Blood Ties (8 page)

"Princess Helga," the Baron said, smiling,
bowing, the heels clicking. She hadn't thought it strange, enjoying the sight
of the rich Baron fawning. Even now, she took satisfaction in that. Her mother
had beamed at the sight. Her father had earlier departed for the beerhall,
already beyond any familial interest. The uncle watched from the reception
room, where a fire had been lit and a large bouquet assembled. Her mother had
even dusted pictures of Hohenzollern ancestors that she had dragged up from the
cellar and placed on the walls for the occasion.

Recalling the experience now, she seemed to have floated
out of the house on the arm of the tall Baron, whose monocled eye had lingered
over her breasts, the extra lure that her mother had needlessly set if blood
were not enough. Conscious of her exhilarating power, she had stepped into the
glorious interior of the big limousine.

"I have watched you grow, Princess Helga. You are a
very beautiful woman."

It was a confession of very heavy interest, far beyond her
mother's wildest dreams. He had waited for exactly the right moment to pluck
the fruit from the vine. The flattery worked its wiles on her younger,
vulnerable self and she settled into the soft car seats and observed the
landscape from a vantage that she had not experienced before. Things looked
especially lovely from there.

"Every time I come home, my sister insists upon
throwing me a party." He was talking in a way designed to make himself seem
younger, catering to her adolescence. Although she looked innocent, in her mind
she was not. She knew what was happening here, what her mother had schemed.

The home of Count Wilhelm von Berghoff and his wife Karla,
the Baron's sister, stood on a high knoll with the nearby Rhine as backdrop.
The Count was a Wehrmacht general, coincidentally on leave from his Berlin duties.

"Exquisite," the Countess Karla had said upon her
introduction, eying the girl with proprietary interest. Actually, she felt no
premonitions. It was a peaceful summer day and she knew that she was the
centerpiece on display. A little orchestra played discreetly. Glasses tinkled.
Conversation buzzed.

"You have outdone yourself, Charles," Count von
Berghoff said, bowing to kiss her fingers, his eyes rolling over the hillocks,
until she felt them burst into a rosy blush. She enjoyed the heat of it,
enjoyed the attention. So this is what mother meant, she thought, looking down
the huge expanse of trimmed green lawn, speckled now with the bright colors of
women's dresses, and their splashes of rouge and lipstick which made their
faces look like painted balloons in a green sky.

"I imagine this must be quite trying," Charles
had said, taking her arm in a structured promenade as he paraded her through
the gauntlet of stiff standing figures, munching hors d'oeuvres and sipping
champagne.

"Not at all, Baron. I am enjoying it." She
reveled in the power of herself, the strong impression it made on him. The
somber face crinkled into a smile and she imagined she caught a brief glimpse
of the boy in the forty-year-old man. She was, after all, searching for his
good points.

"The Count's friends are pretty stodgy," Charles
had said. He was stodgy himself, but somehow it must have shaved the years to
observe it in others. He was desperately trying to bridge the gap of a
generation. "They are all busy impressing each other." The hint of
rebellion was attractive, although he could not quite cut himself off from the
others. They paused in the path and he stooped to cut a pink summer rose in the
manured garden. The rose perfume smelled wonderful layered over the gamier
smell of earth and offal. He gave it to her and she watched his smile, waiting
for what she knew would be a formal compliment.

"It pales at the sight of you," he said and she
saw a red blush spread upward from his collar. He was awkward in this role, but
he was doing his best, for which she patted his hand in what she had decided
was a coquettish response. It was the one powerful memory of the day, her own
confidence in her good looks. She had felt beautiful and the eyes of others had
confirmed what she had felt. Never since had she felt more beautiful, more
desirable, more womanly. Hohenzollern women are horsey and flat chested, her
mother had reminded her. The good looks came from the other side. She
remembered that and she had thrust out her own ample chest to emphasize the
point.

