The Strong City

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Aunt Emmi,” she said, very quietly. “Aunt Emmi.”

  Emmi stared at her, her face drawn and quivering. She made a motion as though to drag her arms from Irmgard’s grip. Then she was still. Tears rose to her eyes. She began to tremble.

  “Emmi!” cried Egon, forcing himself to his feet, and swaying a little. “What is it, Emmi?”

  Irmgard put her arm about her aunt’s shoulders. She regarded her uncle calmly. She even smiled.

  “The funeral, and your illness, Uncle Egon. You must understand. She is so very tired, and upset.”

  Egon embraced his wife about her waist. He felt her trembling. He leaned against her and kissed her cheek. This stark and weeping woman was no longer the strong drill-sergeant, of whom he stood in awe. This was his wife, his child, his little one. A thrill of loving power came into his feeble body, and a yearning of protectiveness.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” he murmured, almost weeping himself. “We never spare our Emmi. We rely upon her, believing she is not flesh and blood. Forgive me, my darling.”

  She turned to him, and stared at him through her blinding tears. Then she said, brokenly: “Egon.” She dropped her head to his shoulder, and sobbed aloud, with hard and tearing sobs. Irmgard released her aunt, and Egon held her to him, murmuring, smoothing her hair, kissing her cheek, comforting her. He thought himself strong, sustaining her in her troubles, giving her strength. But Irmgard knew that it was not Egon who was strong, but Emmi, bearing her agony of torment in silence, preferring anything but that he know the truth. She suffered his ministrations, because she was too exhausted to resist, and because in some way she knew that he gained some virtue from them, himself. But his comforting must have been sweet to her, for all its fragility.

  She allowed him to lead her to a chair. He sat beside her, rubbing her cold hands. Her chin dropped on her flat breast. She sat in silence, not moving, hardly seeming to breathe. Irmgard, knowing that she would not speak now, continued in the preparation of the meal. She listened to Egon’s tender brooding voice, and her eyes smarted.

  Then she was filled with fear. Would Emmi be able to control herself when Franz appeared? Would her violent anger, her grief, her pain, be too great? Almost incoherently, she suddenly spoke, in a loud clear voice:

  “Aunt Emmi, Uncle Egon and I spoke very closely when we were alone. I was not feeling very well, or happy. He said it is so necessary to have faith, even when there seems no justification for it.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Egon, eagerly, giving the girl a loving glance.

  Emmi lifted her head. Her lips parted as though she would speak, and then she gasped a little, and was silent. But her eyes fixed themselves deeply on Irmgard, with a sort of mournful contemplation.

  Finally, she rose, knelt before the stove, and inspected the baking bread within. Egon watched her with anxiety and affection, and occasionally he stretched out a timid hand and touched her gently, as though wishing to reassure her.

  Franz did not return. They waited. Then, at last, they sat down themselves to the meal.

  Will he return? thought Emmi. And the thought pinched her features, threw a dusky shadow over them. Was it possible that he might never come home, after that frightful scene in Dolly’s parlor? Had he seen his mother’s face, and understood her thoughts, heard her sickened accusation? Was he afraid that she would tell his father? For the first time, Emmi suddenly realized that if Franz loved any one, he loved Egon. Surely, if he thought she had told his father, he would not return!

  An enormous anxiety choked her breath, and she put down her fork. But he could not believe that! Then, she saw herself clearly through Franz’s eyes, saw her own ruthlessness and hardness, which she had believed was the virtue of forthrightness and honesty. He would not believe she would hold her tongue, for his father’s sake. He would believe that she would revenge herself upon him, by telling Egon. She saw now that ever since her son’s birth, she had been jealous of the attachment between him and his father, had resented it, had presented Franz, at times, in an unfavorable light, to Egon. Her criticisms of Franz were always loudest in Egon’s presence, her voice the most bitter. Was it because she saw Franz clearly, and resented Egon’s gentle tolerance and loving blindness? Or was it something more obscure, much more shameful?

