Blood Ties (21 page)

It came, like an unneeded punctuation mark in the middle of
a sentence. Actually, she was changing channels and the name von Kassel barked
out at her, caught her attention, and she turned the channel selector quickly
back to the voice that had said it. There was a picture of the Baron, older
now, looking at her through those lusterless eyes that seemed fixed with the
final glare of rebuke, the last look she had had of him. A voice was talking
about arms sales, referring to mysterious doings, describing vast enterprises
vaguely echoing what she had once heard, information passed into the air like
smoke, quickly dissipated, then disappeared. But what the voice was saying had
less of an impact than the pictures. Her husband, pictured older, a grainy
presence in a news film. Then another face, remotely familiar, the shape of the
head, the eyes and nose, faintly like Konrad's. And her own lips and chin, a
shape that retrieved her former vanity. Her mind was snapping photographs.
Albert Kassel, the voice said. Then the picture of her grown son disappeared
and, in its place, a huge building in New York, Park Avenue, a familiar
skyscraper with mirrored windows, the camera washing swiftly up its sides and
pausing near the top, then honing in. From here, the voice said, the brilliant
young scion runs a vast enterprise. The information faded as she snapped the
window in her lens and her heart pounded as if the fuse had reached that point
in her, sparking the palpitation, and renewing the surge of life.

Old images crowded her mind. Reunion, the announcer said.
The old Baron was ailing. Family tradition. A gathering of the family every
three years at the Schellenburg castle in Westphalia, built by the Knights of
the old Teutonic Order. Now the reunion would be held six months earlier to
deal with the realities of succession. She listened, remembered. Was this the
signal she had waited for?

Then the voice passed to other names and she contemplated
the photos in her mind, the details of that hated face. The face of her
youngest son, now grown, stirred little warmth. Hesitation disappeared. The
time bomb had ticked, finally, to the zero hour. Once again, Helga arranged
that her money be forwarded to a Frankfurt bank. The value of the stipend,
ruined by inflation, had made her penurious, and she had been saving, living
frugally. She applied for her passport. When it came she withdrew her entire
account, booked a ticket to Germany, packed her meager belongings into a
battered suitcase and with barely a look back toward the land of her exile
huddled in her bit of paid space on the airliner. Her thoughts absorbed her and
the face of the Baron hung in the air in front of her, an apparition,
beckoning. It was time at last.

Helga looked again into the mirror, hanging slightly awry
over the battered chest. The glass seemed overlayed by a thousand images,
fading one upon another like stacked cards, the last image her own, perhaps a
Queen of Spades, the old maid, odd woman out. The face was bruised by time, the
once lovely lips melted out of alignment, a red lipsticked gash now. The eyes
were ringed with yellow fat, dripping tallow above chickeny skin below. Did
they still glow blue? Like a tropical sky, her mother had said.

She picked up the phone and asked for the Baron's suite.
Karla's voice answered, strong, imperious, belying the wizened face she had
seen the night before.

"I must see him now," she said.

"The parapet," Karla had commanded.

"Where?"

"Take the elevator to the top floor. It is a promenade
now."

Even hatred paled beside reality. Perhaps she had made a
mistake, she wondered. Who were these people? Was it better, more satisfying,
to live with her hate? That, at least, was sustained, comforting.

Again, she shook off her hesitation, moving quickly to the
elevator, pressing the top button. The shaft had been the castle's water tower,
and she found herself at the top in a blaze of sunlight. A strong breeze
whipped across the stone barrier, once both the vantage and defensive wall of
the castle's feudal occupants. Above her, the banner of the Old Order whipped
pugnaciously in the wind.

The barrier was well over her head on the outside wall with
arched windows cut into it. The inner wall, which snaked around the interior
courtyard, was only waist high. A promenade had been created and boxed flowers
lined the way.

The path was gravelled and she heard Karla's tread before
the aged figure turned the corner. She wore a coat and shawl over her head
against the cold.

Helga waited as the old woman came toward her. Karla had
always been a pervasive presence, as cold as the castle stone. The old hate,
rekindled, restored her courage.

"Well now, Helga. It was a long way to come,"
Karla said, unwinded by the walk. It seemed so casual a remark, such as one might
speak to a servant.

