Gretel and the Dark (32 page)

He sank back, feigning sleep. Too late: the movement had already been spotted. Gudrun advanced.

‘Well, well, this is a fine how to do, my lad.’ When he didn’t answer, she took her vexation out on the pillow, lifting his head to thump the feathers back into shape. ‘After this I warrant you’ll be sticking much closer to home.’ She shook the quilt. It settled back on his body as weightlessly as a cloud and Benjamin wondered why there was so little sensation in his limbs.

‘I can’t feel my legs –’

‘You will, soon enough. We gave you something to ease the pain.’

‘Thank you,’ he said weakly.

Gudrun gave the pillow a final thump. ‘You’re lucky to be alive. If it hadn’t been for me – and the doctor, of course –’

‘Thank you,’ he repeated. ‘Where’s Lilie?’

‘Oh, you’d have been in a sorry way if it had been left to her,’ retorted Gudrun. Her lips carried on moving but Benjamin was already slipping back into the warm black silence.

When he woke again, Lilie was sitting nearby. She pulled the chair close to the bed.

‘Well, neither of us has much hair now. And what’s happened to your poor eye, Benjamin? I told you to keep away from him. Why didn’t you listen?’

‘The doctor said I must. We were trying to find out who you were, where you came from.’

‘But you already know everything about me.’

He said nothing.

‘You always have. It’s time you started remembering.’

‘I don’t understand.’ What did she mean? Although he’d tried, Benjamin had no memory of them ever being together before.

In one of their late-night discussions, enlivened by copious wine, the doctor had claimed the Greek god Zeus sliced the souls of humankind in half, leaving each half yearning for the other.

‘Love,’ he’d said, pulling at his beard and with a slight sneer, ‘is simply a pretty name for the pursuit of the whole.’

When Benjamin had laughed, the doctor went on to quote a philosopher, Plato. The original human form was not as now, but three in number, man, woman, and a third, being the perfect union of the two. A sudden vision of the huge cook, neither male nor female and yet improbably both, made Benjamin shudder. To his mind, there was nothing perfect about that kind of monstrosity. But who could argue with such an illustrious name as Plato?

‘My people call it
bashert
,’ he mumbled, realizing he was drifting again.

‘What’s that?’ Lilie bent closer.

‘Plato’s divided soul.
Bashert
– the reunion with the lost half.’ He tried to reach out to her, but the effort was too great. ‘They say when it happens the pair is lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy. Afterwards you can’t leave the other’s sight, not even for a moment.’

After the previous night of broken sleep, Josef was grateful not to have been woken by Gudrun. It revealed unexpected kindness. She had a soft place in her heart for the family, despite her brusque manner. Then he realized not being called might have a more ominous cause. Throwing on his clothes, he hurried along the corridor to Robert’s old room, where a series of rasping breaths from the bed assured him that Benjamin still clung to life. The room seemed as full of echoes as an empty
theatre or concert hall between performances. ‘All the world’s a stage,’ the English bard would have us believe … A physician played his part in more dramas than most, even though his bargaining with the Norns remained, for the most part, silent. Here it was as though a great saga, partly told, hung on the air. Dismissing the thought, Josef approached the motionless form.

‘Any change?’ he asked, reaching for the boy’s wrist. The pulse was irregular but less weak than before. There was yet hope. ‘Has he spoken?’

The faintest whisper emerged from the shadows: ‘A little.’

This was the front of the house. The curtains were thick, designed to keep out both street noises and the light from the gas lamp immediately outside; the room was still in darkness apart from the feeble glow emitted by a night light that did little more than illuminate the bedhead. As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom he saw not Gudrun but Lilie curled in a chair drawn up to the bed. She was wrapped in a robe several sizes too large; when she stood it trailed on the floorboards, forming a pool of pale silk around her bare feet. Aphrodite rising, Josef thought, captivated. It wasn’t the first time he’d caught a glimpse of the goddess in her. Oh, to wake to such a sight each morning. Perhaps he should take more permanent steps. With Bertha he’d even considered fleeing to America. It was not too late. Then he noticed the dark circles under the girl’s eyes.

‘Why are you sitting with the patient? I instructed Gudrun not to disturb you.’

‘She’s old and needed to sleep.’ Lilie shrugged. The robe slipped from one shoulder, revealing a nightgown of the finest lawn. ‘Besides, I wanted to be here.’ Josef tore his gaze from
the soft swell of her breasts. He saw she was holding Benjamin’s hand and removed it from her grasp.

‘You say the patient spoke. Was he lucid?’

‘Perfectly.’