  Then she thought: He is bold and brazen. He knows he has only to stand before his father, and deny everything, to be believed. Egon could not encompass such wickedness, such depravity, such slyness. Then she knew that Franz would return, and her momentary shame was forgotten in her great bitterness and grief and horror. She had never said to herself: I hate my son, and all that he is. But she knew it, now.

  All at once, hurry filled her. Egon must be gotten upstairs, in bed, before Franz’s return. She had things to say to Franz. Egon must not hear them. A fever rose in her, as she rehearsed the devastating things she would say to Franz, out of her horror and repudiation. For never had she doubted the truth of Jan Kozak’s words. Franz’s own nature, which he had ruthlessly revealed at all times to his mother, with a sort of wanton shamelessness and indecency, stamped Jan’s words with verity.

  At moments, complete horror and terror drove away her grief and despair, and she could feel nothing but hatred and a lust for revenge.

  CHAPTER 34

  Egon protested that he was perfectly well, and that he wished to see his son before going to bed.

  “Your eyes,” said Emmi, peremptorily.

  He smiled at her, with his timid gentle smile. “I fear no more for my eyes, Liebchen. I know I shall not be blind again.”

  “I think it best, Uncle Egon, if you go to bed,” said Irmgard. The sense of hurry and danger was upon her, also, and her cheek was dryly flushed. She had begun to tremble at every sound, fearful that Franz would return before his father was safely away. She knew, now, that Emmi would not keep silence, at the sight of Franz, that her control might burst, and even before Egon her cries of accusation and loathing might not be restrained. She knew, also, that of this Emmi herself was afraid, that she did not trust herself.

  Egon finally submitted to the urgings of stronger natures, and went upstairs with his old sweet resignation. Emmi put him to bed, as though he was a child. He was always my child, she thought. I have had no other. The thought made her hands tender and solicitous. She kissed him, almost with a passionate yearning, as though he were mortally threatened, and she stood between him and an appalling danger.

  She went downstairs. Her legs and body felt stiff and icy cold. Irmgard was gathering up the dishes and placing them on the iron sink. She moved gracefully, her green skirts flowing about her, her loosened hair a nimbus of light about her pale cheeks. Emmi sat down heavily in her chair, and held her head on her hand. But there was no real prostration in her attitude. Rather, it was a grim and foreboding waiting.

  Rain splattered against the windows, and the wind sucked air even from the room, so that the lamp flickered. Despite the warmth of the scarlet stove, there was a feeling in the room of desolation and abandonment, and a deathly chill. The women did not speak. Irmgard carried the copper teakettle to the sink, and washed the dishes, put them neatly away. Emmi did not move. Her wide stark eyes stared fixedly at the floor.

  Suddenly Emmi struck the table with a dull blow of her hand.

  “I cannot bear it,” she said, and her voice was loud and flat. But under the loudness and that flatness, Irmgard heard the seething of unendurable anguish, and hysteria. “My son,” said Emmi. And then again: “My son.”

  Irmgard came to her, put her hand on her aunt’s shoulder. “You have not heard him, Aunt Emmi. You cannot condemn him without a hearing.”

  Emmi looked up, very slowly, and her wide pale eyes fixed themselves inexorably on the girl.

  “You do not believe he is innocent,” she said.

  Irmgard glanced aside. She left her aunt and stood before the blank black window.

  “There are times when one must believe,” she said, very quietly. “For one’s own
sake.”

  Then, swiftly, she turned again to her aunt. Her young face was distorted with such open pain that Emmi, in spite of her own wretchedness, was startled.

  “If your son were ill of an incurable and terrible disease, you would not hate him!” she cried. “If he were covered with sores, you would not shrink from him! Do you not know there are disease and sores of the spirit, too? Why do you shrink from them? Why do you not try to heal them?”

  Emmi’s cold lips moved in faint words: “It is too late.”

  “No,” said Irmgard, and there was a cry in her voice.

  Emmi sat upright, and gazed at the girl for a long and ringing moment. Astonishment made her mouth open, become slack. Then she exclaimed: “You love him, Irmgard!” Incredulity gave her an almost imbecile look.

