Tempting Fate (56 page)

“More of a stroll, then.” His smile was fleeting, and he did not press her.

“Yes,” she said after a brief consideration. No one would blame her for walking with her neighbor. It was done often, and even a recent widow could not be censured for such an activity. She returned the smile and put her hand in his. “A walk would be very nice.”

Once out of the drive for Volkighügel, they took the path that led to Freudenreich and Eck, past Louisenthal and into Dürnbach. It was a pleasant way, skirting the edge of the fields, and their pace was leisurely. In very little time the discomfort Gudrun felt was dispelled by the ease of Ragoczy’s manner. She began to enjoy herself. The air was heady with the smells of the end of summer, and it was warm enough to give a touch of laziness to the day.

“That is better,” Ragoczy said as they crossed a little bridge over a brook that was nearly dry.

“Better?” She was startled to hear him speak.

“You are more relaxed, Madame.” He resumed his walking, close enough to be companionable, far enough away from her that she did not feel put upon or improper.

“I would like it if you would call me Gudrun,” she said, feeling more daring now that they were out on this country lane. Somehow she was less hemmed in here, and no longer subject to the restrictions that dictated the conduct of her every hour within the walls of Volkighügel.

“And not so very long ago, you agreed to call me Saint-Germain,” he countered. His expression was amused, without any of the harshness she often perceived in men’s eyes. “In public, you are Madame Ostneige, which is as it should be. Here, you are Gudrun.”

“Here,” she corrected him, “I am Rudi.” She laughed at her nickname as she said it. How long it had been since she had experienced the buoyancy of spirit that filled her now.

“Do you wish me to call you that?” he asked as he pointed out a pheasant cock just bursting from cover. “Beautiful, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Yes, he is beautiful, or yes, I may call you Rudi?” He had stopped walking and now regarded her with steady, serious eyes.

Recklessly she put her hand through the crook of his arm. “Yes to both of them, Saint-Germain.” Her French accent was dreadful, and she repeated it, trying to soften the syllables.

They had come to a bend in the path that wound through a copse of birches, where light winked down through the leaves and the white branches whispered and beckoned in the gentle wind. There was shadow here, and a sense of privacy that closed out much more than the fields around them. Wild rosemary grew beside the trail, and the scent of it was like a summer perfume.

Gudrun’s hair was slightly disarranged now, and wisps of it feathered around her face, giving her an elfin halo. Her dress, though demure, was flattering to her overly-thin body, and she sensed the admiration her companion did not voice. “Listen to the leaves; they’re telling secrets.”

“Are they?” He moved so that he faced her yet kept her hand in the bend of his arm. “What secrets?”

“Oh, tragic ones about hopeless lovers, murmuring unkeepable promises,” she said with just enough mockery to let him know she thought it was silly. “Werther, Faust, all of them.”

“‘Werd’ ich zur Augenblicke sagen, ‘Verweile doch, du bist so schön—’” Ragoczy quoted, his dark eyes on her. “What more unkeepable promise is there? Poor Faust. What man could win such a bargain as that one?”

“Is that what the leaves are saying? Do they want the wind to linger?” Gudrun felt suddenly, wonderfully breathless.

His answer was ironic, his eyes tender. “Every lovely moment must fly, and every dreadful one.”

“Oh,” she said, gazing at him. She had not noticed until now how much sorrow there was in his face, how much compassion. Timidly she lifted her free hand to touch the firm line of his jaw, half-fearing that he would rebuke her, half-fearing that he would not. She did not know what she wanted of him, but he had sounded a chord within her that she had not heard before. “Even this? Must this fly?”

Gently he took her in his arms, letting her head lean against his shoulder. “Especially this.” His lips were erotic, warm on her. It was a strangely peaceful kiss, one that she could accept without feeling herself a traitor to Jürgen or her life. Then her pulse quickened, and she moved her head. She was secretly disappointed when he did not urge her to further intimacies: he kept her within the circle of his embrace, the stillness holding them together.

“Graf…” she said when she could trust herself to speak again.

“Saint-Germain,” he reminded her, his voice little more than a whisper, hardly louder than the sough of the leaves.

