‘There was much I didn’t know, either. I can’t condone what the Germans did, but—oh, God, what the Americans did—’ She looked out the window at the rubbled street. ‘This was retaliation above and beyond—’
She had not tasted her torte and he gently pushed her plate to her. ‘Bombs are never a solution. That is true. But we Germans, with our poisonous religion, caused all this devastation.’
‘Religion?’
‘Oh, yes, believe me, religion. You went to see a cardinal? Do not ever look for help in religion. It is all a lie, a diseased deceit.’ For a moment the tension of lines drawn between nose and mouth reminded her of Justin, despite Justin’s fine-boned darkness and von Hilpert’s muscular fairness. ‘I embraced the Nazi religion with all my soul. I believed that we were building a better, purer world, and that I was part of this army of holy people. You find this amusing?’
‘Not amusing at all.’
He leaned across the table toward her. ‘Katherine—unlike the majority of my fellow countrymen I cannot pretend, now that the war is over, that nothing really happened, nor that I, myself, am unchanged, and we can pick up and go on as before. I cannot pretend, to myself, or to you, that I had no personal responsibility whatsoever for all that happened, even the things I did not know about.’ A slight smile eased the severity of his face. ‘Eat,’ he urged. ‘I knew that we were working on the atom bomb, and I knew what was involved. We would have used it just as ruthlessly and stupidly as you did. When you are a religious fanatic, the cause of your religion is all that matters, not human life.’
Again she looked out the window, shuddering at the devastation of a block of buildings shattered and gutted by bombs and fire. ‘This—all this outside—is nothing in comparison to Hiro—’ She broke off, swallowing painfully, and took a sip of her coffee.
He cleaned up some last chocolaty crumbs. ‘I am grateful that we did not get the atom bomb first. But it is a burden on the conscience of all humankind.’ He laughed, an unamused, angry snort. ‘I talk like this and eat cake.’
She took, then, a bit of her pastry.
‘Religion is a virus, virulent, deathly. It is a lesson I had to learn the hard way, and at the expense of many other people.’
‘What are you doing now?’ She closed her eyes briefly against the surrounding destruction.
‘I manage a number of theatres, not only here, in Munich, but in other cities. I am the manager, in fact, of the hall in which you have played, but I thought it best not to make myself known to you.’
‘So it was you who sent me the roses in the lovely crystal bowl!’
‘You liked them?’
‘I was overwhelmed. A bowl like that is not what one expects from the usual manager.’
‘You kept it?’
‘Wasn’t I supposed to?’
‘But of course.’
‘I love it. I take it with me whenever I travel. Thank you.’
A crisply uniformed waitress—all uniforms in Germany tended to be crisp, she thought—offered them more coffee from a large silver pot. Behind her came a waiter, also crisp, with a bowl of whipped cream and more pastries. Katherine accepted the coffee and cream, ‘but nothing more to eat, please.’
‘You have been to the Heiliggeistkirche?’ von Hilpert asked.
‘No.’ The coffee was fragrant and tasted almost as good as it smelled. ‘I’ve never had time when I’ve been here.’
‘Well, then.’ He smiled, as though deliberately moving out of darkness. ‘We must go, so that you can see the ten original Maruska dancers which Erasmus Grasser carved in wood for the town hall—I think you do not have other plans? We will not talk of horrors but of art; of creation, not destruction.’
They spent the rest of the afternoon together, until the museum closed, and then he asked, ‘Where are you staying?’
‘The Vier Jahreszeiten.’
‘When are you returning to Paris?’
‘My husband doesn’t expect me till after the weekend.’
‘Then you will have dinner with me?’