"Yes," Helga answered, determined to keep her own
eyes fixed on Karla's. But it was not meant to be. Karla had paused briefly for
her first words, then moved along the promenade, Helga following abreast. Again
she was following them, their lead. An incipient anger began to rise in her.
She felt her face flush. But the rush of blood seemed to clear her mind.

"We are going to meet him?" Helga asked,
determined to keep her voice from trembling.

"He is very frail. He is sleeping."

"Then we will wake him."

Karla continued to walk. The sun was rising. The Teutonic
banner continued to whip noisily in the wind. When they passed an arched
window, the breeze struck sharply.

"Is it more money, Helga?" Karla asked. The
silence had actually been brief in time, but long in suspense. Of course, they
would think of that first, Helga thought.

"There is never enough money," she said
cautiously. She was too used to the strategy of survival to close that door.

"So you came for more?" Karla said, looking straight
ahead. They rounded another corner.

"I'll tell him," Help said.

"But I can easily take care of the money."

"Yes. I know." The scenario of confrontation was
never clear in her mind. She had expected resistance.

"Really, Helga. There is no need to disturb him about
this. No need at all. You did not have to take such a long journey."

"I didn't come for money," she said. "Not
specifically."

Karla ignored the qualification.

"Frankly, Helga, I'm surprised that you haven't come
sooner. The sum we fixed thirty years ago seems paltry today. So how much
should we arrange for?" She paused now, looking into Helga's face. But
Helga had found her full courage. Her own eyes did not waver as she forced
herself to stare back, unblinking. Karla's eyes moved first, downward, then she
began to walk again. Helga noted the sudden fear with excitement. She felt her
nostrils quiver. Is this the smell of blood?

"I am here for other reasons," she said.

"Oh. What can they be?" She was taking refuge now
in sarcasm, another sign of fear.

"I will tell him." Helga felt the power of
herself, for the first time. She was tempted to tell Karla, but she was
determined not to dissipate the effect.

"Tell him what?" Again Karla had paused. Age had
not diminished her arrogance.

"It is a business between him and me," Helga said
sharply now. There was another long pause. Gravel crunched under their feet.

"Why?" Karla sighed. "It was all so long
ago. What does anything matter now? He is fragile, failing. He probably won't
live out the year. What is so important that it must be said now? It is nearly
over." There was more than the hint of pleading. It is a sham, Helga
warned herself, remembering her youth. Karla never pleads, never pleaded.

"It is not over for me."

"But it has no point. I can handle everything. Why
rake over old ashes?"

"You don't see it, do you?" Helga asked. Of
course, she saw it. But they were fencing now. It is a feint, she smirked
inwardly, feeling joyful at Karla's discomfort. Finally, Karla stopped, turning
again.

"Go away, Helga. Name your price. Only go away."

"Not until I see him."

"It will kill him."

"What will?"

Behind the falling mask, Helga saw the fear. Konrad's face
superimposed itself suddenly in her mind. He was smiling.

"There is no need for this, Helga. No need at all.
Besides, your sons think you are dead. Think of them."

"Why?"

"Perhaps we have abused you, Helga," Karla said,
her voice tight. "But you've found a new life, too. At the time it was
necessary. You did, after all, betray us."

"Us?"

"Him. You betrayed him. But it was the family that was
also betrayed. Your sons. Certainly you did not expect to go unpunished."

"I was punished."

"We provided for you."

"We?"

Karla's eyes flickered, misting lightly, revealing the pain
beneath. It warmed her to see it.

"I will see him and nothing you do or say will stop
me."

"Helga, in the name of God."

"God?" She felt her smile begin, then broaden.
"Since when do the von Kassels believe in God? This is a futile
conversation, Karla. Either you let me see him or I will see him myself. I am
no longer the stupid little princess that you can toss away with an empty
promise. I am here to finish the charade."

"Charade?"

"To tell the truth."

"But what will you say to him?" she persisted.
There was no pretense now.

"Things," she said.

Karla's face showed the ultimate von Kassel look of
contempt. It was an image that had never faded from her mind.

"The von Kassels are everything," Karla said, the
voice angered now, the words delivered between fixed lips. "Think of your
sons."

"You took my sons from me years ago."

"You gave them up."

"They were stolen."

She could see the beginnings of exasperation. Karla was not
used to rebellion.

"You are a sad little beast!" Karla hissed.

"It is a condition I have lived with for many
years," she said, proud of her retort. Helga watched as the old woman
brought herself under control. Her face took on an ashen look and the flesh
went slack.

