Blood Ties (2 page)

"And that's your father," she had pointed again.
"The Baron."

"We are all Barons. Me. My two brothers."

"But you never use the title."

"Only when necessary."

"When is that?"

"For business, and perhaps to get a better table at a
restaurant."

She shivered lightly, pulling her silk dressing gown
closer, tighter, outlining her full breasts.

"How can you be in that business?" she had asked.
Had the thought made her shiver? He shrugged, not wanting to explain.

"Arms are a commodity like any other," he had
answered, the intonation offering finality to the probe. The complexities would
overwhelm her, he thought, his mind drifting lightly over details. Computerized
inventories. Warehouses strung out across the world. The holds of ships.
Mobility. Firepower. Tactical and strategic weapons. Vehicles. Planes.
Obsolescence. The vocabulary would merely add to her confusion.

"And your brother Rudi lives in South America?"
she had asked pointing to Rudi, a florid face, high balding forehead, the
vested paunch.

"Buenos Aires."

"And Siegfried lives in England."

"Yes."

Albert knew she was thinking how odd it was. Three brothers
scattered over the world.

"My father's hedge against chaos. He wasn't certain
what would happen to the world. So he scattered us like seeds."

"He must be mad." She had not the discipline to
keep a thought controlled. Words were always popping out. "I'm sorry. You're
not insulted?"

He chuckled. He would have substituted eccentric for mad.
But mad was more honest. He had let it pass. A frown clouded her forehead. It
was a time when even her briefest pain mattered. He had gathered her in his
arms and kissed her lips. But when they had disengaged, the frown continued. A
puzzle.

"What is it?"

"No mother?"

"She died," he answered, the old mystery
intruding briefly.

"Young?"

"Just after I was born," he had said blandly. It
still could induce pain. "Motherless waifs," he mocked. He had always
dismissed it in exactly that way. We must not dwell on it, his Aunt Karla had
admonished when the question was raised. For years he had hated his mother for
dying.

"Poor darling," she had said, shivering again. He
had imagined it was simply softness and vulnerability, qualities that roused
him. He had kissed her again, spreading the silken robe so that his mouth could
find her nipples.

But that was when Dawn had mattered. Briefly, he had
considered marriage. Defiantly, since she was a Jewess. On the sunny side of
thirty-five, he had pondered the matter in sleepless turnings with her beside
him, breathing with quiet contentment. A designer of women's clothes, with a
worldwide clientele, she had sat beside him on the plane to Paris and it had
happened to him somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. Once he could have remembered
the exact moment. The stewardess had cleared their after-dinner drinks. They
had talked nonstop for three hours by then, become intimate in the way of
casual travelers. But the intimacy had lingered.

It embarrassed him now to remember how they groped for each
other under the first class blankets, electric charged spontaneous embraces
that lasted the remainder of the trip. And after.

He had endowed Dawn then with deliciously exotic qualities,
like a rare grape that had suddenly fermented and become wine, soft to the
pallet. Yet not addicting. No woman had ever done that to him, a troubling
circumstance in itself. What then was permanent? He wanted love to last. But it
came and went, like the seasons. There had been scores of women.

It was, of course, the contemplation of marriage that had
raised the Jewish thing. The urge for possession had completely captured him
and even during the day in the midst of the most plebeian events, despite
absorbing business interests demanding his total mind, he could not erase her
from his yearning. Surely, that was love.

Yet the blood thing was so heavily programmed into him that
the guilt could not be dismissed. It was a family axiom that all von Kassels,
the great extended line of Estonian Barons, do not genetically combine with
Jews. One might, he knew, using modern values, not particularize the bigotry to
Jews alone. It extended also to Slavs, Poles, blacks, the entire conglomeration
strewn on the shores of the Mediterranean and all their offal washed up on the
beaches of the Americas, as well as Indians, red and brown. All but the Nordic,
the Germanics. His Aunt Karla was a rabid Hitlerian anti-Semite, whose late
husband, the Count von Berghoff, could be virulent on the subject, boasting of
his destructive acts against Jews. His father's prejudices were much more
institutionalized. He did not hate Jews alone. Mostly he hated all non von
Kassels. All marriages were compromises of the blood. Even Siegfried's marriage
to a girl from a titled British family and Rudi's marriage to a South American
German were merely tolerated.

