in his brother's face. He had been taken unawares, but the process of recovery was fast. So Plan A must give way to Plan B, Albert thought.

  "The profits are enormous," Rudi said when he had reassembled himself.

  "And the risks?"

  "I calculated them, Brother. Did you think your stupid fat Rudi ignored them?" Although a rim of perspiration appeared on his upper lip, his face had found an aspect of calm. He seemed almost relieved.

  "Well then, why didn't you lay them out to us? There was no need to lie."

  "I calculated that, too," he said proudly, turning to Mimi in a quick nervous gesture. So they had figured it out together, Albert thought. "You have lost your balls, Albert. I did not want to frighten you with the risks I had taken. Only father would understand. I was hoping that you would not have found out quite so soon. Frankly, I was not in the mood for extended debates. But if that's your pleasure, so be it." He moved closer to Albert and put his arm around his shoulder. "Relax, Brother. The eclipse is nearly complete. Wallow in your moral superiority. It will be good for your soul. But you should leave the business matters to me." He was still enjoying his sense of victory. Again, his eyes moved toward Mimi, who turned briefly and nodded approval, although she had not heard a word of the discussion.

  "Aren't you the clever one," Albert said.

  "Compliments. Compliments." But his lip had curled and Albert could see the old terror. "I am through taking your shit, Brother. All my life I have taken it. From you. From him. From big brother Siegfried. Clumsy fat Rudi," he mimicked. "No longer. Whatever it is inside of me, I know that I am the only true von Kassel in the bunch. Now father can see that. I know what it means to be a von Kassel." His fat hand had balled into a fist.

  "But Nsemo," Albert taunted, deliberately probing, loading the bait into the trap.

  "What difference. Satan himself would be just as well if he had the gold."

  Albert watched him, his anger tempered with pity now. Somehow he could sense the stunted root in the man, trapping him irrevocably in the soil of his own bitterness.

  "The goods were intercepted," Albert said quietly.

  Rudi's face seemed to swell, every loose tissue filling with some mysterious gas. The colors changed on his flesh and liquid seemed to ooze from every visible pore.

  "The goods were intercepted. The gold was Russian. And the Americans were their partners. Poor Amedou never knew what happened to him. He thought he was pulling off a great coup." Albert could envision the oily round face, the childish smile. Somehow it reminded him of Rudi. He shook his head. "You have both been duped."

  "But the profit. The two hundred and fifty million. It is safe in a Buenos Aires vault."

  "Play money. A temporary loan." He resisted the temptation to berate him like a child. Instead he was surprisingly gentle. "Once the other batch surfaces or they find the thieves and the goods ... they will deal with us. By then, of course, the von Kassel business credibility will not be worth anything."

  Rudi moved a few steps backwards, as if the information were a physical force. He looked toward Mimi, who returned his gaze, registering the same terror that now seemed to dissolve Rudi's features into a mud swamp.

  "It's a trick," he said, the voice cracking, the breath following the words in deep gasps. "You've lost and you're trying one of your filthy tricks. I know you, Albert." He lifted his hand and pointed a fat shaking finger. "I know you."

  "Aside from it's being simply stupid ... it's wrong," Albert said. "Beyond the pale." It had to be said, he knew.

  "Beyond what," Rudi snapped and, for the first time, Albert could feel the full abundance of malevolence, the distillation of hate, exploding now. "Beyond nothing! The world's stupidity is the world's stupidity. And the von Kassels are the von Kassels." He pounded a fat fist into a padded palm. "Nsemo was a logical customer. There are others. They can intercept the goods forever. As long as they pay. And there will be more sources...."

  The obsession was in him deeply and it gushed out like a geyser, spitting its liquid heat. Albert had, he could see now, been modestly prepared. But not for this. Rudi's eyes glowed like coals. Only the relentless pock pock of the tennis balls broke the pause. His chest heaved. There seemed to be something more imbedded in him, waiting to emerge.

  Albert felt it coming, watching the pain grow in his brother's eyes.

  "I am also the thief." Rudi tried to laugh, but the sound came out as an aborted croak, like a dying frog. "I arranged for the theft. You didn't think I could be that clever did you? Almost the whole billion is ours. That I have in my private vault, under the rose garden in my villa. Imagine that. Under the rose garden, where the manure is the strongest." The croak became a sob and he quickly recovered himself, then faltered again. "So we have simply sold them back their own goods. It is, after all, a family custom."

  But the realization had begun to ferment. Albert watched as the balloon of his brother's courage began to collapse. Rudi's eyes flitted from side to side as if he had lost control of their muscles.

  "Well then," Albert said finally. "At least we have the means for some amends."

  "Amends?"

  He waited, hoping that the logic would somehow find its way back into his brother's mind, the final acknowledgment of his defeat, the lifelong journey ended. He saw the tears begin.