  Irmgard said nothing. But her white throat throbbed, and her mouth twisted, and her eyes filled with tears. Seeing this, sternness darkened Emmi’s face. She clenched the hands which lay on the table, until they became fists. Rigorous waves tightened, flexed her mouth.

  “Once,” she said, “I dreamt of a marriage between you and my son. I knew my son. It was a wicked thing I contemplated. Somewhere, in his blood, there is a foulness. I knew it. I was a fool. I thought perhaps you might help wash away that foulness, with your own blood. I was a fool! It cannot be. I cannot allow you to pollute yourself so. You dare not have his children, and bring others in the world like him. It is a wickedness to the world.”

  Then, as she saw the girl’s distraught expression, her voice became mournful, and more quiet.

  “Your father and your mother—they were good. I knew my sister. I knew your father. They would not rest in their graves, if they knew such a marriage might take place. I forbid it. I am your mother, in this country. I am your only protector. I forbid you to marry my son, and to have his children.” She added, almost inaudibly: “He would make you a foul thing, also. He would destroy you.”

  Irmgard pressed her trembling hands together, and looked at her aunt with her swimming but steadfast eyes.

  “I love him. That is all that matters to me. He might be as you say, and you must know, being his mother. But all that is nothing. I love him. If he wants me, I must go to him. I cannot do otherwise.”

  There was a click at the front door. The two women stared at each other in sudden intensity. Then Irmgard cried in a low voice: “Not in here! Uncle Egon will hear you! Let us go into the other room!”

  Emmi rose. They hurried into the cold and bitter darkness of the “living room,” with its horsehair furniture dully gleaming in the light of the lamp which Irmgard carried. The girl shivered with mingled chill and fright. She put down the lamp, and stood near it, her palms pressed convulsively together. But Emmi waited with a murderous calm, her arms folded on her flat chest.

  Franz had evidently not expected a reception committee, no matter what else he had expected, and when he entered the room, walking with a slow and hesitating step, as though he were ill or blind, he started violently when he saw the two women, his mother and his cousin.

  Then, instantly, his expression became immobile and dark, and his eyes flashed with a formidable glitter as he glanced at his mother. There was no shame in that expression, no embarrassment or remorse. But in the sudden flare of his nostrils, and the tightening of his mouth, there was a cold black hatred, naked and revealed.

  He ignored Irmgard, standing near the table, with the lamplight on her white cheeks and chin. He looked only at his mother.

  “Whatever you have to say,” he said, with slow deliberation, “I do not care to hear it. You and I have said enough to each other, for years.”

  Emmi quivered, as though she had been struck. But she stood, after that first quivering, unmoved and unfrightened. Only a little of what she felt appeared in the ghastly tautness of her face.

  “Liar,” she said. “Murderer. Thief.” Her voice was quiet, even calm.

  “No!” cried Irmgard, suddenly, twisting her hands together in unendurable pain. “You must not speak to each other like this! It is not possible! It is a nightmare.”

  For the first time, then, he turned to her, and the stony lines of his mouth softened, and the glitter of his eyes became milder.

  “This is no place for you, cousin,” he said, almost gently. “Will you leave?”

  She began to cry, though she was silent, and did not move. He saw the tears running helplessly over her face. He bit his lip, and averted his head.

  “She will stay,” said Emmi, in a deadly voice. “She has told me she loves you. And I have told her that I forbid any marriage, any association with you. You are not my son. You are a foulness. You are a monster.”

  Then he smiled, and at that smile, Emmi quivered again, with intense suffering. Irmgard laid her hand on her arm.

  “You do not mean that, Aunt Emmi,” she murmured pitifully. “He is your son. You are his mother. Do not speak so. It will be such a bitter memory.”

  Emmi flung off the girl’s hand with a violent gesture, and Irmgard knew then how false her calm had been, and how terrible were the emotions that were assaulting her.

  “Perhaps you are right,” said Franz, in a hypocritically meditative voice. “You are my mother. You must know all about that foulness. It must be in you, also. We are of one blood. We are the same. You must be the judge of whether Irmgard dare become your daughter.”

