Tempting Fate (97 page)

I have not yet departed, but I have packed my belongings, and my family and I are prepared to leave within the hour, I am of the opinion that a gross injustice has been perpetrated on Graf Ragoczy, and that he is entitled to redress for the wrongs he has suffered. The men of the Thule Bruderschaft have said that they will not pay for their use of the estate and that they will oppose in court any attempt to recover monies from them. That may be, but I have a duty to my employer, and I cannot abandon him and his Schloss in such a cold-blooded manner. I must voice my protest for this most reprehensible act, and seek the support of those with greater power than the Thule Bruderschaft possesses. I am aware that they are hand-in-glove with the NSDAP and for that reason you may hesitate to dispute title with them. But you are a fair man, President von Hindenburg, and you have been a great hero in war. You know that it is poor strategy to cheat your nobility to oblige a few envious men with money.

It is not fitting that Graf Ragoczy should be treated in this way. He has given the fruits of his studies to Farben and he has been called a genius at chemistry. He did not ask for more than what had been granted him at the beginning of his project. When there was no money to continue, he paid for his supplies and materials himself and has never asked that the amounts be returned, although others have profited from his work. To accept so much from Graf Ragoczy and to treat him so meanly is not a credit to you, your country, the NSDAP, the Thule Bruderschaft, or anything else pertaining to Deutschland.

If you decide to remain silent on this issue, I will take my case to the League of Nations. It is possible that they will not want to address it, but I will have made my point and it is possible that the Thule Bruderschaft will be shamed into returning that which is not there for them by rights. They have said that one day they will make restitution to Graf Ragoczy, but they do not say when, or what form their restitution will take. The Thule Bruderschaft have an egregious hunger for this estate. Some of the members put a great deal of stock in the name and say that they believe it is associated with an old mystic. Others do not have faith in that, but nonetheless believe that because of its location, it has a few desirable properties for their activities.

If there is justice in Deutschland, then this estate must be returned at once to its rightful owner, and compensation for this insult must be forthcoming soon after. If there is no justice, then I am wasting my time in writing this.

In the hope that you will stand by the honor you upheld as a soldier, I am

Most sincerely yours,

Enzo DiGottardi

9

A few hours before, there had been rain, but now there was only the drifting mist rising through the trees toward the high peaks, wrapped in snow and clouds. It was dank as the exhalations of flooded mines. The night was densely cold, as if the air itself were heavy with the frigid dampness. Ice lay in the deep ruts in the old lane that led up to Schloss Saint-Germain from the back of the estate, and the Delage churned and groaned with every meter covered. Ragoczy held the wheel steady, fighting the sudden pulls and slithering that threatened to send the automobile into the ditch beside the road. It was his third night of driving, and he was growing tired.

The high section of stone wall that still stood at the back of the Schloss loomed up before his headlights, green with lichen and touched with frosty mist. The stones seemed huge, impregnable, though Ragoczy knew he had only to walk thirty meters or so to come to the end of it. He pulled the Delage into the shadow of a stand of pines and brought the automobile to a halt. When he was satisfied that the brake was properly set and the automobile adequately concealed, he moved away from it, pulling on a hunter’s jacket of fur-lined black wool.

Schloss Saint-Germain was draped in gossamer cerements of algid vapor, the building looking as ephemeral as fog, a thing from a dream instead of the solid reality Ragoczy knew it to be.

Ragoczy approached from the south side, coming past the stables and toward the kitchen entrance. If Enzo were awake at this hour, he would undoubtedly be in that room, preparing tomorrow’s meals. Using his large iron key, Ragoczy let himself in through the scullery door, prepared to feel the relaxation that came to him when standing on his native earth. He pulled the door closed and locked it again, noticing that he felt no calmer than he had at the wheel of the Delage. He considered this, then decided that fatigue and his own unrelenting grief had blocked the palliation of the good Transylvanian earth lying under the floor. He was mildly surprised to find the kitchen cold, and only the heavy, ancient wood-burning stove giving off the last echoes of heat from dying embers. Ragoczy’s tread echoed eerily in the room as he crossed it quickly, not wanting to remember the times he had seen Laisha sit there with Nikolai and Enzo, watching the cook prepare the delicacies he inevitably offered her. Those days were gone. He opened the door to the hall, wondering what rooms Enzo had selected for himself and his relatives; he did not want to rouse the whole house, not at this hour.