  "I did it for them," he said, tamping his sobs, pointing to the tennis courts. "They are the von Kassels of the future." He swallowed hard, his eyes pleading now for mercy. But, somehow, Albert sensed that logic had returned at last. Now, he thought. It must be revealed.

  "They are not von Kassels at all," Albert sighed. Rudi's reaction was slow, and Albert left him no time for reflection. "Nor are you. Or me. Or Siegfried. Not even in the peripheral line, like the others." His arm swept the air between them. "We are the bastard sons of a frightened Jew."

  Rudi's mind, he knew, was already open to disaster. Albert spared him nothing as the story unfolded, layer by layer, until only the hard immutable fact remained.

  "That is the most absurd story ever told," Rudi managed to say. But it was merely a reflex now, an attempt to recover some semblance of dignity.

  Even the passpor
t, opened before him, spurred further denial.

  "What does that prove?"

  "The date, Brother. She supposedly died immediately after my birth. The date denies that."

  "An act of desperation, Brother," Rudi's bravado revealing the hollowness of the protest.

  "I saw her body. She is in the lake above the castle. We could always have it dragged if further proof were needed."

  "That still would not prove our illegitimacy," Rudi snapped, as if he could deny what he knew now in his soul.

  "Aunt Karla knows." He was drawing on insight now. "Others too." How had Dawn known?

  "And Father?" Rudi asked, after a long silence, defeated now, a dying man clinging to the flotsam of his life.

  "Not yet. That I have reserved for myself."

  "You would tell Father?"

  "If necessary, yes."

  "Surely he would not believe it...."

  "In the face of this." Albert waved the passport. "And the body." His arm waved in the direction of the lake.

  Sensing his agitation, Mimi moved closer. Her husband's face was a mask of defeat. He seemed to have deflated like a pierced rubber ball.

  "We will try to make our peace with the superpowers ... with your cooperation," Albert said firmly.

  "What is it?" Mimi asked.

  "Nothing," Rudi said, his voice cracking. He turned his face away and led Albert further along the fence. Resentful and pouting, Mimi stood her ground.

  "You will do exactly as I say," Albert said.

  "And you will say nothing?" The appeal was blatant now. Rudi looked at the glaring Mimi. "Save us that at least," he pleaded. "What am I without that."

  Albert nodded. "Nothing." The double meaning was not lost on Rudi.

  "And Aunt?"

  In the telling, he had censored his own suspicions about his mother's death. "She will keep her silence ... she has no choice."

  Rudi's eyes searched the ground. They had reached the outer edge of light and they were partly bathed in darkness.

  "At least we will go on as a family." Albert patted Rudi's arm. "And you will still have your place. That is something."

  "Please, Brother" Albert whispered. He moved his face closer to Albert's ear.

  "But I showed my courage?"

  Albert nodded.

  He saw Rudi's shoulders shake and the tears begin. Turning away, Albert started toward the castle. He could not find in himself any urge to provide consolation.

  Over the candlelit table, the flames flickered against her smooth cheekbones, giving the eyes an infinite depth. Let me drown in them, he wanted to say, certain that he would find peace there.

  During the meal they had exchanged the currency of their external lives, like a tongue probing a loose tooth. Beneath, the nerve palpitated, waiting for the flash of pain. He poured the last drop of wine from the bottle and aimed it neck down into the icy mush of the silver bucket.

  "To another dead soldier," he said, clinking her glass with his. In his innocence, he had not seen the poison at the barb's tip.

  "Must we?" she said, her mood changed. She had been gay, a girl again, responding to the immutable laws of the magnetic field between them.

  "Dammit. I meant the bottle."

  She managed to smile, but the barb had drawn warm blood. Had he spoiled it again, he wondered? All through the dinner he had been mustering his courage to persuade her to stay, but he had persisted in waiting for the perfect moment, which had not yet come.

  "Like Wolfgang," she said quietly. "I don't think I can cope with the paradox." He started to protest, to begin the old speech of justification, but she put two fingers against his lips. Holding her wrist, he kissed them.

  "Yet..." Her hesitation hinted that she was ready to cast the curtain aside. "I feel the power of the family. I feel its strength, the comfort of belonging. There is nothing more powerful than belonging. I understand Wolfgang's agony." He released her wrist, but her fingers lingered. "It is the other I can't abide, Albert." She withdrew her fingers and he watched them fold and tighten. "It is a filthy business." He said nothing in response, watching her, feeling the power of his love for her, his need, confused by the swift reaction of its chemistry. Had he known instantly? Should he distrust it?

  "It seemed so ridiculous. A von Kassel. What is a von Kassel?" She hesitated again, seeking images to explain her meaning. "Belonging is the thing that makes it all work. You belong, they have insisted to me. More important, Aleksandr belongs, because his veins flow with von Kassel blood. But the moral question persists. Does it really need that business to hold it together?"

