The Sun Is God (22 page)

“Good day gents,” Will said cheerfully.

Neither man looked up from their cards, but Schreckengost grunted “Good afternoon” in English.

“What are you playing?” Will asked in German.

“A private game,” Schreckengost said, and Misha gave Will a look that was either cosmic boredom or contempt—Will couldn't quite decipher which.

“Gentlemen, I'm going to have to ask you to stop for a moment. I have come here at the direct request of the German government to ask a few questions about the death of Max Lutzow.”

Schreckengost nodded and then translated what Will had said into Russian for Misha's benefit.

“He speaks no English or German?” Will asked.

“Very little,” Schreckengost replied.

“You speak Russian?”

“My mother was a Volga German,” Schreckengost said. Will had no idea what a “Volga German” was but he did not press the matter.

“I would like to know where you gentlemen were the night Lutzow died,” Will said.

“I was sleeping,” Schreckengost said. “I did not learn of his death until the morning.”

“And him?”

Schreckengost translated the question and Misha said that he also was sleeping.

“In the morning Engelhardt told you what happened?” Will asked.

“Yes.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“That Lutzow had passed. He had been ill.”

“No one was surprised?”

“No.”

“Who did he say was with Lutzow when he died?”

Schreckengost asked Misha and the Russian shook his head and said something which made Schreckengost laugh.

“Well?” Will asked.

“Lutzow was not well liked. He did not embrace our ways. At least not without a great deal of complaint. Likely no one was with him when he died,” Schreckengost said.

Will nodded. “I was told that Anna, Fräulein Schwab, had held his hand at the last.”

Schreckengost switched from German to English: “I think she tries to help him but he begins calling her the most outrageous slanders and she leaves him. So we are told.”

“What names?”

“Whore, prostitute, things of this nature.”

Will looked at Misha, who was stroking his thick, red beard thoughtfully as if he was about to contribute some vital piece of information. Will waited but Misha said nothing and after a time went back to studying cards.

“How did you end up here on Kabakon?” Will asked Schreckengost.

“By boat.”

“No, I mean why did you come here? How did you hear about this place?”

“That is a long story.”

“We have plenty of time.”

Schreckengost sighed and smiled. “What do you do with your life if you are not good at the thing you love?”

Oh Christ he's an artist
, Will thought.

“What is the thing you love?” he asked.

“My brother Ossee plays baseball for the Philadelphia Athletics. Do you know baseball, Herr Prior?”

“American cricket.”

“You have it. This is why I left America.”

“You left America because of a game?” Will asked.

“I left because of my brother.”

“How so?”

“Ossee was better than me. He was paid well for this and I was apprenticed to a bicycle maker. He was married. I could not afford to have a wife.”

“So you decided to jack the whole thing in and run away?”

“I took passage to Hamburg, and in Hamburg I read one of Engelhardt's pamphlets. I worked my way to Singapore and came here. I met Misha on the way and we came together. We had nothing to offer Engelhardt and the others but our labor, but they did not hesitate to accept us. They took us in with open arms. They are our family. They have given us everything we need. Do you see? I think this is why Lutzow died.”

“Oh?”

“His heart lay on the other side of the Bismarck Sea. He was not with us.”

I'll give the buggers this
, Will thought,
they all pipe the same tune
.

Schreckengost pointed at the ground. “This small, insignificant island, this is all that matters to us, to all of us. The world out there can go hang!”

Misha nodded in agreement, not quite catching what Schreckengost was saying but appreciating the depth of his feeling.

“It was you and Misha that carried Lutzow to the beach the morning after Lutzow died, am I right?” asked Will. “You're the biggest and the strongest.”

“Misha and myself, Harry helped also.”

“And how long was he left lying there before Clark, the Australian came to take him away?”

“No time. We carried him straight to Clark's boat.”

“Clark was there to deliver letters, I gather.”

“Yes.”

“And if Clark hadn't been there, what would you have done with the body?”

“We would have buried him at sea more than likely.”