The Baron père had married a Hohenzollern, his mother. But
she had died soon after he was born, providing him and his brothers with a
lifetime curiosity. Since there were no pictures of her, no possessions, not a
trace of her existence on earth, the curiosity was only natural. "She is
dead," was the Baron's only retort to their youthful questionings. But
how? Disease? Accident? Murder? She had simply expired and they must exorcise
forever the idea of her. Such was the fatherly implication and so it was.
Somehow, too, the matter of her absence was considered a fault, a betrayal of
von Kassel interests, however the circumstances of her demise. How dare she!
What was important, though, was that she had performed her single function, to
reproduce von Kassels and mix it well with Hohenzollern blood, ancient cells,
the stuff of Rulers, Kings, Knights and Barons.

Albert cursed his own weakness in bringing Dawn to the
reunion. Ironically, her ardor had multiplied as his diminished. But she would
behave herself. She had always done that. And she had, almost as an implied
bargain for a permanent future as a von Kassel, promised to keep her antecedents
to herself. She could easily do that. She was a natural blonde, blue-eyed
Jewess with a straight symmetrical nose and high cheekbones. Most people took
her for a Swede, since she looked strikingly like Ingrid Bergman. He detested
himself for allowing the implication to exist.

Seeing the castle loom above him, the Teutonic banner now
visible in sharp detail, clearly revealing the scepter and the shield, he began
to feel like a little boy again, the youngest, awed and dumbstruck in his
father's presence.

He could be brave in New York, thousands of miles distant,
manipulating the family's worldwide interests with a sure touch, ruthless and
authoritative, although the legal and spiritual reins still rested in his
father's hands. Discovering his swift, agile mind had been his father's joy
after the indifferent, rebellious Siegfried and the plodding Rudi. Accepting
the mantle of the von Kassels' business interests was natural for Albert. He
reveled in it. He had gone to Harvard Business School after an engineering
degree at Yale. He could articulate a weapons system to a prospective buyer
with expert skill. Heads of state liked him. He had learned five languages,
although sometimes he cleverly omitted his knowledge, giving him the edge over
his adversary. All customers were adversaries.

But taking the family business helm was one thing.
Accepting the caveat that only a von Kassel could share in the proceeds was, of
course, inhibiting. Not all von Kassels were efficient, the best around. His
cousin Frederick in Cairo was, in fact, a dangerous asshole. And Adolph in Hong Kong was, although brilliant, a voluptuary and a blatant homosexual. And the others,
in varying degrees, had their foibles. But they were, after all, von Kassels,
distant cousins actually, descendants of a great-great uncle who got out of Estonia with his skin years before his father. They were not, of course, in the main line
of succession.

All this was acceptable. What Albert feared most was that
his father would entrust to him the spiritual enforcement of the von Kassel
legend, the geneological stewardship of the family. To his father this was a
mania, more important than wealth, than life itself. No matter of blood or
marriage could be decided individually by any von Kassel. A birth was not merely
a birth. It was an act of membership in the von Kassel club. With it came an
awesome power that he did not want. Yet one could not lead in business matters
without accepting that burden. If he was edgy, he had good reason to be. He did
not want to abdicate. Yet, in his heart, he knew he was unworthy to be crowned.
He shook himself, hoping the image would disappear. Dawn reacted to his sudden
movement, glancing at him.

She had lit another cigarette, inhaling the smoke deeply,
flicking her long blonde hair further back from her face. They were approaching
the castle head-on now. The powerful Daimler motor strained as the road's
incline angled higher.

"It's all so damned gothic," she said, the words
coming in a hiss of smoke

"The old man summers here," he explained
patiently, knowing he had said it all before. "Says it regenerates him. It
was built by the Order."

"Ancestor worship," she snapped.

"Like the Jews."

"We don't make lampshades.... "Her words trailed
off. "Sorry darling," she said, patting his hand.

