Games of the Hangman (31 page)

"You know
the teachings of Steiner," she asked, "Rudolf Steiner?"

Fitzduane
shook his head.

"He was
an Austrian," she said, "but he worked mainly in
Switzerland
.
 
Anthroposophy is a philosophy of life he
developed.
 
It means knowledge produced
by the higher self in man — as opposed to theosophy, knowledge originating from
God.
 
Anthroposophy covers all kinds of
things."

"Like
what?" said
Fitzduane.

"Science,
education, architecture, a biodynamic approach to farming, and so on, she said.
 
"It even includes eurhythmics.
 
He had a great-aunt of mine dancing barefoot
in the morning dew when she was young."

Fitzduane
smiled.
 
"And you follow his
teachings?"

"In some
ways," she said.
 
"Particularly
his ideas about farming.
 
Our
farming methods here are completely natural.
 
We use no chemicals or artificial fertilizers, no unhealthy
additives.
 
It's more work, but it's
better, don't you think?"

Fitzduane
sipped the hot liquid she had given him.
 
It
was
 
a
disturbing yellow-brown color and tasted bitter.
 
"I guess it depends what you're used
to," he said.

"You like
it?" she said, gesturing toward his mug.
 
"It's a special herb tea, my own recipe."

Fitzduane
smiled.
 
"I was going to blame
Steiner," he said.
 
"Anything
that tastes this awful must do you good."

Vreni
laughed.
 
"My herb tea is good for
everything.
 
It cures the common cold,
cleanse
the insides, and promotes sexual vigor."

"They
used to call that kind of thing snake oil."

"You
don't know what you're missing," said Vreni.
 
"Would you like some real coffee
instead?"

While she was
making the coffee, he continued his browse through the books, steering clear of
Steiner.
 
On the bottom shelf, title
facing inward, and almost hidden by a row of encyclopedias, was a familiar
volume:
 
"
The Paradox Business
, by Hugo Fitzduane.
 
He flipped through its pages.
 
A pressed flower and a small piece of printed
paper slipped from it to the floor.
 
The flower
crumbled as he tried to pick it up.
 
The
paper was a ski pass.
 
The book fell open
at a full-page bleed photograph of Colonel Shane Kilmara.

He called out
to her in the kitchen.
 
"I see
you've got my book," he said.

"We
do?" she said, and there was amusement in her voice.
 
"I'm afraid I didn't know.
 
Most of those books are Peter's."

He replaced
the book exactly as he had found it.
 
He
could still taste the bitterness of the herb tea on his tongue.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

There were two
windows in the room.
 
Through one
Lake
Thun
could be seen below, bright blue in the sunlight.
 
The second window was set into the end of the
room and was at right angles to the first.
 
It looked along the track to a small barn about fifty meters away.
 
The track seemed to end there.

There was
something strange about Vreni, something he could not as yet identify.
 
On the face of it, she was calm and
self-assured — in fact, so self-assured that it was easy to forget she was only
twenty.
 
Her manner suggested experience,
a certain knowingness that he had most often encountered in the young in combat
zones, where maturity came fast if you were to survive.
 
It was a lack of illusion, a loss of
innocence rather than the judgment that came with full maturity.
 
It showed most of all in her eyes.

Yet in
contrast with her poise and assurance were other emotions.
 
He could sense an undercurrent of fear,
sadness, and loneliness — and a great need for someone to confide in, for
someone to help her.
 
There seemed to be things
she wanted to say but was afraid to.

Together with
his coffee, she brought him a small glass and filled it with an almost colorless
liquid.
 
The bottle had fruit floating in
it, some berries he could not identify.
 
He tasted it with some trepidation, but it was delicious, a homemade
schnapps distilled form fruit grown on the farm.

"We have
a communal still in the village," she said.
 
"You can make five liters per person per
year without paying any
tax,
and one liter for each
cow.
 
It is used as a medicine for the
cows, or at least that was the custom.
 
Now I think the cows don't often see their share."

"And what
does Mr. Steiner think of that?" he asked.
 
She threw back and head and laughed again, and for a few moments all the
undercurrents were gone.
 
All he could
see was a young, beautiful girl with no cares and her life ahead of her.

Outside, the
light faded, and it began to freeze again.
 
He helped her bring in more wood from the shed and, away from the warmth
of the farmhouse, shivered in the cold of the evening.
 
She showed him around the house.
 
They climbed through the circular trapdoor
into the master bedroom.
 
It was sparsely
furnished apart from a low handmade double bed, covered with a sheepskin rug,
and an old carved wardrobe.
 
A SIG
service rifle rested on two wooden pegs on the wall.
 
Vreni saw him glance toward it.

"That is
Peter's," she said.

Fitzduane
nodded.

"Peter
owns this farm," she said, "but he is often away.
 
I don't know when he will be back; it is dull
for him here."

"You
don't have a photograph of him by any chance, do you?"

Vreni shook
her head.
 
"No.
 
He has never liked being photographed.
 