Josef hesitated, afraid of what Lilie might say next. He was conscious of a change in her. Of something incalculable. Suppressed excitement, perhaps. She looked tired, yet her eyes shone. ‘Did he tell you what happened to him?’

‘No, we talked about Plato.’

He stared. ‘
Plato?
’

‘Yes. He said men and women were once a single being. That we spend our lives looking for the other half of ourselves.’

Josef ground his teeth. ‘No, no, Lilie. As I explained to Benjamin when we discussed this very idea, it is merely an allegory to explain the biological need of the male for the female. Be so kind as to draw back the curtains, my dear.’

Pale sunshine flooded the room. He heard Lilie catch her breath. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the windowpanes were covered with a multitude of the white butterflies, gently fanning their wings. This morning their black blotches looked like death’s-head eye cavities. He couldn’t tolerate their empty, baleful stares a moment longer. Since the boy had failed to rid the house of this plague of insects, he’d have to bring someone in from outside. Some modern Pied Piper, suitably equipped, armed with phial rather than flute. He felt Benjamin’s forehead and began to examine the visible wounds. The boy stirred and muttered as Josef lifted the edge of a dressing, checking for early signs of infection. Even a short spell in the Wienfluss had proved fatal in past years when the flooding waterway brought cholera to the city.

‘We’ll let him sleep.’ Josef put one arm around Lilie’s shoulder,
guiding her towards the door. ‘I suggest you return to bed for a few hours, my dear.’

She pulled away from him. ‘No, I want to stay with Benjamin.’

‘You’ll disturb his rest. Come back later, when Gudrun has assisted me in attending to his wounds.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Lilie. ‘Benjamin will die unless I stay to keep him going. He must hear my voice –’

‘Quite unnecessary,’ interrupted Josef, breathing in a greedy lungful of her scent. Floral, though he could not place the bloom. ‘Benjamin is almost certainly out of danger.’

‘We were never in more danger,’ whispered Lilie, glancing from side to side. She took a few steps backwards.

Josef was suddenly afraid. For the second time, his sweet girl’s outline seemed less distinct. It occurred to him that if he didn’t act immediately Lilie would slip away and be lost to him for all eternity. He reached forward to take her in his arms, but found she wasn’t where he expected her to be. All he caught hold of was her wrist. He raised it to his lips, showering her hand with kisses. ‘My dear, did you think over what we spoke of yesterday?’

She looked at him, so clearly mystified that Josef realized he hadn’t been plain enough.

‘We talked of being more than friends. Do you understand me?’ He persisted, emboldened by her slight nod. ‘Could you learn to love me? Will you live as my dear companion?’

Lilie shook her head and pulled her wrist free. ‘That can never be.’

His heart sank at the blunt rejection. The sunlight fled, leaving the room grey and desolate as life without her.

‘I beg you to reconsider.’ Josef threw himself on to his knees.
‘See how your beauty makes a complete slave of me, my dear. All I ask is to be allowed to care for you. My marriage is a sham. My life was empty before you came. I’m not a poor man. I can provide for you generously.’ He clutched the hem of her gown. ‘I’d give you – if I thought one day you might return my feelings …’

‘But I don’t want anything.’

‘Don’t say that.’ Josef threw his arms around her thighs and started to weep. ‘I’ll take an elegant apartment in the best part of the city. We’ll fill it with stylish furniture, graceful clothes, jewellery, furs … all the things young women want. All I’m asking is that you think about it. I’ll wait for an answer.’

‘My answer won’t change. Please get up.’

He looked at her. ‘I never suspected you could be so cruel.’ Josef pulled himself upright awkwardly, using the bed rails for support. ‘Is it Benjamin? Are you and he –’ The question choked him. He turned away, mopping his eyes, before rounding on her and demanding harshly: ‘Does Benjamin tell you how beautiful you are?’

‘Benjamin has never seen me beautiful.’

‘Other men, then –’

‘Why should they care? You saw the policemen.’ She waved her hand in front of her face. ‘All they see is madness. It’s the same with the other men. They see my situation, not me.’

‘There are other men, then?’ Oddly, his hopes revived a little when she didn’t deny it. He moved boldly towards her. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer one man, who would love and cherish you, rather than many who do not?’

‘You’re dead,’ said Lilie.

He swallowed hard. ‘Older than you, perhaps, but –’

‘No.’ She looked at the window, where the shadows of the
clustered butterflies formed shifting patterns reminiscent of newly unfurled leaves on the window seat. ‘You’re dead.’

‘Think it over carefully, Lilie. As I said, you’d want for nothing. I’d settle a portion of my estate on you, enough to provide for the rest of your life should I … should we be parted in an untimely fashion.’ Once again he drew strength from recalling the large gulf of years between his own parents. ‘Isn’t there anything I can do or say to change your mind, Lilie?’

