Tempting Fate (13 page)

Walther Stoff did not quite salute her, but his grizzled head bent in agreement. “That I will, Frau Ostneige.” He bent over his employer who had been his commanding officer. “It will be better when I’ve had a chance to clean it up, Mein Herr.”

Jürgen’s speech was always garbled when he was aroused, and neither Walther nor Gudrun could make out what he was trying to say. At last he thumped the arms of his chair and sobbed twice before going limp and allowing Walther to push him toward the stairs.

“I will have a look around,” Gudrun said, dreading the thought. “When Walther comes down, he and I will make a catalog of the damage and will work out a plan of how to repair it.” She said this last wistfully, for she knew it would be her inheritance that would pay for the restoration of Wolkighügel. She sighed. It had seemed like such a huge sum four years ago, but now it was much diminished in her eyes and she was very much afraid that her brother Maximillian had already run through his share of it. Dear Maxl, she said to herself with a touch of annoyance. Dear, kind, handsome, idealistic, irresponsible, arrogant, thoughtless, charming Maxl. She wondered if she had really invited him to live here with her because she would feel more comfortable with a male member of her family about, or whether what she intended was to keep an eye on him.

These speculations were driven from her mind as she walked into the main reception room. If the front hall had been a shambles, then this was a ruin. Nothing had been left intact. All the windows were smashed, the draperies pulled down, the furniture upended and the upholstery slit open. Rain had got in and there were dreadful white, shrunken streaks on the tall wainscoting, like scars on well-tanned skin. She put her hands to her eyes and tried to weep.

The dining room was as bad. Deep gouges ran the length of the hundred-year-old mahogany table that was long enough to seat twenty guests in comfort and the deeply-carved legs had been shattered by repeated wanton blows with a heavy instrument, probably a hammer, for there was no chipping of the wood, only bludgeoning. The elaborate petit-point chair seats and backs had all been repeatedly slashed, the fine needlework totally effaced and the canvas beyond restoration. Mud and other noxious substances had been smeared across the two pier glasses that remained intact. They stood between the tall smashed windows. The carpeting had been set afire in several places.

Gudrun wandered through the rooms, a somnambulist caught in a nightmare. The wreckage ceased to mean anything to her, and she felt strangely unmoved as she stared down at a tuft of kapok spilling out of a number of tears in a hassock, as she touched the filth-stained damask of a Louis XIV settee, as she scuffed at the spreading mildew on a fine old Turkish carpet. These were simply the culmination of all the horrors of her life: this Schloss where she had planned to retreat from the disasters of war and loss was as bad as what she had left behind in München.

She was not surprised to discover the pantry had been raided. Here, at least, there was little destruction. Whoever had sacked her home had been sufficiently hungry to treat the larder with a modicum of respect. The pungent, sour smell that pervaded the place warned her that the wine cellar had not fared as well. As she opened the door at the head of old stone steps the odor of spilled vintages rushed up at her, palpable, melancholy, and intoxicating. She lit the candle in the sconce by the door and stared down. About half the bottles had been broken, which was not as bad as her worst fears. Some of the cellar would be salvaged. She thought it was absurd to have dozens of bottles of old wines and nothing left in the Schloss to eat.

When she had examined the library—some books had been snatched from the shelves, piled in the center of the room along with three desks and an antique inlaid table and set alight, others were strewn about the floor—she went in search of Walther.

“He’s quiet now, Frau Ostneige. I have given him his medication and he is no longer so overcome.” Walther kept his voice low, and his wrinkle-fretted eyes were filled with concern. “Is it very bad?”

“All of a piece,” she said, putting a hand to her brow, which was the only indication of weakness she would permit herself. “It will take time to bring a semblance of order to the place, and it has to be done before autumn comes; my husband must avoid the cold, you know…” She was aware that Walther was as familiar with Jürgen’s physician’s instructions as she was, but it gave her a sense of purpose to repeat them. “We ought to keep that in mind.”

“The Schloss will be repaired.” Walther made the statement as if it could not possibly be contradicted. Any other course was unthinkable.