“Do we play or not?” Misha grunted in broken German.

“We will play,” Schreckengost said. “Do you have more questions about Lutzow, Herr Prior?”

“It was Fräulein Herzen wasn't it? It was her idea to send Lutzow to Herbertshöhe?” Will asked.

Schreckengost did not appear nonplussed. “I think so.”

“Did anyone object to that idea?”

“Perhaps Engeldhardt did.”

“But Miss Herzen insisted. She insisted in front of Clark.”

Schreckengost shrugged. “No one made a strong objection. Lutzow was more of that world than our world. No doubt his family will approve of his Christian grave. He is buried as a Christian, yes?”

“They haven't buried him yet. He's lying on a block of ice in a basement in the hospital.”

“He is not buried?”

“No. Not until my investigation into his death is concluded.”

The two men looked at one another for five good seconds. Schreckengost's big gormless face like that of a Boer farmer from whom you've just asked directions.

Denfer grunted again impatiently.

“If you will excuse me, I must get back to my game,” Schreckengost said, regaining his composure.

Will stood. “Of course, and perhaps you can show me the finer points of baseball at some point. I was a useful cricketer back in the day. I'm sure the games have much in common.”

Schreckengost nodded animatedly. “Bessie . . . Miss Pullen-Burry speaks of cricket!”

At the mention of the English lady's name Denfer grunted and shook his head. Will put on his straw boater and walked back out into the piazza. The sky was black and the rain was coming down in buckets.

Sonnenorden! What a joke. Hardly ever see the bloody sun
, Will thought.

The next course of action was obvious if he could hack it. It was time to visit the ladies again.

He rapped on the Countess's closed door.

“Come in, Herr Prior,” Helena said with resignation.

Will opened the door and went inside. He found the countess in bed with Fräulein Schwab. Anna was curled into Helena's body, nestled against the older woman's left breast, her hand resting on her belly.

“How can we help you?” the countess asked.

Her cheeks were flushed, her lips red, her eyes a deep green. Her expression hovered between idle curiosity and annoyance. She was an intimidating woman, and she knew it, and she was used to command. Used to having her way, even here in utopia. Fräulein Schwab was thin and somehow insubstantial in the foundering light.

Will was determined to show that he was not shocked.

“Well?” Helena asked.

Will sat on the chair at the writing table, where green ants gnawed at the countess's sealing wax.

“Where's the redoubtable Miss Pullen-Burry? I saw that she was swimming with you earlier,” Will babbled.

“She is still swimming. ‘To clear her head', she said,” Helena explained.

“I should go swimming, too, to clear my head,” Will said. “In fact, everyone could do with a bit of head-clearing around here.”

“What do you mean by that?” Anna asked.

“Your brains seem fugged by heroin much of the time and by starvation for the rest.”

“We have all done much deep thinking here, sir,” Anna said.

“I see little evidence of deep thinking on Kabakon,” Will said. “I see many half-baked notions that skim the surface of philosophy. I doubt that any of you would last five minutes in the Oxford Union.”

“You are ignorant of our ways, sir, and of much else. If you have no questions I would rather that you go,” Helena said.

Will stood and walked toward the bed. “I have come to ask about Fräulein Herzen. Do you have any idea why she wanted to leave Kabakon?”

Helena's eyebrows raised and Fräulein Schwab turned her head slightly to regard him. “She had become less enthusiastic as time passed,” the countess said icily. “She was a bourgeois Haus Frau. One cannot get traveling companions of quality these days.”

“Why did Fräulein Herzen want Lutzow to be buried in Herbertshöhe?” Will asked.

“What do you mean?” Helena asked.

“The morning that Lutzow died, Clark came to deliver letters. It was Fräulein Herzen who suggested that he take Lutzow back to Herbertshöhe for burial, wasn't it? I was wondering why she insisted upon that? Do you know?” Will asked.

“What are you implying?” Helena asked, sitting up so suddenly that Anna almost tumbled out of the bed.