If she had dinner with him she would not have to see the cardinal. ‘But don’t you—’
‘My dear, any plans I might have had—and I assure you that in fact I had none—would be unimportant in comparison with this opportunity to spend an evening with you. I have wanted, when you have played in Germany, to get in touch with you, to do more than send you flowers as any anonymous manager may do, but I have considerably less assurance than I did. How would Madame Vigneras respond to a message from her erstwhile jailer, her enemy? But I am not your enemy now.’ Again his face contorted into an unhappy grimace. ‘My children are confused because West Germany is such a good friend of the United States, and why, when, as they say, we were at war with the United States? And why is the United States quarreling with Russia, when they were allies during the war? Friend, foe, it is all on paper; people, human beings, are shoved around for the sake of power and greed. Power. I believed in it once.’
‘When you were commander of the prison.’
He slapped the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. ‘I used up all my believing then. Now—I believe only that this day is good because chance sent you blundering into my path, and you are being kind to me. That is enough to believe. I believe what your music says when you are playing. Isn’t that enough?’
‘Yes, it is enough.’
‘And—’ He smiled at her. ‘You went to see a cardinal and he was not there?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are religious? I have offended you?’
‘No. I am not religious.’
‘Then why would you need to see a cardinal?’
‘He is a friend—a lover of music—’
‘Sorry, I can see that you do not wish to talk about it. Above all things, I do not want to hurt you, and if you care about the Church—’
She stretched her fingers. ‘I play the piano. Wolfi—the cardinal—came to one of my concerts, and we became friends, through music.’
‘You are still a child, and I am hurting you, and I do not wish to hurt this beautiful child.’
‘I am not a child.’
‘You have a child’s vulnerability. Come. I’ll take you back to your hotel, and I’ll come for you at seven.’
7
She bathed, changed, then picked up the phone. The cardinal had said he would call her at seven. If she did not call him first, he would call her, and not finding her might well call Justin. She did not want a search party out for a missing pianist.
His secretary was put on the phone. ‘Yes, Madame Vigneras. The cardinal said I was to get hold of him if you called. Please wait.’
It was so long before the cardinal came on the line that she was on the verge of hanging up. Then she heard his warm tones. ‘Katherine, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting for so long. May I come?’
‘No—’
‘To talk—’
She shook her head at the phone. ‘No, Wolfi. I don’t know what Justin was thinking of, or you. I can’t just go to bed with someone in order to get pregnant, and then say goodbye and thank you very much. I can’t—I can’t make love without being involved with the—the—’
‘But, Katherine, we are involved. We’ve been making spiritual love for a long time.’
‘You’ve been making it with Justin, too, then.’
‘But of course. That is why this would be so right, for you to bear a child for Justin by me.’
She shook her head at the blind instrument again. ‘No. Wolfi, you are a priest, a cardinal—’
He spoke patiently. ‘I know. I would not enter into this lightly, or at all, believe me, if it did not seem so—so arranged in heaven.’
‘No.’ And then, slowly, ‘I would be involved with you in a different way. Our friendship has been more important to me than I can say. But this—it would be a completely different kind of involvement. I couldn’t just make love with you and get pregnant and go back to Justin and then never—never
—’
‘Of course not. That was not what I had in mind.’
Her throat felt constricted. ‘How could Justin suggest this? How could he think I could just go to bed with someone with nothing but pregnancy on my mind?’
‘Kinderlein.’ The cardinal was again the priestly father. ‘I doubt if Justin was able to think it through that clearly. He is simply crying out of his own pain. Do you realize how devastating this is for him?’
She replied stiffly, ‘Yes, I think I do.’
‘You are a woman. There is no equivalent in a woman’s body. This intractable integrity is pride on your part.’
Where, before, had her integrity been something to be accused of? In her pain she could not remember. She did not have any feeling of pride, only of being battered.
The cardinal continued, ‘You can perhaps guess at what he is feeling, but you cannot understand. You cannot understand his desperate need to have you give him a child of your body, to call his own.’
She could not talk any more. She murmured, ‘I’m sorry, Wolfi, I’m sorry,’ and hung up.