"We are Ostlanders," he said quietly. "There
is a difference."

She settled back in the seat. He understood her uneasiness.

To divert himself, he pressed a button and the glass that
separated them from Garth opened.

"Who's here?" he asked in German.

"Baron Rudi and the Baroness," he said slowly. In
Garth's world, all titles were necessary. "And the twins. The Countess von
Berghoff, of course. Baron Siegfried and the Baroness are driving from Paris. They might have arrived." He paused, a device meant to separate the classes in
the family structure. "The others are already arrived." Frederick from Cairo. Wilhelm from Zurich, Adolph from Hong Kong. He pictured their faces.

"And the Russian woman," Garth said unexpectedly.
The words were flat, but he had obviously saved it for the last.

"Who?"

"The wife of your father's brother."

"Wolfgang?" He was puzzled. They had gotten word
that he had died in Moscow. Every generation had its black sheep. There had
been some vague talk of a late marriage.

"Your father and the Countess..." Garth mumbled.
It was the shorthand of servants who are privy to secrets. That seemed odd,
Albert thought, considering the long estrangement.

"...with her kid," Garth said, the explanation
now complete. So that was it. Blood again. A von Kassel to be reclaimed. Albert
nodded, turning again to watch Dawn, who had stamped out her cigarette and was
now fussing with her face, looking into her small round compact mirror, always
a sign that they were nearing a destination.

The Daimler slowed, entering the castle grounds. The air
was clear now, the sky emerald blue without a puff of cloud in sight. Below,
the forest faded into the mist. Here, the castle appeared to be the only
habitation on earth, a self-contained world.

"They knew what they were doing when they built
this," Albert said. Dawn ignored him, concentrating on fixing her face.

The Daimler turned into a road surrounded on either side by
a brick wall, then over a wooden bridge which spanned a dry hollow, once a
moat. The bridge led to the castle façade, stretching sheer to fifty feet or
more into which was carved a huge arched entrance leading to a massive
courtyard. The car crunched over a winding gravel road which threaded through a
carefully manicured tree park to what was now the main structure. Above them
loomed the dominant watchtower, and the banner of the Teutonic Order.

Garth braked the car in the semicircle of the entrance
driveway. Two uniformed servants appeared and began collecting the baggage.

"Dungeon for two," Dawn said, stepping delicately
onto the driveway, her eyes scanning the sunlit entrance. A rotund man in a
tight morning suit stretched to its fabric's limits came toward him.

"My good Baron," he called, grasping Albert's
hand, fawning. He bowed, tossed his head and clicked his heels as he pumped
Albert's hand. Smiling, Albert watched Dawn observing this bit of stage
business.

"And this is Miss Frank," Albert said with an air
of exaggerated imperiousness. "Our manager, Hans Weissen." Again the
bow, the nod, the click of the heels, only this time the lifting of her hand to
his lips, barely touching. The acknowledgment of possession was clear. He had
not told her that the family also owned the castle. She looked up and smiled.

"So happy. Wonderful," the manager said turning to
Albert. "He looks marvelous." Albert waited for the obligatory
reminiscence. "I have known him since he was so high," Hans said.
There was a whiff of heavy scent emitting from the manager's pink skin. The
face was cherubic, the head bald, with little red-rimmed eyes like a Dutchman
in a Rembrandt painting. After he had illustrated Albert's younger size, the
dimpled hands rubbed themselves together in an attitude of cloying delight.

They followed him inside. The lobby was ornate, with stone
floors and graceful pillars stretching high into the vaulted ceiling. Suits of
armor were on display, with little legends in German at kneecap level attesting
to their authenticity as those worn by the ancient Knights of the Order. A huge
Teutonic banner hung across the entire length of the lobby.

"Uncle Albert. Uncle Albert." Squeals echoed and
reverberated in the room as two identical little girls, dressed in the
wedgewood gray uniforms of an English girls' school, round granny glasses
perched on their noses, came running to embrace him. They were chest high,
their legs like sticks in long white stockings. Embracing them identically, he
returned the gesture, kissing them on their foreheads, under their peaked caps.