"You're very sweet, Baron," she said demurely.
She wondered if she should show him some hint of her as well. But she was empty-headed
then. Political things meant nothing. She had brooded and dreamed and read a
great deal of romantic novels, imagining herself the fairy princess that her
mother had assured her she was, waiting for the Prince's kiss. She had also
been filled with the romance of her father's early life, related by him, before
his mind became clouded and inert. In his day to be a Hohenzollern was an
anointment.

"I love to come back here," Charles mused,
breathing deeply. A light breeze moved upward from the Rhine, a river smell,
moist with its own perfume.

"You travel often?" It was meant to be a
question, although she already knew the answer. The Baron did travel often,
returning to Baden-Baden to live in his sister's house. She had no curiosity
about what he did, only that it seemed important.

"Very often." He hesitated, looking at her
pointedly. "My sister, the Countess, is my only close family."

"No parents?" she had asked stupidly, forgetting
the distance between them.

"They died in Estonia." His forehead wrinkled
revealing his painful thoughts. She watched him searching her face. There was a
confidence he wanted to share. She was certain of that. He was obviously
debating with himself. It seemed a significant moment.

"We stayed as long as we could," he sighed. She
searched her mind for some Estonian reference, but it was beyond her knowledge,
a place on a map. Her mother called it Ostland.

"And how long was that?" It was a reflexive
response, without logic. But he looked at her with passionate interest, as if
she had imparted something of great importance.

"Nearly eight hundred years," he had said, his
eyes burning now. So this is what sets him off, she remembered thinking.

"Eight hundred years?"

"With the Crusades. The Teutonic Order, monastic
soldiers. The people were ignorant godless peasants, mindless. We brought them
civilization." He was lost in himself. It was the first time she had seen
it, tunneled in, hidden by some mystical mudslide. Even then she sensed that it
was awesome. His fists had knotted and a nerve had begun to palpitate at the
jaw point.

"Surely someday you will return there." What was
a frilly empty-headed little lady to say at a garden party? Her knowledge of
events and geography was minimal. Perhaps it recalled him to the reality of the
moment.

"And here I am boring you with family matters."

"No. I was fascinated." She was, of course,
although it was all beyond her. The Countess came toward them as they moved
back toward the clot of people.

"You two must be famished," his sister said. She
was a large woman, like her brother, with the same bone structure and carriage.
At first, she had thought they might be twins. Actually, she learned later, the
sister was older by three years. She filled their plates herself, a game bird,
a salad, some exotic sausages and iced spring wine. They sat at a long table
festooned with a white cloth edged in lace. Two liveried servants, a man and a
woman, tidied up after them, standing by to remove a finished plate or glass.

"...we will take England in one month," General
von Berghoff said. "I can't say I originally agreed with the overall
plan," he added with supercilious arrogance.

"They should be going the other way," the Baron
whispered, but the air was crisp and his voice carried. His brother-in-law
turned and lifted his glass.

"Always they look to the East, he and Karla. What's in
the East? Barbarians. We will save them for the last." He turned toward a
powdered lady seated beside him in a wide-brimmed hat. "All these Estonian
Ostlanders can think of is their lost lands. Don't worry. Hitler will give them
back to you." The lady in the wide-brimmed hat laughed, but Helga had seen
the nerve palpitate again in the Baron's jaw. Thinking that he was somehow
offended, she put her hand on his. It felt cold, reluctant to be touched, but
she kept it there. Was she staking a claim, making a decision in the act?
Obviously, noting the subtle details, Karla beamed at her and nodded.

In the limousine, after the party, she sat back in the deep
seat, feeling a sense of well-being. The wine had made her head light and she
knew that she had giggled perhaps a bit too much.

"Will I see you again?" he asked, hesitantly, she
remembered, as if he were unsure of his impression on her.

"Of course," she said holding out her hand. He
took it, put his lips to it and let them linger.

"Tomorrow?" he asked when he had looked at her
again. But she had already acquired the wisdom of the game.

"I'm not sure about tomorrow."