"I could provide millions." It was the final
surge, the last battle. "You must understand...."

She watched for a long moment. Karla's words came. But she
had by then willed her ears not to hear. She concentrated only on the Teutonic
banner snapping overhead. She felt a giggle begin. Perhaps they would give her
the banner as the spoils of her impending victory.

"I must see him now," she said firmly.

"All right," Karla whispered, the voice now as
aged as the flesh. "Just a little time. An hour. Let him have his rest. An
hour. Here?"

Helga nodded, watching the old woman turn and move away, a
beaten figure, hunched and drawn together.

Suddenly the old anxieties returned. She stood now,
watching the empty promenade, a lone guard waiting for the enemy's return. For
a moment she felt again like the empty-headed little princess, frightened,
alone, bested by the von Kassel power. Never again, she vowed. She would make
sure the fuse was lit.

Siegfried lay on the unmade bed mulling over the events of
the morning meeting in his father's suite. The eternal sibling tug-of-war. He
had always been amused by the futile competition waged by brother Rudi. Nothing
the poor fellow had ever done could excel over Albert. Physically
uncoordinated, mentally sloppy, whiney, runny-nosed, Rudi was absurdly
inadequate.

But seeing him this morning, he seemed the perfect model of
a modern von Kassel, and the previous cherished picture disintegrated. No moral
baggage in this fellow. No sense of sin, original or otherwise. No second
thoughts as to who he was, what he represented. While Albert bubbled and fumed
with very un-von Kassel-like inhibitions, a Hamlet walking the dreary halls of Elsinore, Rudi was as sure of himself as a perfectly aimed arrow.

In a way, the issue of the plutonium seemed distant from
the heart of the issue. What, after all, did it matter? He felt no special
concern for humanity. Here was the ultimate technology of destruction. Why
split hairs over it? Albert was simply having a sudden attack of conscience. He
knew the illness well, despite his brother's attempt to disguise it.

He got up and went to the toilet. While he peed, he looked
at his shriveled organ. Good old Mr. Bone. Whatever else might fail, not you.
Pleasure was all there was. Pleasure. Orgasm. Ecstasy. He wondered suddenly if
Albert suspected.

Through the window, he could see Olga sitting on a bench,
the same one behind which he and Dawn had fornicated the night before.
Fornication was always a point of reference. It marked even the exact moment of
his proposal of marriage with Heather. He had her bent over in the commodious
stall of the big speckled stallion. They had been doing it exactly like the
horses and she moaned and groaned while the stallion neighed. He hung spent
over the angled form, and then popped the question. She gave a cute little wave
of her bottom in affirmation and he uncoupled to provide the obligatory seal of
the conventional kiss, while the long graceful neck of the stallion nodded
approval.

He continued to observe Olga. At the other end of the
green, near the forest's edge, her son and the twins seemed to be playing a
variation of hide-and-seek. Suddenly Albert appeared and sat beside her. There
was no question about his interest. He wondered if Dawn might be watching.

The telephone rang. He heard a stranger's voice, vaguely
familiar in intonation.

"Siegfried?"

"Yes."

There was a long pause. He wondered if the phone had gone
dead.

"Are you alone?" the voice said. He had heard it
somewhere before.

"Only me," he responded, shrugging, mildly
curious.

"I must see you," the voice continued. He caught
the edge of anxiety in it, recalling the same urgency he had heard the night
before. It was the voice of the odd woman in the lobby. He remembered his
aunt's surrender, the woman's persistence.

"Now?"

Again the voice hesitated. He could hear her breathing. He
looked about the room and shrugged. It was nearly time for the family luncheon,
although attendance was not obligatory. Only tomorrow's picnic would be a
command performance, the centerpiece of the reunion.

"All right," he said, his curiosity piqued. It
had been, after all, a mildly diverting mystery.

"I'll be there in a moment. Thank you." He sensed
her gratitude and smiled.

But it was the "thank you" that deflected the
humor. Thank me. For what? He went into the sitting room and poured himself a
whiskey, gulping it down, then refilled the glass. She was at the door faster
than expected, a firm quick knock. There was no hesitation.

She stood there, face paint harshly applied over bloated
flesh, the hair frizzy with a shelf of hanging bangs over her forehead. The
clothes might have come from a musty attic. Seedy was the operative description
that popped into his mind. Weathered by life, he decided. What did she want of
him? It was always amusing to him to be singled out for petition by people who
wanted things from the von Kassels.

