Blood Ties (27 page)

"That's why we are all half-crazy," he had told
his brothers. "We are the product of an incestuous union." The
thought had upset the two younger boys. But Albert had never believed it. Not
Aunt Karla. She was too cold, too forbidding. Their mother would be warm,
loving. But that was not an image he could associate with the twisted face of
the woman he had seen earlier.

The path narrowed until it was difficult to follow. Then
the brush cleared and he reached the outer edges of a lake. In the waning
light, the waters were jet black and in the distance he could see the lake's
farther edges pushed up against sheer cliffs. An ancient battered rowboat lay
on its side. There were signs that something had been dragged from the end of
the path to the boat.

So Hans had dropped the body in the center of the lake,
surely the deepest part. He was efficient, his aunt had assured him.

He peered into the black depths, feeling at last the full
weight of the loss.

"Mama!" he shouted across the waters, the sound
bouncing into the shroud of darkness. "Mama!" he shouted again as the
word soared back from a hundred places.

But pain, too, could be recycled. And hate. And lost love.
However she had learned it, what Dawn had told him was true. He was the son of
a stranger, a Jew. Siegfried and Rudi as well. The thing she had come to
destroy had, in the end, destroyed her. Yet it must have also sustained her for
all these years.

Now her death was meant to have meaning. Once again she had
provided the weapon to save the von Kassels. He would trade his silence for
Rudi's surrender. And he, Albert, would accept the mantle of von Kassel
leadership. It was different now. The continuum of blood was merely an
illusion. Only the sense of family was what counted.

He turned away from the lake and proceeded downward into
the night.

Siegfried felt the eyes of the stained-glass Christ
watching him. He sat there in the small cool bar, wondering which consecutive
whiskey would finally obliterate the unspecific hurt.

"Don't you think you've had enough?" the waiter
asked gently. He was a young man, different from the one of the night before,
but vaguely familiar.

"Yes I have. Quite enough," Siegfried answered,
his tongue surprisingly clear. "So you had better get me another one of
these." He held out his glass. The waiter hesitated, shrugged, took the
glass and moved to the dark rear of the lounge, The sunlight shafts were
passing through the stained-glass Christ, throwing colorful images among the
abandoned tables. Siegfried could see some of Christ's colors on his hands.

Resignation! Resignation was the exact effect he was
searching for. Resignation always chased the pain. It was the ultimate
tranquilizer. He supposed that might come with the next whiskey, which now
appeared before him and he swallowed half of it down greedily.

In the past few hours, he had been through all the
gradations of anger, self-pity, remorse, and guilt. None of these had worked.
Now, he hoped, resignation would come and he waited patiently, slowing down the
pace of his drinking as he watched the colors of the stained glass attack the
liquid.

But resignation did not come and the pain worsened. There
seemed to be a blockage, a psychic embolism. What was happening, he decided,
was a condition known as the magnetism of biology. The defeated ashen face of
the woman, the mother, was beckoning, drawing him into her pain, into her womb,
and instead of it being warm and good and delicious, it was cold and dank and
bitter.

That was exceedingly unfair, a travesty. It was the only
imaginable safe place in the whole fucking world, a nest, a lair, and someone
had soiled it. Some monster, or group of monsters, or family of monsters.

He stood up. A hand gripped his.

"Shall I help you to your rooms, Baron?" the
waiter asked.

He shrugged the arm away. What he had to do was find the
woman. She has gone away, Aunt Karla said. But if what the woman said was true,
she was not his aunt. What they had done, he decided, was hidden the woman,
stashed her away again like an errant jack-in-the-box. How dare she pop up at
such an inappropriate time?

His legs moved him into the lobby, floated him to the desk.

"The woman," he said to the clerk.

"Who?" the clerk asked politely.

"The woman," he repeated. "She hasn't left?"

"No one has left."

Of course. He knew that. Did Aunt Karla truly think that he
would believe her?

"Then ring her room."

"Whose?"

Thickheaded clerk, he decided wearily.

"I'm sorry," the clerk said. "Perhaps the
manager can help you. Shall I ring him?"

"You had jolly well better," he said assuming the
traditional British air of arrogance. The only way to treat the bloody
bastards, he told himself, chuckling.

