Fraulein Frankenstein

by Stephen Woodworth

  Although I took pains to commit every scrap of this trivia to memory, such ephemera failed to clear the mist from my past. Whenever our talk veered too close to uncomfortable revelations, Fräu Hauptmann steered it back toward banality.

  “We must call on your family again,” Herr von Kemp suggested. “I know your father has fretted himself ill over you . . .”

  “I am sure Herr Bauer will not mind if we wait until she regains her health,” the housekeeper interrupted. “I think the journey to Frankfurt would be far too taxing for our Katarina, don’t you? Now, let’s clear these plates for dessert.”

  The subsequent clamor of china and cutlery obliterated any further discussion of the family I did not know I had.

  The meal passed pleasantly enough. When Herr von Kemp rose to bid me goodnight, he gave a courtly bow rather than prostrating himself in front of me.

  “It was lovely, Joseph,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

  “It is I who should thank you, dear lady.” He looked me in the eye for the first time that evening, and feverish heat poured off his palm as he took my hand in his. “You have forgiven me, haven’t you?” he asked in a barely audible croak.

  I could not think what to say. I tried to withdraw my hand, but he did not let go of it. Instead, he moistened his lips and leaned forward.

  “Joseph!”

  He glowered at Fräu Hauptmann’s intrusion.

  “I’m sure Katarina must be very tired,” the housekeeper said.

  Herr von Kemp glared at her defiantly and bent even closer, until I could almost taste the hot gust of his breath in my mouth. Then he lightly touched his lips to my left cheek. The scrape of his whiskers and papery lips caused me to shiver.

  “Until tomorrow, my love.” He stepped back and released my hand.

  Choked with clashing emotions, I could not respond and so merely curtsied and excused myself. I returned to the seclusion of my room and sprawled on the bed, uncertain how I should feel. The old man had been kind and seemed genuinely fond of me. Yet his words and his kiss both implied dark expectations that I had no idea how to fulfill.

  Until tomorrow, my love . . .

  For how many tomorrows would I have to remain imprisoned in a life that did not seem to belong to me? And how long would Joseph von Kemp wait for me to become the love I did not know how to be?

  I extinguished the lights in my bedchamber but still couldn’t sleep. For the first time since my arrival, no wails of grief disturbed the night.

  #

  We carried on this chaste affair for three weeks, gradually increasing the time we spent together without ever approaching physical intimacy. In addition to dining together, Joseph began to accompany me on my strolls through the garden, Fräu Hauptmann shadowing us as our silent chaperone. Though I could see the desire sharpening in his eyes every time he looked at me, Joseph remained a perfect gentleman, contenting himself with nothing more than the touch of a hand or a peck on the cheek. His theatrical chivalry made me quite fond of him, although my affection was more daughterly than spousal. Ignorant of the animal aspects of passion, I might have believed it an ideal marriage. My husband seemed a gentle and generous benefactor who showered me with all the comforts and kindnesses I could want.

  Things went so well, in fact, that the apparent harmony between us prompted Joseph to make the act of hubris that led to his undoing.

  We had just embarked upon our daily promenade one morning when he glanced up at the cloudless sky of periwinkle blue and inhaled the fresh air as if relishing the bouquet of a fine brandy.

  “What a glorious day!” he exclaimed. “Bettina, have Franz and the boys hitch a team to the carriage. It is time my wife and I rode into town.”

  The maid, who had stepped outside to hand Joseph his cane and me my parasol, blanched and cast a timorous glance at Fräu Hauptmann, who lurked beside us, as always.

  “I think that would be most unwise, Herr von Kemp,” the housekeeper demurred in syllables as clipped as a pair of shears snapping shut. “People in the village do not know that Katarina has recovered from her recent . . . illness.”

  “They do not concern me. All they need to see is that my lovely wife has been restored to me and that the von Kemps are again a happy couple.” With his walking stick in hand, he offered me his free arm.