“I didn’t, mean … anything…” Reluctantly she stepped away from him, wishing she knew why she felt pressed to do so. Her fingers ran along the piping of her tunic with the same automatic gesture of a nun telling her rosary. It was absurd to place such importance on a single kiss, she told herself as her heartbeat grew louder. She turned to look at the white-bodied trees. “I wish you had not kissed me.”

“Truly?” He was neither contrite nor accusing.

“No.”

“Ah, Gudrun, you see?” he asked quietly but with such feeling that she was suddenly overwhelmed with the poignance of their touching. “The moment is gone, and it cannot be recalled or recaptured, splendid as it was.” He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “No, don’t be distressed, Rudi.”

“I’m not,” she said as she continued to finger the piping of her tunic.

“You have no reason to fear me.” He waited until she looked at him. “You are afraid that this will change everything, aren’t you? That I will not offer my arm to you, or receive an invitation without assuming I have been given certain … liberties.” He did not need to see her guilty nod to know he was right. “This changes nothing, my dear. I am still your neighbor, and, I hope, your friend.”

Konrad Natter had said something very like that to her shortly after Jürgen died, and then had attempted to seduce her six weeks later. She had been willing to pretend that it was the result of a misunderstanding, but she did not deceive herself with believing that Natter wanted anything more than access to her body. It was tempting, so tempting to listen to Ragoczy and imbue his words with a truth she doubted they possessed. “You will expect concessions, won’t you?” Her chin had lifted and she could not forget her brother’s warnings.

“Why should I?” His expression was at once sad and amused. “What would either of us gain from it? Suspicion? Dislike? Yes, I am aware of how you would feel. Why should I want to sully the delight I take in your company? And yet you are worried that I will force my attentions on you, aren’t you?”

“I … I don’t know.” It was not entirely the truth, but she could not bring herself to say more than that.

“You will never have more from me than what you want,” he said in a low voice, his dark eyes glowing. “I wish you could believe this.”

She gave a wistful smile. “I wish it, too.” As the birch trees trembled around them, she quivered, more with a sudden tumult of longing than with chill.

Ragoczy stepped back from her. “Come; it is getting late.”

“Yes,” she agreed, falling into step beside him, steeling herself to deal with the coaxing or blandishments she had encountered from others.

They never occurred. Ragoczy spoke easily of crops and horses, of the telephone he had just installed at Schloss Saint-Germain, and eventually she put her arm through his again, and drew closer to him as they walked through the long bars of yellow light of this September afternoon.

Text of a letter to Franchot Ragoczy from Simeon Schnaubel.

Chicago, Illinois

November 4, 1924

Graf Ragoczy

Schloss Saint-Germain

Schliersee

Bavaria, Germany

Dear Graf:

I never thought to salvage anything from the financial disaster that struck Germany, and so I am doubly grateful to you for your closing of my affairs there. It was a kindness to do so much, as I am still unable to think of our home there without grief and pain. The children, too, are filled with anguish when Bavaria is mentioned.

I have decided that it would be senseless to return to Germany, and so I have made application, through my uncle, to become a citizen of the United States of America. There are strict new laws limiting the numbers of new citizens, but we have been assured that since I am established in a profession and have been able to provide employment to a number of Americans as a result of the expansion of my uncle’s business, many of the difficulties that make the way hard for others will not be there for me. The callousness of this no longer has the capacity to upset me as it would have once. Life, I have learned, is not fair, and there is nothing that can be done to make it so. That being the case, I will seize what it offered me and use it to protect and advance my family, what there is left of it.