He made his way with some caution down the long, empty corridor toward the main staircase. The vague unease that had bothered him was growing more intense. He walked more quickly, more quietly, the first pucker of a frown on his forehead. At the staircase, he looked up to the landing, half-expecting to find his caretaker there with a shotgun, waiting to prevent him from progressing further. When no one spoke to him, he was apprehensive. He could not rid himself of the sensation of being in the midst of the enemy, and it was an effort of will not to leave the place at once.

Ragoczy’s study lay under a thin film of dust and smelled of neglect. The empty bookshelves gaped in the dark like toothless mouths. The desk, wholly cleared and uncluttered, seemed to be out of place in the oak-paneled room. He trailed his finger along the nearest shelf and left a dark track where it had been. With a sigh, he pulled the Turkish chair around to a better angle and dropped into it. An hour or two of rest should suffice, he told himself, wishing that his malaise would pass so that he might be revived by this place. He propped his feet on a low stool and leaned back, closing his eyes, determined to rest.

But rest eluded him. There was no posture that refreshed him, no restoration of his strength and faculties. The least noise would bring him alert and erect in his chair, a draft was as scathing to his nerves as the sound of a rake on flagstones. After rather more than an hour of vain attempts at repose, he got up, determined to search the place and discover what, if anything, within these walls was the source of his disturbance.

He had reached the study door when he heard a light tread in the hall, and he halted just inside the door, his hand on the knob, waiting.

The person on the other side faltered, then opened the door so quickly that Ragoczy reached out and thrust the shoulder of the person entering the room so that the impetus of movement carried the newcomer forward to sprawl on the old Persian carpet.

“Oh. What…!” the voice cried out in a faint shriek, and the figure huddled near the desk, as if trying to disappear.

Ragoczy was astonished. “Gudrun!” he said, shocked, as he came across the carpet toward her, his hands held out to her. “What are you doing here?”

“Graf.” She turned her disbelieving eyes on him and shook her head, as if doubting her senses even when his hands closed on hers. “What are
you
doing here?”

He helped her to her feet, smoothing the elaborate velvet robe she wore, and attempting to brush the worst of the dust from its thick, silken pile. He was somewhat startled by her finery, for he knew that she had been making do with a pitifully small trust, hardly enough to permit her to eke out a cloisterish way of life. Yet here she was in his Schloss, dressed in the finest silk velvet. “This is my house, Gudrun,” he reminded her kindly, hoping that she would proffer an explanation for her presence.

“Oh, dear.” She ran One hand through her fashionably coiffed pale hair, and gave a distracted look to the rest of the room. “I thought I heard, oh, mice in here. I didn’t think you would be back, after…”

“Laisha’s death?” he asked cuttingly, “I had not intended to.”

“No. That’s not what I meant, but it is a factor, of course. No.” She fingered the deep ruffle around her neck. “Didn’t they tell you?”

“Tell me what, Gudrun?” He was growing more curious as he listened to her. Clearly there had been developments here of which he was unaware. He had received no warning from Enzo, but his ire at the Italian-Swiss lasted no more than a second. Enzo had not been told where to write to him other than Paris, and had not been given his address in Berlin. He thought that he had been a fool to ignore this place so completely; the negligence had undoubtedly contributed to the difficulties here.

“About the Thule Gesellschaft and Bruderschaft. They petitioned the court to give them title to your estate. Weren’t you notified?” She was regarding him with large eyes open wide. She was just beginning to wonder what he was doing here in Schloss Saint-Germain in the middle of the night, unannounced.

“No, I wasn’t notified.” He doubted the attempt had been made, since he had been followed so much of the time.