  “But Herr von Kemp, what if he—”

  “Bettina, I gave you an order. My wife and I are going to town.” He cautioned Fräu Hauptmann with a look. “Alone.”

  Bettina curtsied hastily and hurried off. Fräu Hauptmann grew sullen but did not dare to object, and the three of us waited in silence until a landau pulled by a pair of chestnut-colored horses stuttered around the corner of the house and clicked to a stop in front of us. Attired in immaculate gray livery and a top hat, Franz, the stoic coachman, hopped down from the driver’s perch and, without a word, helped both me and Joseph climb into the rear passenger seat of the carriage. A moment later we were off, leaving the black wraith of Fräu Hauptmann behind us.

  Although I hadn’t said as much, I secretly rejoiced to be away from the house and its housekeeper, both of which I found stifling. We rode with the landau’s top down, enjoying the play of sunshine on the barley fields and hop yards on either side of us.

  “All our tenants, my dear,” Joseph said with a devil-may-care grin, indicating the acres of farms. “No one lifts a stein in these parts without tasting a bit of von Kemp!” He grew so bold as to put his arm around my shoulder, which I did not resist. Seated there so close to him, with the breeze of freedom caressing my face, I could imagine this life as truly my own.

  After about forty minutes, we arrived in the village of Liebeheim. Smaller and quainter than the city of Darmstadt, where I had lived with Pastor Georg and Birgit, it consisted of a mere handful of half-timbered, peaked-roof buildings along one central street. The few inhabitants who listlessly meandered in the lane gawped at the approach of our carriage as if the very chariot of Helios had descended upon them. Upon sighting me, two plump peasant women whispered to each other with shocked expressions; it was all I could do to keep from glaring at them.

  Indeed, the whole community seemed to stop and peer at us as we alighted from the landau in front of a small hofbräu—apparently the town’s only dining establishment. The proprietor, a bald man with a prodigious mustache, emerged from the restaurant to greet us warmly, but even his joviality carried an edge of unease.

  “Herr von Kemp!” He spread his hands in welcome. “It has been too long since you privileged us with your presence.” The barkeep smiled at me but studied my face as if unable to believe the evidence of his eyes. “And you, Fräu von Kemp . . . you are quite well?”

  “She is in excellent health, Dieter,” Joseph answered for me. “Her sojourn abroad has done wonders for her illness and she has made a complete recovery, as I knew she would. We are here to celebrate her return. The best of everything!”

  “Of course, sir.” Dieter bowed and gestured for us to precede him into the hofbräu.

  The beerhall was small yet cheerful, with gaily painted stencils of leaves and flowers on the coved ceiling and overhead beams. The barmaid assigned to guide us to our table dampened our mood considerably, however, when she paled as Dieter announced us.

  “Fräu von Kemp? But I thought—” Dieter gave a subtle shake of his head, and she broke off. “Please . . . follow me.”

  The establishment truly gave us the best it had to offer—plump sausages, boiled cabbage, fresh cheese and grapes, white wine from the Rhineland—but I could hardly enjoy the food due to the constant stares of all the patrons around us. Unwilling to acknowledge their rudeness, Joseph and I dined in silence, with our heads bowed over our plates.

  If we had left the village right after our disconcerting luncheon, I might have dismissed the locals’ bizarre leeriness as class prejudice. But as we waited outside the restaurant for Franz to fetch our carriage, a young man in the loose linen shirt and leather knee breeches of a stable boy
came sprinting up the street toward us.

  Joseph’s hand tightened on mine, clenching the knuckles until I almost cried out in pain.

  “Trina! Trina!”

  The name the youth shouted meant nothing to me, and I looked around to see whether he might actually be calling to someone else. He skidded to a stop right in front of me, gazed into my face with eyes as blue and pure as glacial ice.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I heard you were here.” He grinned and reached as if to take me in his arms. When I flinched away, he cast an insolent look at Joseph. “They said you were deathly ill, and I feared the worst.”