You inquired about the children. Bruno is finishing his first year at Northwestern, where he is studying psychology. He has become fiercely intellectual and is determined to discover and label all the secrets of the mind. Olympie has entered a private school for girls—costly but apparently worthwhile, as she is doing well. Emmerich has been a bit of a problem: he is enchanted with the gangsters here, and thinks that they are like the old freebooters of the past instead of the bloodthirsty creatures they are. I have tried once or twice to draw a parallel between the behavior of these gangsters and the monsters who killed my wife and son. He does not think there are similarities, but that is, in part, because he believes that the murderers were working with official sanction in Bavaria, whereas here the gangsters are clearly outside the law. Hedda is another matter, and quite a sad one. She has been hospitalized for some time and there has been no improvement. Her physicians say that they have exhausted their skills and the psychiatrist can do nothing more than observe her. Most of the time she sits alone in her room staring out the window at nothing. I have been told that she often does not move for hours at a time. Nothing I have said or done has made a difference, and I despair of her. The Rabbi of our synagogue, Beth Israel, has been to see her and has no word of encouragement to give, except to remind us that God visited much suffering on His People. I find that is little consolation. Bruno chides me for this, but admits that he has not much faith himself.

My uncle is urging me to marry again. He has introduced me to a widow, pleasing, attractive, well-off, and sensible. She is a year older than I am, of good Austrian family. I know that this would be a wise thing for me to do, and I am seriously considering it, although I know that I cannot offer Sarah much of myself—I no longer have much to give. She has told me that she is aware of this and it does not mean too much to her, for she has fond memories of her husband, who died six years ago in a tragic fire. We have decided to give the matter six months’ consideration and then discuss it again, to find whether we are still both of a mind to conclude the match. I am aware that my children like her, which is a most important thing. She is fond of them, as well, and has said that she wants the chance to have a family of her own before she is too old, a time that is fast approaching. I’m not certain I can face fathering another child, but that is not yet a decision to be made. Time enough in six months to settle that between us, should we agree to marry.

You asked about Coolidge, and I gather that you believe he is not handling the economics of this country well. His second term will tell the story, or so my uncle thinks. I have not seen enough of American politics to understand the workings of them. It may well be as you say, and there will be monetary stresses in the next few years, but I doubt they. Will be as severe as what we saw in Germany.

Thank you for sending Mann’s
Der Zauberberg
. I have not been able to read it, although I understand that it is excellent. There are too many memories holding me for me to be able to look at it. One day I will read it, but not now.

I don’t know if the Leopold-Loeb case is being discussed in Bavaria, but it is very much at the center of attention here. An attorney named Darrow has defended them, on psychiatric grounds. It is not a question of guilt but of punishment. You would probably applaud his humanity, but having seen my own son butchered, I have little sympathy for two rich youths who murder for the thrill of it. Darrow’s humanity does not extend to the League of Nations, incidentally, which he opposes. From what I gather, he has made himself a reputation defending those criminals no one else would touch. Honorable in its way, I suppose, at least by American standards, but my heart demands sterner justice than what I find here.

I will pass along Laisha’s note to my children, who will be pleased to hear from her. You say that she is growing up rapidly, which is the way with all children. She is a strange child, but one I was fond of.

About the furniture you mention: you have got reasonable and more than reasonable prices for other items, and whatever you should wish to pay will be more than acceptable to me. I had entirely forgotten about that storage room in the old carriage house. If you had not checked it, the pieces would have gone unnoticed indefinitely. As you say the current owners are not going to ask for them, it pleases me that you would want them.

Should you come to this country, I hope you will find the time to visit here. I do not think I will return to Germany again. This is a very large country—I had no idea how large until I got here, and even now I must remind myself of its size—and the distances are not always easily traveled, but let me promise you a sincere welcome here, if you desire to come to the Midwest.

Many thanks, and my very good wishes to you.

Sincerely,

Simeon Schnaubel

4

In the last year, Laisha’s hair had darkened to a caramel blonde that made her very brown eyes seem even more like chocolate than they had before, Her body had begun to change as well, growing quickly to a gawky height that confused her almost as much as her emerging womanhood. She had been told quite sensibly what was taking place within her, and what she could expect now and in the future, but nothing prepared her for the sensations that pricked her, the inexplicable longings, the discomforts that were not entirely unwelcome, the turmoil that could make her giddy one moment and despairing the next, the unsettling redefinition of her body. For the first time since she had come to Schloss Saint-Germain, she had not enjoyed the Christmas holidays, and this afternoon, with the New Year not quite four days old, she found herself fighting an all-consuming boredom that she had never experienced before, and did not know how to define.