“Yes. And I will see that it is. You need not worry about that, Walther. I have enough of my inheritance for this, and a bit more.” She felt an odd, numb pain as she spoke, and hurried on. “But with the war and so few men available to work, it may be more difficult than we anticipate now. Something should be done quickly, and for that we must have laborers. How much damage is there on this floor, have you looked?” Before she could assess her requirements, she had to know how vast a problem faced her.

“There is some breakage. The hangings on Herr Ostneige’s bed have been pulled down and the dresser is badly scratched. I think they must have taken a gardener’s trowel to it. I’ve been in four of the other rooms, and they are in similar condition. Nothing is anywhere near as bad as the … disaster on the ground floor. I haven’t been up into the attic rooms yet, but it may be that they confined themselves to the first two floors.” Although he had been out of uniform for almost a year, Walther Stoff still spoke like the soldier he had been and he stood at attention. He unbent enough to favor Gudrun with a paternal smile. “It is not impossible, Frau Ostneige. We will accomplish it. A few of the men who served with Mein Herr will be pleased to discharge their obligations to him by helping to put the Schloss in order again. That way, too, they will be usefully employed and will not be tempted to listen to the Spartacists or that Red riffraff from Wien. Working men are not discontented with their lot. Let me inquire. If you will give me permission to do so, I will write to four or five of them immediately.”

“Yes. Do as you think best.” Gudrun was already planning: she could house the workers in the attic rooms, assuming they were fit enough to be used for that purpose. It would also be necessary to hire a cook to provide good meals for the men. One of the inns might be able to recommend someone reliable. Doubtless the men who worked here would require a day to visit their families, and Sunday was the traditional day for such things. That would mean six days of work from each of them. Nine, ten, at the most a dozen who were willing to work until the first snows—the Schloss could be made habitable again in that time, and it would not be necessary to subject her husband to further discomfort. “Write to them, by all means.”

Walther conditionally approved of Herr Ostneige’s wife, and so he very nearly saluted her. “I will bring the letters to you when I have finished with them.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Gudrun said, not wanting to have to go over the letters, but Walther took this as another indication of her ability to deal well with her inferiors. He decided to make mention of her quality and the devotion she had shown her crippled husband. The men would respond to her duty.

“Is there anything more, Frau Ostneige?” He would have liked to be able to do something for her, something that would show her how much he respected her.

“Nothing now, thank you. But I think I should mention that my brother will be here later. We sent him a telegram when we left München, and if he left Rosenheim this afternoon, he should be here before too long.” She anticipated seeing her brother with mixed emotions but masked this from Walther.

“Your brother. This is Altbrunnen, isn’t it?” He had met the young man once and held him in contempt because Maximillian was not in uniform. There had been some excuse about being medically unfit and he remembered that Herr Ostneige had mentioned a serious illness in youth, but to Walther’s mind, any young man who was fit should have been fighting for Deutschland, not spending his days in questionable company or living off of his sister.

“My brother has told me he would prefer to make his quarters in the gamekeeper’s cottage. Would you hike over to it and see if it has been damaged, and if so, how badly?” If there was an answer, she did not hear it. She opened the door to the muniment room and was relieved to see that the vandals who had been there had contented themselves with smearing mud on the various rolled documents. She picked one up, handling it gingerly. With a little care, she thought, it would be possible to save most of them. The parchment was heavy, and if it were sponged, it should come reasonably clean. She began to pull the long rolls from their niches.

When Walther returned from the gamekeeper’s cottage, he brought a terrified old man with him. He was not pleased with his discovery and wondered, as he had wondered on the walk back from the cottage, if he should have summoned the authorities.

They found Gudrun once more in the library, sorting out the books which had been pulled from the shelves but not burned. She was down on her knees—it distressed both men to see her there, for each believed that women of her rank should not be doing servant’s work—with a number of tall piles of volumes around her. As the door closed, she looked up with the semblance of satisfaction on her face. “You’re back,” she said, then stopped and gave a little shriek of recognition. “
Otto!
Gott im Himmel!” She stumbled to her feet, oversetting two stacks of books in her haste, and very nearly ran into the old man’s arms. “Otto, you’re alive.”