  “I . . . I am quite well, thank you.” I thought it best to act as if I knew the boy, although I was certain I’d never seen him before. If I had, he would have been seared into my memory like a brand.

  He couldn’t have been older than one-and-twenty, with a smooth, well-defined jaw that had barely sprouted its first stubble of beard, yet he stood several inches taller than Joseph. Thick blond hair tossed in waves about a face browned by days of labor in the sun, gold on bronze. He’d left his shirt carelessly open at the neck to relieve the heat, revealing a broad, firm chest bedewed with sweat from fieldwork. His classically male physique reminded me of sculptured Greek heroes in the history texts Fräu Hauptmann had shown me during our lessons—Perseus, perhaps—and by that time, I had learned to appreciate the shapes and symmetries of human beauty.

  What captivated me far more than his appearance, however, was the way he looked at me—as if no one had ever looked at me before. His gaze held desire, yes, but not simply the base hunger and grasping possessiveness of the monster in Victor Frankenstein’s laboratory. There was a warmth in those eyes, a joy that both reached out to me and invited me in. He regarded me with the same blissful reverence that Frankenstein had shown for Elizabeth.

  It could only be love.

  “I thought I might never see you again,” he said, desolation dimming his radiance. Then he smiled again and the sun itself seemed to brighten. “But now that you’re here, nothing shall keep us apart.”

  I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t speak. I didn’t realize that Joseph had let go of my hand until I heard the slice of sliding metal. With the fluidity of a practiced swordsman, the old man drew a rapier from the wooden sheath of his walking stick and thrust the point up against the youth’s Adam’s apple. Again, I could see the formidable soldier Joseph had once been. This time he seemed not cavalier, however, but coldly lethal.

  “Leave us be, Stefan,” he hissed.

  The boy snarled, tried to dodge away. Joseph nudged the blade’s tip deeper into the skin of Stefan’s throat.

  “Let the lady speak for herself!” the youth demanded.

  Both of them turned to me, as did the mass of spectators that had coalesced around us. Stefan’s face glowed with naïve hope; Joseph’s withered with contempt. I knew he would not hesitate to slay Stefan where he stood.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know you, sir,” I told Stefan in a hoarse voice. It was not only the truth—I knew that phrase would spare his life.

  The boy grimaced as if I had stabbed him. His full lips curled in the same sneer he’d given Joseph. “Don’t know me? Or don’t want to know me because I’m not rich enough? That’s always how it was with you, wasn’t it?”

  I couldn’t bear the accusation of betrayal that blazed in those blue eyes, so I looked toward the landau that Franz had pulled up beside us.

  Joseph laughed and slid his sword back into the cane. “You heard the lady, stable boy. Be on your way.”

  With a jaunty air, he offered me his arm, and we climbed into the carriage together. I opened my parasol to hide my face, but I could still hear Stefan calling after me, wounded and plaintive.

  “Trade me for his jewels if you want, Trina! But you know I have the real treasure!”

  Joseph harrumphed derisively and rapped his cane on the coachman’s seat to signal Franz to drive away. As the carriage rolled off, I angled my parasol to dart a discreet glance back at the golden-haired boy behind us. He still waited there, as loyal and forlorn as an abandoned spaniel. It became clear to me then that Joseph would only ever tell me about the woman he wanted me to be, but Stefan could reveal the woman I had actually been.

  For that reason—but not only that reason—I knew I had to see him again.

  CHAPTER 10

  AN ASSIGNATION

  “Well, what did you expect?” Fräu Hauptmann commented that evening as Joseph fumed over the encounter with Stefan. “Honestly . . . I tried to warn you.”

  “The insolence of the whelp!” Joseph limped the length of the parlor floor, flailed his cane as if lunging the rapier at the youth’s heart. “I should have finished him then and there.”

  “It is good that you didn’t.” I placed a hand on his back to soothe him. “After all, he is nothing to you. To any of us.”