The clerk picked up the phone, waiting for a voice. Looking
at Siegfried, he smiled.

"He had some errand today. I don't usually stay on
duty so long." He looked at his watch. "He said he would be back by
now." He nodded and winked. Peripherally, Siegfried saw the waiter
watching them. "Ah yes sir." The clerk began in a polite whisper. He
turned his back. Siegfried heard his own name. "The Baron Siegfried."
Then the clerk faced him and handed him the phone.

"I'm not sure I understand, Baron Siegfried,"
Hans said.

Siegfried looked into the phone's mouthpiece.

"The woman from last night."

"I don't know, sir."

"That the Countess talked with?" Why was he so
dense? There was hesitation in his voice, the clearing of his throat.

"There was no woman," the manager said.

"No woman?"

Siegfried looked at the desk clerk, who moved his eyes in
embarrassment. He slammed down the phone. Suddenly his mouth went dry and he
felt the intrusion of nausea.

"Are you all right, Baron?"

"Where are his rooms?" he asked the clerk. He
caught a glimpse of his own white face in the mirror behind the desk. The clerk
obviously was confused and had reached again for the telephone. Siegfried
leaned over the desk and gripped his hand. "You take me to his
rooms."

He followed the confused clerk along the opposite end of
the lobby where the woman had gone last night. His legs floated forward, although
his shoulder occasionally brushed along a stone wall.

Finally they came to a door and stopped. The clerk
hesitated, but Siegfried with balled fists hammered the surface. The question
was, had he imagined her? His pores had opened and the whiskey seemed to escape
in a flood from his body. Yet he was certain, dead certain. He would demand the
knowledge now. Demand it. Or die trying.

The manager opened the door and Siegfried staggered past
him, stopping in the center of the room.

"You spoke to her last night," he shouted at the
manager, who wilted against the wall.

"Drunk," he heard the clerk say, fueling his
rage.

"Only the family can lie," Siegfried shouted, as
the pain speared into him. There was no way to mask it now. No way at all. But
his mind refused to cloud and he felt his alertness return. Some detail in the
room caught him. There was something he wanted to say, and from somewhere in
himself the words began, but his eyes had by then seen the battered suitcase
held together by the tattered rope.

"We'll help you, Baron," the manager said,
reaching for an arm, while the clerk took the other and they moved him out of
the room, through the lobby again. Resisting mindlessness, he let them drag him
forward. The ancient elevator cranked and then he was in the familiar suite.
From somewhere Heather's voice whispered.

"Thank you, Hans,"

On his back, the room began to spin. Someone was pulling
off his shoes.

"I am not a von Kassel," his mind said clearly,
but he could not hear the sound of it.

"Drunken sot," Heather said, touching the buttons
of his shirt.

"I'll tell him myself, Mother," he heard himself
say. "I'll be damned if I'll let him die in peace."

"Stop ranting and go to sleep," Heather said.
"You stink like a brewery."

"Not in peace," he said. "If it's the last
thing I do, he's going to know the truth."

Suddenly the room stopped spinning and he felt himself slip
into the warm pit of his own slime.

The waiter had wheeled in a table and was arranging the
settings for dinner for two, while Albert stood by the window watching the
white-clad figures of the twins move on the lighted tennis court. He could see
Rudi and Mimi as spectators and some of the others, set like statues in the
ragged edges of light.

For a moment he speculated on Rudi's state of mind knowing
that whatever the state of its smugness or self-satisfaction it was about to be
shattered. Turning from the window, he glanced at the wine label the waiter was
showing him and nodded approval.

The tightness in his gut had dissipated with his
decisiveness. His sense of mission had restored his courage. But it was Olga's
voice, soft and comforting on the telephone, that had finally soothed him.
Finding her in at last had been the last hurdle of his anxiety.

"But Aleksandr," she had protested weakly. He had
already worked out that difficulty, suggesting that the room be monitored by
the desk clerk via the telephone. He explained the procedure.

"The line will be open and he will hear the slightest
sound."

Her anxieties faded and her voice grew cheerful, but then a
new cloud intruded. He had, of course, expected it, deliberately avoiding the
revelation, knowing it was an unfair ploy to test her response.

"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 passport, 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?