“They said that you had, and that there was no response. They claimed that gave them the right to use the estate, since it was the property of an absent foreigner.” She repeated the words very much as she had heard Helmut say them to her, and as she said them, she had the same distrust that she had felt when he had told her, only three days ago, that they would be living at the Schloss until the Bruderschaft could send a permanent staff to take care of the estate.

“What did Enzo DiGottardi have to say about this?” He could not imagine the man would tolerate such action.

“Your cook, you mean?” She saw him nod. “He protested, of course, but he is a foreigner, too, isn’t he? They said that he could not appeal the matter since the property is not his and he is not a citizen of Deutschland.”

“How convenient,” Ragoczy murmured, then asked, “Where is Enzo, do you know?”

“He’s gone. He was told to leave. There were members of the Bruderschaft who came here with the court documents and insisted that he be on his way. I was told that he wrote a number of letters objecting to this, but none of them were successful in persuading anyone in government to reconsider the verdict of the court. The judge is part of the Thule Gesellschaft, but I don’t know if he is in the Bruderschaft as well.” She knew she was speaking too quickly, that her nervousness was causing her to chatter in the hope that he would not press her for more explanation. She used not to do that, she thought, but since Helmut had forced his way into her life, she had learned to babble, concealing her fear and disgust in a plethora of words; endless, senseless words that camouflaged her deeper feelings.

“I see.” He studied her face, then asked with disarming gentleness, “Rudi, what’s wrong?”

“Wrong?” she repeated, almost five notes higher than her usual speaking level. “Why, nothing. I … I don’t … What should be wrong?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve never known you to talk like this.” He pressed one hand to her arm. “You’re dressing well.”

“Oh, yes,” she said sadly. “I have a new wardrobe, expensive and impressive. I have new furniture, and Wolkighügel is filled with painters and plasterers and plumbers and all the rest of them, being turned back in to the showplace it was. And I
hate
it.”

“Then why…?” He watched her closely as she talked, noticing her hasty movements, so unlike her usual grace. Her hands fluttered, her eyes moved restlessly, her body twisted and shuddered inside her luxurious robe.

“I have married again. I had to. Not for the reason most women claim. I’m not pregnant and I hope that I never am. I don’t want his child, not now or ever. He thinks that it is my duty to give him sons, because we’re Teutons, and the world is being overrun with racial bastards. He lectures me about it, and claims that it would aid his career if we had children. I don’t want his child.” Her hands crossed her body and gripped her elbows so tightly that the tendons stood out on the backs in ridges.

“Who is this distressing groom, Rudi? Forgive me, but I was under the impression when I left—although I was not in a particularly observant frame of mind at the time—that you had not accepted any regular suitor and that you had no intention of doing so.” His compassion steadied her, and when he offered her his hand, she took it, squeezing his fingers when she was afraid she might break down.

“You see, Saint-Germain, there were debts, and I knew nothing of them. Tremendous debts, for fabulous amounts of money, that I could not pay.” She looked away, thinking again of Maximillian’s perfidy, torn between despair and fury. “I didn’t know about them until recently.”

“Your brother?” He was certain of it even before he asked the question, but wanted to hear her say so. Maximillian had been willing to keep living on Gudrun’s care.

“Yes. Naturally. Who else could have done it? I knew nothing of it until recently, and when I found out, I had no means of paying the debts. Maximillian had this dream of our life, and thought that as we had lived before, we were entitled to live now. He could not see that the money was gone.” She pulled at Ragoczy’s fingers, twisting them, unaware of what she was doing. “He promised things he did not have so that he could continue to live … He promised Wolkighügel, which was mine—mine!—and when he died, he left no warning, only the suggestion that I should marry Helmut Rauch because he would be able to guide me. Much of the money he borrowed was through Helmut, who must have suspected the truth, but helped Maximillian maintain his fantasy. Not long ago, he brought me the records of Maximillian’s debts, and I was overcome. I did not have the money: I haven’t got it now. Oh, yes, there are clothes, and my home is being refurbished, but it is nothing. I wish the house were in ashes and that I was dressed in rags!” She stifled her outburst almost at once. “He’ll hear. He’ll hear.”