But she did give Justin the child he wanted. Not the cardinal’s child—Lukas’s.
8
After dinner Lukas looked at her, saying, ‘We need each other. I think, for tonight at least, you need me as badly as I need you. I do not ask why. I do not need to know. But you need me.’
They walked in the direction of her hotel, his arm protectively around her. ‘Shall we stop at a drugstore?’ Lukas suggested.
She did not need to ask him to explain. ‘I am prepared.’ Prepared for what? To become pregnant. She did not like deception, Justin’s, the cardinal’s, her own. But she was tangled in it. She said, ‘Lukas, you talk about your children. What about your wife?’
‘My wife.’ His voice was flat. ‘Perhaps my wife, staying with my wife, is a small reparation for—oh, for the French school where you were prisoner. It is my wife’s house we live in. I love her parents—how ironic that is—I love my children. But my wife is a self-centered hypochondriac, incapable of loving anything except her own imagined illnesses. I am always grateful that my work takes me to many cities. I stay away as much as possible. When I am at home I am with my children. My wife does not sleep in the same room with me, much less the same bed. You need not feel that you are taking anything from her.’
‘I’m sorry. After you promised not to ask me anything.’
‘I ask you nothing.’
He was tender, gentle.
Justin’s lovemaking had been frantic, almost violent, as if in some kind of anguished premonition. She had been excited as their love exploded with brilliant fireworks, almost frightened. She had responded to the urgency without realizing that such a pitch of passion could not be sustained.
Lukas brought her slowly up to the heights.
In the morning, he said, ‘My parents-in-law have a small castle in the mountains. We will go there for the weekend.’
‘But your parents-in-law—how can—’
‘They love me. They understand. I stay with my wife for their sake as much as for the children. I do not absolve myself of all blame for my wife’s condition; they do.’
More than one night with Lukas was needed … ‘Yes.’
He kissed her gently, murmuring, ‘Katherine, I do not pretend to know what sent you fleeing to Munich, and I do not want to know. All I want is to rejoice in this beauty. When I was your jailer I was too bound up in ideologies, and zeal for conversion, to be human. And I had had, after all, an adolescent crush on your mother. I want to reassure you that your mother in no way comes between us. It is you I want, you.’
She pressed her cheek against the springing gold hair on his chest, so different from Justin’s softer black. ‘I know.’ There was no question.
He stroked her slowly and rhythmically. ‘I know, too, that when this weekend is over, we will not see each other again. Not this way.’
How did he know? What did he know?
His hand stilled as he stated, ‘You are in love with your husband.’
‘Yes. I always will be.’
“All right. No questions. For whatever reason I am being given this gift, I accept it with incredible joy. And yet—’ His hand began to move again. ‘Somehow, even when it would have seemed the most impossible, when you rejected me in prison, and you were right to do so, I always knew that one day this would happen.’
9
They drove for half a day, and then took a miniature train.
‘There are no cars in the village where the Schloss is.’
‘What is it called?’ she asked.
‘Let it be nameless. A fairy-tale village, with a castle of dreams. I must warn you—it is very small—it hardly bears the name of Schloss—but it is old and beautiful and I love it.’
They were greeted with deference by an elderly couple who came out from the small cottage that served as gatehouse. Was this where Lukas came with his—
As though reading her, he said, ‘I come here often with the children, for skiing in winter, hiking in summer. And we are always here for Christmas. We have a great tree, and it is like the first act of the Nutcracker.’
He brought her a heavy shawl. ‘It is colder here than in Munich. If you need anything else, my mother-in-law’s clothes will fit you.’ They walked through the winter-bare woods, the trees just starting to soften against a pearly sky. They slept in a vast four-poster bed. He asked her if she was taking precautions, and again she replied, ‘I am prepared.’
The elderly couple fed them, mostly with vegetables from the root cellar, or from the pantry filled with canning jars, and with their own wine from the damp, cool cellars. They drew her bath, laid out her clothes, clucked over her with loving approval, and she was grateful.