She had been pretty once, he suspected. A handkerchief
peeked from a balled fist. On her left hand she wore a narrow gold wedding
band.

With exaggerated gallantry, he pointed to a chair and she
settled into it primly, as if she might be frightened to take up too much room.

"Drink?" he offered perfunctorily. He was
surprised when she accepted a whiskey.

Her eyes watched him as he poured. He handed it to her and
she took it with knobby arthritic fingers, drinking it quickly. He sat opposite
her, crossed his legs and smiled.

"Cheers," he said raising his glass and sipping.
"So," he said, settling back, a spectator waiting with eagerness for
the mystery to unfold, sublimely uninvolved. Her eyes searched his face. A thin
smile emerged on her blurred, rouged lips.

"I can still picture you as a baby," she said. So
she is an old nurse, he speculated. He had hoped it was something more exotic.
It was not the first time he had been confronted by an old nurse. How boring!
An old mistress from a teen-age peccadillo would have been so much more
exciting. He had known a whole sequence of older married women when he was in
his teens, now all fiftyish, fat-titted.

"Was I all pink and dimpled and cheesy smelling?"

"Yes." A glint of sunlight caught the deep
blueness of her eyes, vaguely familiar.

"You are an old nurse of mine?" he asked, sipping
again.

"I suppose you might say that." She was twisting
the handkerchief in her fingers now. She is about to ask for something
important to her, he decided. Probably money. They always wanted money.

"From Baden-Baden?" he asked, with indifference.
He was sorry she had come.

"Yes. From Baden-Baden." He wondered when she
would get on with it.

"I'm sorry. I have no recollection. We were packed off
early. I went to England." The story of his early life was well rutted,
but he declined to provide her with all the details.

"There is nothing about me you remember?"
Straightening in the chair, she seemed to be posing.

"Not remotely." A hint of disdain had crept into
his tone.

She sighed, twisted the handkerchief, looked about the
room. He wondered if she were about to cry. But when she turned back to him her
blue eyes were dry.

"You were only four. How could you possibly remember?
It was more than thirty-five years ago."

"Oh. You were one of the early ones." Siegfried
drained his glass. "There seemed a procession or a year or two, after
mother died. Father was never quite pleased. There were lots of new
faces." Servants were never trusted, always rotated in those days. There
were always strange faces.

"You have no recollection of your mother?" the
woman asked. Her attitude seemed suddenly sardonic. She had no right to such
private questioning.

"None at all," he said casually. He was suddenly
uncomfortable. He had not expected to be probed like this.

"But where is her grave?" A child's voice, his
own, intruded, increasing his irritation.

"Estonia," Aunt Karla had replied. "Von
Kassels are all buried in Estonia." It was an acceptable explanation. How
could they remember, anyway? There was not a single picture of her anywhere.

"She was a Hohenzollern," he said, further
irritated with himself for acknowledging the family obsession, his principal
detestation. Annoyed, he rose and poured himself another whiskey. He did not
offer her any.

"Did they tell you how she died?" Bottle poised,
he held it in mid-air. Turning too quickly, he spilled a trickle of liquid on
the carpet.

"Why are you asking me all these questions?" he
snapped. "What is it you want?" Why am I so touchy about this, he
wondered. But he knew the answer to that. Succor of a mother's touch. He had
longed for it, cried for it. There were long fantasies that it would suddenly
come out of the darkness, from somewhere in the void. It was a longy forgrotten
image of his earlier life. He poured the whiskey and drank quickly.

"You knew her?"

She nodded.

"What does that mean?"

She balled the handkerchief again and stood up, silhouetted
against the window. This is absurd, he thought. He could not see her features
clearly.

"She is not dead," she said.

He stiffened. His hands shook as he completed the act of
pouring. "Not dead?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Afraid?"

Shoulders hunched, the woman moved gracefully to the chair
and seated herself.

"What you see is what you get," she said, smiling
now. It seemed like some vague American joke. She is taunting me, he told
himself unconvincingly. She is playing with me.

"Just what are you getting at?" he asked.

"I am your mother," she paused, swallowing
deeply. "Sorry." She seemed determined to make the revelation casual,
low key.

"You?"