  Deathly sickness glared from Emmi’s eyes. Irmgard put her hands over her face, as though she could not endure the sight of this woman and her son, facing each other with such hatred and detestation, and, she knew, suffering.

  “It is not possible for me to remain in this house,” Franz went on. “The time has come when we must never see each other again. We understand each other too well. Accident turned your mind to what you call noble ideals. The same mind in myself, which I inherited from you, has made me despise your hypocrisy, your willingness to blind yourself to reality. I do what I must do, just as you do what you must do. We have always been in conflict. We have always hated each other, because we could not deceive each other. Therefore, I must go.”

  Emmi was silent. She hardly seemed to hear. She stood rigidly before her son, with her folded arms, but in spite of this rigidity, this inexorable posture, she gave the impression of mortal disintegration and crumbling.

  Irmgard dropped her hands from her face with a sudden wild gesture of despair.

  “You cannot go, Franz! Your father—he is ill. He can work no more. Your mother and he have decided to leave this city, to buy a little house, a farm, where he can have peace. You cannot desert him, yet!”

  Franz listened, and his expression changed to one of gravity. “My father,” he said, reflectively, and his voice was even a little sad. “No, I suppose he must not know of this—conversation, and the accusations. You are right, Irmgard,” he added, and his eyes smiled at her gently. “I will remain here, until he leaves.”

  Then he said, quickly: “His illness—what is it?”

  Irmgard sighed, and the sigh seemed to come from her heart. “It is a sickness of the mind, Franz. He cannot endure his life.”

  Franz smiled cynically, threw his mother an evil glance. “No wonder,” he said, thoughtfully. All at once, he laughed, and Irmgard was sickened at the sound. He pointed at his mother, but he looked at Irmgard.

  “Let me tell you, my cousin. This woman has made my father’s life a hell. In pursuit of what she would call her ‘dreams,’ she wrenched him from his little quiet place in the Fatherland, where he had peace. The Fatherland was too small for her, too sensible, too conservative. It had no ‘freedom,’ no ‘ideals,’ no ‘hope.’ But the truth was that it had no place for her ambitions, for her egotism, for her dream of self-aggrandizement and arrogance. She has never confessed it, but she wanted money—”

  “That is not true!” cried Irmgard, outraged. Again, she put her hand on Emmi’s iron arm. The poor woman did not move. Her eyes were fixed in a stony and deathlike look on her son’s face.
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br />   Franz nodded, with smiling ferocity. “Yes, it is true, though perhaps she does not know it, herself. But she had heard that America was rich. That is the dream that drove her. Had she become rich in America, she would not be so bitter against this country, nor so full of angry condemnations. She would have forgotten her noble dreams, which were only self-deception to cover her real passion. Like myself, she wanted power and riches. I have been honest about it. She has been dishonest. That is the only difference between us. She will say that I sacrificed many things. Even my—friends,” and for a moment his expression changed. Then he continued, implacably: “She sacrificed my father, who loves her. In that sacrifice, she drove him to France, and to England. She will tell you that she found ‘nothing,’ there, and will give you the impression that the ‘dream’ had died in those countries. But the real reason for her accusation is that she found no opportunity to become rich in France and England. So—we came to America. I am glad. We were both driven by the same desire. She has failed. I shall not fail.”

  He paused, then in a louder voice, he said “I shall not fail. There is everything here, for the taking. I shall take. I am a man, and she is only a woman. She has sacrificed much, but it is not enough. I shall sacrifice everything.”

  “Everything?” whispered Irmgard. “Even me?”

  She half extended her hands to him, and he could hardly bear the sweetness and misery of her look. He touched her outstretched fingers lightly with his own.

  “Not you, love,” he said. “I do not need to sacrifice you.”

  For a moment they forgot the silent and suffering woman who stared so blindly before her, at her son.

  “You do not believe the thing of which I am accused?” he asked, and his eyes struck into hers sharply, as though daring her to believe.

  She looked at him with her level and tear-filled eyes.

  “I cannot believe,” she answered, simply, and her lips became whiter than ever, in her anguish.