The prison on the outskirts of Paris had been the darkness of nightmare. This was the golden light of fairy tale. While it was happening, it was forever; there was no time.
And then it was over.
Lukas put her on the train and then walked swiftly away.
She did not cry on the train, not until she got back to Paris, to her husband, and then she hid her tears, did her utmost not to let him see that she was in deep depression. She had been right when she had cried out to the cardinal that she could not sleep with someone in order to get pregnant and then forget it. During that intense weekend at the Schloss she had, in fact, fallen in love with Lukas, and the knowledge that it was over, that she would probably never see him again, seemed intolerable. When she worked at the piano she saw the music room in the Schloss where she had played for Lukas on a square rosewood piano with a light, sweet tone. Resolutely (like a heroine in a Victorian novel, she thought bitterly) she would push the images away. She and Justin went on a brief tour through Scandinavia, and that helped. When they returned she went to the doctor, who confirmed that she was pregnant. When she told Justin he exclaimed, ‘So that’s why you’ve been so moody!’ He was radiant at the news. How could he be? But he was. ‘We must call Wolfi,’ he said.
She asked, calmly, ‘Does he know that we—that we are doing—this?’
‘Of course,’ Justin said. ‘I tell Wolfi everything.’
And what would the Wolf have told Justin? ‘You call him.’
‘He will want to talk to you, too.’
‘No. I can’t. Not about this. This is—private—between you and me.’
‘But Wolfi will be the godfather.’
‘You talk to him. I can’t.’
He put it down to the kind of aberration to be expected of a pregnant woman. When he dialed the operator she left the room, left the house, and walked for an hour.
Gradually Lukas receded from the forefront of her mind. She did everything in her power to feel that the life within her belonged only to herself, to (but how?) Justin.
10
“Katherine!”
Abruptly she returned to the present, to New York, to Tenth Street.
“Where on earth were you?”
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Mimi was standing by the bed, holding alcohol and lotion. “I had a phone call from a colleague in Detroit which kept me so long I was sure you’d given up on me.”
“No, I’d never do that, Mimi.”
“You were certainly off in space somewhere. I had to call you three times before I could get you away from wherever you were.”
“Not so much space as time. I told you I’d come home to come to terms with my memories.”
Mimi turned off the lights by the bed, leaving only the reading lamp by the chaise longue to hold back the shadows. Katherine relaxed under the strong, competent hands. She was no longer remembering, or thinking; she was content to let the tensions flow from her body, to enjoy the comforting movement of the sure fingers. Sleepily she asked, “Do you know the garden-apartment tenants?”
Mimi’s hands slowed, then continued, “By sight. They’ve only been here a year. I doubt if I’ve spoken more than a few words with them. Why do you ask?”
Still sleepily, Katherine murmured, “I was wondering why Emily Davidson called him—Terry Gibson—a turd.”
“Emily, like me, tends to make snap judgments. I would guess that, like me, she’s usually right, but not always. Gibson strikes me as a total Establishment type, striding along with his briefcase, concerned about making money and his male macho image and not much else. Not Emily’s type.”
“I’d like to have seen her dance the Nutcracker.”
“I did,” Mimi said. “She was stunning. She knocked your breath away and then melted your heart. Now be quiet. You’re waking up and I want you to go to sleep.”
Katherine relaxed, letting all her muscles loosen, and sliding into a dream of Emily dancing, and being pursued by the giant rodents from the ballet. When the phone rang, her limbs jerked in shock.
“The world breaks in again.” Mimi reached for the phone and handed it to Katherine, who rolled over to take the receiver.
“Hello.”
“So the famous Madame Vigneras is up to her old tricks again!” a voice said. “We know what you are doing right now, you and the great Dr. Oppenheimer. You may think that you are better than other people, but we know that you are worse, and what you are up to, and you cannot hide from us—”
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