Some people are that way."
 
She smiled.
 
"They think their souls are being stolen."

Next door to
the bedroom was a workshop and hobby room.
 
Three were piles of ski equipment.
 
Several planks were removed from the inside of one of the walls."

"Woodworm,"
she said.
 
"They have to be
replaced."

"Why not
just spray them?"

"There
you go with your chemicals again," she said.
 
"It is wrong.
 
We are just killing nature."

"I
understand your father is a director of a major chemical company," said
Fitzduane, "among his many interests."

Vreni gave him
a look.
 
"That is not so widely
known.
 
You are well informed."

Fitzduane
shrugged.
 
Silently he cursed himself for
breaking the mood of the conversation now that she was talking more freely.

"There is
much that my father has done, and does, that I do not agree with," she
said.
 
"He supports a system in
Switzerland
that is wrong.
 
He pretends to lead a
respectable, upright life, to be a leading citizen in the community, to support
worthy causes and to be a model for others, but it is all
a
hypocrisy
.
 
He and a few thousand
others in high positions in business, politics, the army, and banking
manipulate our so-called democracy for their own selfish ends.
 
They control the press, they are in league
with the unions, and the people suffer.
 
All
over the world the people suffer."

Suddenly she
grabbed him by the hand — her mood changed in a flash — and, giggling, pulled
him with her out through the workroom door.
 
"I've got a surprise for you," she said.

Because of the
steep slope of the hill on which the house was perched, the second-floor
workroom led to a path outside that ran around the back of the house.
 
There, separate from the living quarters but
under the same weather-beaten roof as the old house, was storage for hay.
 
In one fenced-off corner were several lambs
nestling together.
 
They sprang to their
feet when the door opened and stood blinking in the light of a single electric
bulb.
 
One lamb was smaller than the
others and had a brown woolly coat.
 
Vreni ran forward and scooped the little lamb into her arms.
 
It nuzzled against the familiar warmth of her
breasts.

"Isn't he
lovely?" she said.
 
"So soft
and cuddly, and he's mine.
 
Peter gave
him to me.
 
His mother died, and I fed
him from a bottle like a baby."

Vreni stood
there with the lamb in her arms, her face loving and gentle,
her
cares momentarily gone.
 
He could smell
hay and milk and the warmth of her body.
 
She stood very close as she placed the lamb in his arms.
 
Then she kissed Fitzduane just once, gently.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Back inside
the house, Vreni busied herself making supper, something of rice and vegetables
and herbs.
 
They ate in the sitting room
in the glow of an antique oil lamp, and they drank homemade red wine.
 
Afterward there was more coffee and
schnapps.
 
The cows certainly weren't
going to get much of a look-in.

Vreni sat on
her bean bag again and began to talk about Rudi.

"When we
were small, it was all so simple.
 
Mommy
was still alive then and married to Daddy.
 
It was a happy home.
 
It was
lovely growing up in
Bern
.
 
Three was always so much to do.
 
There was school and all our friends; there
were dancing classes and singing classes.
 
In the summer we went walking and swimming.
 
In the winter there
was
skiing and tobogganing and ice skating.
 
At weekends, and sometimes for longer, we'd go to Lenk.
 
Daddy has a chalet there — a very old place,
very creaky.
 
Rudi loved it; we both
did.
 
We had a great friend who taught us
to ski there.
 
He farmed in the summer
and would take his cows high up in the mountains.
 
From time to time we would go with him.
 
He never seemed to get tired, and he taught
us all about the different wild flowers."

"What was
his name?
"
Fitzduane felt a sense of betrayal as
he asked the question.
 
He was friend and
confidant, but first he was interrogator.

Vreni was
preoccupied.
 
She answered his question
almost without thinking.
 
"Oskar," she said.
 
"Oskar Schupbach — a lovely man.
 
He had a face that looked as if it were
carved out of polished mahogany.
 
He was
always so tanned, always outdoors, winter and summer."

"Do you
still go to Lenk?"

"No!"
she said.
 
"No!
 
Never again, never."
 
The words snapped out with savage force.
 
She started to cry and then wiped the tears
from her eyes with the back of her hands.
 
She sat on the floor on a cushion, back propped against the bean bag,
legs stretched out, feet bare, head down.
 
She looked about fifteen.

"Why did
it all go wrong?" she said.
 
"Why did it have to?
 
We were
so happy."

Fitzduane
checked his watch.
 
It was getting
late,
and unaccustomed as he was to driving on these frozen
roads, it would take him a long time to get back to
Bern
in the darkness.
 
Vreni looked up at him and read his
mind.
 
"You can stay here," she
said, indicating the sofa.
 
"The
roads will be icy now, and I don't think you are used to such driving.
 
Please stay; I'd like you to."

Fitzduane
looked out the window.
 
The night was
dark.
 
He could see no moon, no lights of
other houses,
no
headlights in the distance.
 
He let the curtain fall back into place.
 
He smiled at her.
 
"Fine."