Instead of answering, she moved towards the butterflies. They hovered around her like falling blossoms, clinging to her hair, her shoulders. Filling her cupped hands.

‘Anything at all,’ said Josef, watching as she was transformed into another goddess, this time Flora, personification of spring flowers, youth and beauty, both of which might be his again by proxy.

‘Take me to Linz.’

His mouth dropped open in astonishment. ‘
Linz?
’ Why Linz? Was this finally the clue to Lilie’s origins? ‘Of course, my dear. If that’s what you want, we’ll go the minute Benjamin is sufficiently recovered to be left in Gudrun’s care. My sweet child, I’ll take you everywhere – Paris, Florence, Venice, Rome, London –’ He paused, breathless, hardly able to believe she’d finally acquiesced. ‘But tell me why you wish to visit Linz?’

‘There are beautiful views of the Alps.’

‘Dearest Lilie, we’ll visit Switzerland if it’s mountains you want –’ Josef flung wide his arms.

‘It must be Linz,’ she insisted, neatly avoiding his embrace. ‘That’s where it all started. The monster will be too big by the time he comes to Vienna. Just take me to Linz and I shall make sure it ends before it can begin.’

By mid-afternoon the boy’s condition had worsened. Clearly, his internal injuries were even more serious than suspected: Benjamin was feverish, raging, speaking in tongues. A tight-lipped Gudrun strewed herbs and poked curiously shaped amulets beneath the pillow. Josef, already driven to distraction by impatience, sent Lilie away, claiming possible contagion, and paced the floor of his study to avoid meeting her anguished eyes.

‘Oven,’ shrieked Benjamin. ‘I’m burning in it. Let me out.’

‘His parents must be summoned,’ insisted Gudrun, as they sponged the boy’s burning body with cool water. ‘Mark my words, he’ll leave us tonight.’

‘There’s still hope,’ countered Josef, dreading the thought of Benjamin’s family arriving. ‘I don’t want them to see their son in such a terrible state.’

‘I’m sure they’d prefer to say their farewells when he’s alive than dead.’

‘Gingerbread roof,’ yelled Benjamin. ‘Break a piece off.’

‘More ice,’ said Josef. ‘We’ll wait a little longer. The fever may break soon.’

Gudrun compressed her lips. ‘Very well.’

Josef turned back to the bed and saw Benjamin’s functioning eye open, the pupil moving as though watching something invisible to Josef floating about the room. The boy’s cracked and swollen lips parted.

‘Madness. Finish. Flowers. Story.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Josef saw these more or less coherent utterances as a good sign. He noted that Benjamin’s heartbeat had also slowed. With any luck the boy might still recover. If he did not, how could the responsibility for his death be borne? And would it ruin the bargain he’d struck with Lilie? He sat down heavily.

‘I’m so very sorry for my part in this, Benjamin. What can
I do to make it up for you?’ He thought for a moment, recalling their late-night debates in happier times, then added: ‘When you’re better, we’ll have to see about your education. It would be a pity to let a mind like yours go to waste.’ Benjamin said nothing. His gaze was now fixed on the ceiling. Glancing upwards, Josef saw hundreds of butterflies clinging to the edges in something like a hastily drawn frieze. ‘Psyche,’ the doctor murmured, hoping their presence wasn’t a sign of the soul’s imminent departure.

Gudrun took the first watch. After a snatched supper, Josef sat at his desk, one eye on the clock, waiting for her call. A little before midnight he took down the portrait of his father, turning it to the wall, leaving him free to set aside his responsibilities and imagine instead the joys of travelling accompanied by Lilie. After Linz, he’d suggest continuing westwards to Munich, or perhaps – since she hankered after an Alpine setting – turning south to Salzburg. He hoped the sweet child wouldn’t insist on waiting for Benjamin’s recovery. It was hard to ascertain whether she’d formed a serious attachment to him. He doubted there’d been time. Of course, she owed the boy a certain debt of gratitude for rescuing her from outside the Tower of Fools. Josef rubbed his eyes and yawned. A proper education would be more than adequate reward for that, as well as compensation for the injuries he’d suffered. Alas, one thing was certain: Benjamin would never fully recover from what he’d suffered. His arm was shattered, the leg that was broken in three places would probably mend shorter than the other, resulting in a limp that would accompany him for the rest of his life, and Fuchs had not yet examined that damaged eye. Josef knew that, whatever the young man’s afflictions, they’d be a permanent
reproach, a small but constant blight on the happiness that was to come with Lilie. It must be endured. Perhaps she’d realize in time that even an older man was preferable to a cripple.