Helga noted a brief curl of the lip, that inadvertent sign
of controlled arrogance, which she would later know better than her own face.
He was the first to leave the car after it had stopped at her uncle's house,
joining her at the chauffeur-opened door and accompanying her up the path to
the entrance. Behind the curtains, she knew, her mother searched their faces.
Later, still ebullient from the wine and the experience, she told her mother
and uncle of her impressions in a series of disjointed vignettes.

"They are very formal people, very correct. One feels
that if they fall down they will break. The sister..." she stood up
stiffly, exaggerating her erectness, pouting in the manner she had observed in
the woman's face. "...is like a predatory bird. She watches over her
brother to an extent that made me very uncomfortable."

"And what of his reaction toward you?" her mother
asked.

"I feel his interest," she had answered. It was a
less than honest evaluation. She had captured him. Her mother stroked her chin,
evaluating.

"Of course," the uncle said, his hands clasped
around his huge belly, his puffy eyes half-closed. He was about to say
something and since it was his house, his largess under which they lived, they
had learned to anticipate and be respectful.

"They want her for a brood mare," he said. It
was, of course, the absolute truth.

The courtship, which lasted a proper four months, was
mostly pampering by the Baron, his sister and their friends, all of whom she
had already met at the garden party. Baden-Baden was an insular society, a
catch-all of old titles, old wealth and a smattering, for appearances' sake, of
Nazi party officialdom. The town was not a hotbed of Nazi zeal. It had seen too
many leaders come and go. She could never recall that time in terms of
chronology. It was simply a jumble of gifts and parties, briefly interrupted by
the movement of Hitler's armies deeper into Russia, which excited the Baron.

"So he has chosen the right direction. That is where
our destiny is. A little Slavic blood will do wonders for the soil."

"It was stupid," his brother-in-law argued.

"Only if he is not in Moscow soon. The defense has
always been the same—winter."

"Perhaps he should have moved earlier," Karla
observed. The Baron had watched her face. They were always searching each other
for silent signals. It made little difference to Helga. She recalled herself as
floating in a charmed space, like a little pink lady who revolved on top of a
music box. Somebody was always winding it up and the music never stopped.

She seemed always to be trying on "things,"
standing in front of the glass before her mother's admiring eyes, showing off
new dresses, necklaces, bracelets, brooches. The Baron was lavish in his
interest. What did it matter if he was a shade too somber and reflective or
that he brooded and conversed on subjects that were totally without meaning to
her? Estonia? It was a remote wasteland, holding little interest for her.
Teutonic Knights? He was forever trying to impose a history lesson about some
band of crusaders. Once he had given her a brooch in the shape of an ancient
shield with odd markings on it.

"The insignia of the Order," he had explained,
carefully pointing to each feature and offering a long explanation. "You
will not have to take any crumbs from another person's table," her mother
would say, the reference clear considering her position. The daughter
understood.

They were married in the Lutheran Church in a fine display
of pomp. The von Berghoffs were ancient nobles of the area and their rank
demanded it.

The details of the wedding were carefully preserved in her
mind. Perhaps that was the moment when the music box trilled the loudest and
the little pink lady was dizzy with the speed of movement. They had even
managed to clean up her father for the occasion. He had only to walk his
daughter down the aisle, nod and smile in acknowledgment and keep his dignity
reasonably intact. The entire von Berghoff clan had gathered, including Karla's
two sons, who had managed a leave from the Eastern front. Her portrait of them
was vague since they were extinguished less than thirty days later, within a
week of each other.

Helga could remember her mother's tears at the ceremony.
But she was too busy being beautiful and excited and eighteen to notice
anything but her own reflection wherever she could find it and hear only her
own sweet music. If there was the slightest hint of pain, it was in the sight
of her mother, in a quiet corner of the von Berghoffs' reception room, standing
beside her uncle, his grossness amplified by the food and drink he had
consumed. At least I will not ever have to see that again, she had thought. It
might have been her first really lucid moment.