“I imply nothing. I was wondering why Fräulein Herzen insisted that Clark take Lutzow in his boat.”

“She was bourgeoise, she fixated on niceties. A burial by a priest in so-called consecrated ground.”

“A bourgeoise whose will was stronger than all the rest of you put together.”

“I do not catch your meaning,” Helena said.

“She made Clark take the body in his skiff over the objections of your leader. I wonder why? What were you going to do with poor old Lutzow? Or were you afraid of what the authorities might discover in Herbertshöhe.”

“You go too far, sir!” Helena said.

“Do I, madam?”

“Please leave.”

“Or you will do what?”

“Sir, your vulgarity does your already poor reputation no credit,” Helena said.

Will held her gaze and then stood. “Have a good afternoon, ladies,” he said, putting the straw boater back on his head and walking back into the rain. A grinning black face was watching him beyond the trees.

“You there!” Will said and the face vanished.

When he got back to his hut Kessler was awake and reading. Will sank into his hammock.

“Ah, Will, I was looking for you,” Klaus said. “Another day has almost gone and I will be seeing the pilot tomorrow. He seems irritated to be traveling back and forth each morning and I was wondering if perhaps we should . . .”

“We should what, Klaus?”

“Return with him.”

“Don't you want to know the truth about Lutzow?”

Kessler's face remained expressionless. “It seems to me, on the balance of probabilities, that there has been some sort of error. These people are eccentric but I do not think that they have broken any laws.”

Will shook his head. “There's been an error all right. And it's these fools that have made it.”

Kessler looked at him intently. “But the navy—”

“You can't be intimidated by a naval rating nearly ten years younger than you. You're a German officer for Christ's sake!” Will said, slapping his fist into his hand.

“This investigation cannot go on endlessly, Will. I do have other responsibilities.”

Will lit one of his precious cigarillos with a sulfur match. “Give me a little more time, Klaus. Let me at least interrogate the two Augusts: Bethman and Engelhardt.”

“Do you think you are making progress?”

“I think I am starting to see the beginnings of a pattern. A little more time, Klaus.”

Kessler nodded and they smoked and played backgammon until Will had lost so many theoretical Marks it would take him nine lifetimes to win them back. When it looked like everything was ready for the communal meal, Will revived a little and he and Klaus walked to the long table where they were met by a jolly and content Miss Pullen-Burry.

“An agreeable day?” Kessler asked her.

“I must have swum for twelve hours,” she said ecstatically. “Herr Schreckengost joined me in the late afternoon and showed me the sharks in the reef.”

“Oh dear, you must be careful, Miss Pullen-Burry,” Kessler said. “I would get in all sorts of trouble with Frau Forsayth were you to be eaten by a shark.”

“Where
is
Herr Schreckengost?” Will asked. “In fact, where are the lot of them?”

Harry came walking in from the plantations with a yellow umbrella above his head, but none of the others materialized until the door to Engelhardt's hut opened and they filed out one by one like school children from the headmaster's office. A conference?

Engelhardt sat down at the head of the table and with no ceremony whatsoever everyone began eating their mashed coconut meat. The talk was diffuse and of normal things. At least, normal here on Kabakon: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, the decline of the West, the coming Apocalypse. Will listened and said nothing. He found Fräulein Schwab's gaze upon him and when he nodded at her she smiled at him.

“Apparently you may be leaving us soon?” Fräulein Schwab asked.

“Who told you that?” Will asked.

“Oh, one hears things,” she said.

“Perhaps,” Will replied cautiously.

“So you finally agree with my diagnosis, regarding the late Max Lutzow!” Bethman said.

“That he died of malaria?” Will said.

“Call it what you like. Lutzow would be alive today if he had more faith!” Bethman replied.

“I've been meaning to ask you, Bethman: when you examined Lutzow, did you find a pulse?”

“A pulse? On a corpse! Even in the Augustburg I would like to see such a thing!” Bethman exclaimed.