  Moral questions? Not having the blood in him, he felt for the first time the freedom of moral choice.

  "Your father's obsession contains its own purity. Its own logic. Going along, belonging, can remove all doubt. It could give life purpose."

  He knew she was testing herself, probing inward. Then she sighed and drained her glass, shaking her head.

  "I am afraid that, like Wolfgang, I had better resist. I can't see my son as a merchant of death."

  He felt the underpinning of himself give way, but the telephone's jangle disoriented him. Her mother's instincts moved faster and the blood drained from her face as she listened, banging down the phone.

  "Aleksandr. Something is happening!"

  She moved swiftly out of the door and he followed her in the corridor and down the stairs. Her fingers fumbled with the key and he took it from her, found the slot and turned. A bulky figure moved in the darkness and Albert reached out for it, struggling, feeling hot breath and anger. It thrashed against him, falling to the floor. Reaching out, he pinioned the arms and stilled it in a hammerlock with his knees. It was a heavy form, and the perfumed clue telescoped the message, before his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness.

  "Mimi!"

  The sound of her name quieted her. She lay under him, a puffing mass of flesh. From the other room, he heard the boy's whimpering and Olga's soothing voice.

  Under him, Mimi's eyes, moist and hot, glared back. He did not have to ask why.

  "You had no right..." she hissed. "You have always tried to take it away from him. Now my girls. You have no right..." But her strength was ebbing. He released her arms and stood up. The mingling odors of her body were stultifying, unclean. She lay whimpering on the floor. A sudden light illuminated her.

  "He is all right. He thinks he has had a nightmare. Thank God." She looked at the whimpering figure on the floor.

  "Why?" Olga turned to Albert.

  So the moment had been chosen for him. As his words came, he felt the burden lift. Now she would have to share it with him, he thought, hoping she had the courage to carry the weight.

  Without a word, Rudi had eased Mimi from the floor and helped her away. Her heavy makeup had run and beneath it was revealed the sad empty face of failure. The features were beyond emotion now, catatonic. But Rudi's look in the last moment before he shut the door, spoke the contrition for both of them. Albert had understood the unspoken gesture instantly, the bond of understanding clear between them. It is all right, Brother. I understand. Everything would be as before.

  Olga had gone back to the bedroom and from the doorposts he could see her standing over Aleksandr, brushing his forehead. Then she stooped and kissed him softly. Awakening, the boy reached out and grasped her, burying his head in her soft bosom. "Mama," he heard him say. Albert turned his eyes away, the longing too painful to endure. How he wished he was that boy. He thought of his dead mother in the icy lake, that empty part of him. Shivering, he felt tears run down his cheeks.

  Turning off the light, he went to the window and stared into the darkness. The sky was cloudless and the stars of the milky way hung in a broad, infinite arc. The tears felt cold against his cheeks. Then he heard her footsteps approach him.

  He turned to hold her, feeling the length of her body against him and her soft caress against his head and cheeks, stroking him.

  "He has gone back to sleep again," she whis
pered. They stood silently together, watching the night.

  "I wanted to be him. To be Aleksandr," he said. He felt the urge to confess it, to give her this piece of himself, as if in the telling he might end the deep void in himself. She reached out and drew him toward her.

  He snuggled against her as the boy had done, filling himself with her closeness, her womanness. They said nothing. With one hand, she unbuttoned her blouse, then moved away briefly to unlatch her brassiere. Her breasts fell free against his face and he caressed them with his cheeks and lips, feeling a renewed sense of himself, a homecoming perhaps, dispelling the loneliness, the terror.

  There was no movement of time, only the comfort of her warm flesh, an infinity. He could feel the gentle brush of her breath against his ear and the soft movement of her fingers in his hair. He found in himself only the dimmest memory of what he might have felt before, understanding the boy's need and his own. Looking up, his eye isolated a single star and he wished on it as a child might do, hoping only for the endless night. He dared not move, although he felt the urgency of his manhood, the fullness of his joy.

  She must have sensed that as well, for she reached downward, finding, touching sweetly, magnetizing. Under his tongue her nipples rose, gorged with their own fullness.

  "I feel what love is now," he whispered, feeling his years fall away, the clamor of his youth. Still, she said nothing, as he quickly disencumbered himself, showing her his flesh, the engorged root of himself. She lay back ready to receive him and he moved inside of her, wanting to give her what words could not express.

  They lay for a long time together, a measure indicated only by the lightening of the sky, the beginning of the glow of morning. They dozed, stirred, entwined again and soon the outlines of the furniture became clear. Once the boy had whimpered again, and she had stood up swiftly, listening, but then the sound disappeared and she lay down again.

  "You must stay," he whispered, feeling the beat of his heart accelerate. "You must let me love you." Above all, he wanted her to say it.