He patted her awkwardly. “Nein, Rudi, don’t cry. You are the Gnädige Frau now, and not my little friend Rudi.” There were tears in his eyes as he stepped away from her.

“Oh, Otto. When I saw the Schloss, I thought you must have been hurt or killed. I knew you wouldn’t be driven off.” She reached out to take his hand, but hesitated and did not. She could see relief in Walther’s eyes.

“I hid, Gudrun. I can’t justify it. There were so many of them that I…”

“How many?” Walther asked. He had not allowed Otto to speak to him while they had walked side by side back to the Schloss.

“I counted nine,” Otto said defensively. “I did not stay to find if there were more, not after they shot out all but two of the front windows. They caught one of the goats and killed it, but I buried the poor animal after they were gone.”

“Who were they?” Gudrun inquired with a calm that surprised her.

“I don’t know. I didn’t recognize any of them. They may have been Spartacists, because one of them kept shouting about how the people had cast off their chains in Russia.” He looked around the library. “I had my gun, but not very many bullets. You understand, if I had had enough, I would have done anything to prevent this.” His tired old eyes grew shiny with tears.

Gudrun smiled gently. “Then I would have had to face worse than this. Your death would only have added to the loss and solved nothing.” She was also aware that his sight had been growing weaker in the last few years, and she doubted he would have been able to aim well.

“You’re kind, Frau Ostneige.” Otto bowed properly.

“Oh, Otto, don’t behave this way. I’m still Rudi. It’s no different than when I was a child here. My father did not leave this Schloss to me so that I could be a stranger in it: You’re all the tie I have left to those days, you and Maxl. If you behave as if you do not know me, it will be cruel of you.” She had not intended to say so much, and was shocked to hear the loneliness in her tone.

Otto nodded a number of times. “My little one, yes. But it is not the same. If we are alone you are still Rudi, but otherwise, you are Frau Ostneige, and that is how it should be.”

Walther was fast revising his opinion of Otto, deciding now that the old man had very properly refused to give information to an unknown man. Loyalty was rare, he reminded himself, and for that reason it could be unrecognized when encountered. He lamented the familiarity that Frau Ostneige showed the old man, but if she had known him since childhood, it could be excused: Otto was well aware of what respect was due his lady, and that was important. Without looking at Frau Ostneige again, he began to restack the books she had overturned.

“When did this happen, Otto?” Gudrun extended her hand in such a way that it included the whole Schloss.

“More than a month ago. It’s rained twice since they were here, and I’ve seen the damage the water did. They rampaged all through this area. You know Schloss Saint-Germain? It was treated the same way. The Blau Pferd near Gmud was burned to the ground and the innkeeper badly beaten. Two large houses at Fischbachau were broken into and wrecked. I’ve heard that Schloss Schafhorn was burned day before yesterday, but there has been no confirmation. Everyone here is afraid, Rudi. They have seen what can become of them and it is terrifying. You must not think ill of them.”

“I don’t,” she said, aghast at what she was told. A large inn, and four or more Schlosses vandalized! “Isn’t the war enough for them?” she demanded of the air.

Otto lowered his head. “The stationmaster at Hausham has said that we may use the telegraph and the telephone if we need to.” It was no easy thing for Otto to say. “We have to get there, but it isn’t very far.”

“We have an automobile,” Gudrun said. She took unwarranted pride in the Hispaño-Suiza double phaeton she had been able to get so cheaply a year ago because it was not a German car. Jürgen had not been entirely happy with her purchase, but she had pointed out that at the time their 1911 model was made, the cars were still being built in Spain rather than France, and further, in 1911, the two countries were not at war, Jürgen had allowed himself to be persuaded because he quickly came to appreciate the convenience of the large, elegant vehicle.

“The red-and-white one I saw on the road?” Otto asked, revealing more delight than he wished to.

“Yes. My only concern is fuel. Where does one get petrol here?” The thought had occurred to her as they had driven out of Dürnbach, and it still worried her.