She looked down at her hands, her fingers nervously pulling
at her handkerchief again. Why me, he wondered? Rudi would have made a much
more amusing target. Conscious of a deep giggle rising in his chest, he made no
effort to contain it and it emerged as a kind of bleat.

"I've heard every ploy around to find a von Kassel
connection, but this beats all. I must say you have audacity. Really. It's
positively marvelous." But he remembered Aunt Karla and her sudden
surrender.

"I hadn't quite expected you to throw yourself in my
arms," she said. He searched her face. Could it be possible? Was this
ravaged creature the apparition of his early life, his longed for mother?

"I am your mother," she repeated calmly, her eyes
rising to find his.

"If I was more of a sentimentalist, it could be a
cruel joke."

"It probably seems so."

Siegfried's mind groped back in time for some faint shred
of memory. Every query had been met with the briefest of logical explanations.
A woman had borne them. She had been a Hohenzollern. She had died. Various
explanations had emerged. Pneumonia was one. Heart failure. Flu. Then they were
never quite sure and their speculations were merely among themselves, young
boys imagining. It was, they must have mutually decided, a subject to be
ignored.

"There is more," she said. "I can offer
proof." She reached into the pocket of her coat. "An old
passport." She removed it carefully. He could see the gold swastika on a
red field. Inside the passport was another piece of paper. "They had the
birth certificate taken from the records. And here is a draft made out to Helga
von Kassel. You see, I have not cashed it yet." Her hand remained
outstretched, but he made no move to transfer the contents. What would that
prove, he decided. Finally, she rose and put the passport and draft in his lap.
The draft floated to the floor.

"Circumstantial," he mumbled, looking down at the
ancient passport on his lap, the swastika emblazened on the red field.
"You've gone to a great deal of trouble needlessly."

"I said there is more," she said. Her voice was
firm. Her fingers did not shake, as he knew his would if he reached for the
"evidence." It was her face that absorbed him now, as he sought
genetic similarities. Was it his imagination? Did he see Albert's lips, his own
chin. And Rudi's furtive blue eyes, and chubbiness, the pouches beginning to
age like hers. He had never seen such signs in his father. No. He checked
himself. Not this ravaged creature. Remembering last night, he asked, "And
have you confronted the Baron with..." he paused and waved his hand,
"...all this?" The attempt at ridicule fell flat.

"I am about to."

Again the giggle began, but it did not emerge as a bleat
now. It came out as a screech through a cracked speaker.

"That will be something."

"Yes, that will be something."

He continued to watch her, refusing the possibilities. It
was information to be shut out, a door to be slammed.

"I would love to see my father's face," he
chuckled, struggling to recall an air of sarcasm.

"I told you there was more."

"Could there be any more? You are, after all, buried
in the family plot on the old estate in Estonia."

"Of course, they would tell you that."

He was stalling, he knew, bracing himself. The
"more" seemed more ominous than what he had just heard and he was
having trouble enough absorbing that. He was sweating now. His back against the
chair facing her was cold and wet. Looking down at the passport, the gold
outline of the swastika faded and chipped, he still refused to reach for it.
His mother had always been ethereal, a gossamer apparition, a heavenly being
who watched over them in their loneliness. Not a creature like this!

"It will be most amusing," he whispered, but the
heat had gone out of the irony. What does she feel about me, he thought
suddenly as the old sense of abandonment returned. Where was she for all those
years if she loved us? He felt the beginning of anger.

"He is not your father," she said. The words hung
there in a vacuum, unmoving. It is a dream, he thought tritely, mentally giving
himself the obligatory pinch.

"Who?" he asked stupidly, forcing his words to
move again.

"He is not your father."

"Really," he mocked, taking refuge in ridicule,
always a cooler place. Now she had gone too far, he thought.

"None of you," she said calmly. Then again to
underline its meaning, "Not one."

He might have begun to believe her, he decided, but this
was too much. He might play the fool, but he was not a fool. Now he felt the
unburdening relief. No, he thought. He might have believed that one of them
was, could be, illegitimate, a skeleton in the closet. But three. He shook his
head and walked to the forest of liquor bottles, pouring himself another drink.

"Now really," he began, feeling the whiskey burn
deep. "Have I gained a mother and lost a father?" He looked at her and
shook his head. A wild ploy, he thought. But a good try. He'd grant her that.
"Surely there must be more. It simply can't end here."