  My blithe tone mollified him, and the tightness in his shoulders eased. My counterfeit smile became genuine. I had my own reasons for reassuring him that I cared nothing for the fair-haired peasant boy.

  Joseph chuckled. “You are right, of course, my sweet. I shan’t waste another thought on him.” He cradled my cheek in one knobby hand, eyes rheumy with sentiment. “Do you think . . . tonight . . . you might . . . ?”

  “I think you’ve exerted yourself quite enough for one day,” Fräu Hauptmann huffed.

  His face fell.

  “She’s right,” I agreed. “Not tonight. But soon.” And I softly touched my lips to his weathered cheek.

  The old man closed his eyes in a kind of reverie. I regretted the cruelty of that kiss and the false hope it gave him.

  Fräu Hauptmann and I left him in his apartments and returned to mine. “So who is he? This . . . what was his name?” I asked casually, although I remembered perfectly well.

  “Stefan.” The housekeeper winced as if it tasted foul on her tongue. “And he is best forgotten, as you yourself said. I think God, in His infinite wisdom, effaced your memory simply to wipe your mind clean of that boy.”

  “All right, then. Who was he?” I wheedled as she helped me undress. I tried to sound playful and teasing so she wouldn’t guess how serious I was.

  “Your groom, if you must know. Stefan tended Lorelei, your mare, and gave you riding lessons,” she explained, helping me into my nightgown. “But he was a rude and lazy servant so your husband dismissed him.” She stressed the words your husband.

  So Joseph had not simply been condescending when he’d called Stefan a stable boy! Yet the bitter way he’d hurled the insult told me that the young swain had been much more than a slothful servant.

  “We are well rid of him, then,” I said with an affected, jaded yawn.

  Fräu Hauptmann smiled. “Very sensible of you, Fräu von Kemp.”

  “I think I shall require a new groom, however,” I added as I started to brush out the hair I’d just let down. “I must learn to ride all over again.”

  The housekeeper bowed, her mouth crimping into a frown.

  #

  For the next several days, I made no reference to Stefan whatsoever, did not even breathe his name although he haunted my thoughts constantly. I was a sweeter, more attentive wife to Joseph during that brief period than at any other time in our acquaintance. He was so happy that he did not object when I continued to refuse his romantic advances. He didn’t know that I was spending the entire time plotting a rendezvous with the rival he despised.

  Every Sunday, Bettina received leave from her duties to go into the village to attend church and to spend the evening with her family. One week, I implored her to let me go in her place. In exchange for being my accomplice, I offered her a silver brooch from my jewelry box that she could sell to supplement the meager wages Joseph paid her. With two aging parents to support, she reluctantly agreed, extracting a promise from me that I would shield her from the wrath of Fräu Hauptmann and the master if our scheme unraveled.

  On the appointed day, I
awoke complaining of extreme fatigue and claimed I could not even lift my head from the pillow. When Fräu Hauptmann asked if she should send for the doctor, I insisted that all I needed was rest. I suggested that Bettina bring me a bit of bread and broth, and that I should spend the rest of the day in bed, during which time I was not to be disturbed. The housekeeper expressed concern from my health but did not seem to suspect any deception.

  Once we were in private, Bettina and I disrobed and exchanged clothes. Tailored to a slight figure, her dress made for a tight fit on my taller, more buxom frame, but we were similar enough in stature that only a careful eye would spot the difference. At my request, she had also brought a dark riding cloak with a hood that I could use to hide my face and blonde hair.

  In turn, Bettina put on my nightgown and promised to remain in the bedchamber with the door locked until I returned. If Fräu Hauptmann tried to enter with her key, Bettina was to jump into bed, pull the sheets over her brown hair, and groan loudly.

  “Oh! And one more thing,” I said as I cloaked my head with the hood. “How do I find—”

  “He lives at the blacksmith’s.” She didn’t need to hear his name, nor did she need to say it. “He apprenticed there after the master dismissed him.”

  Her troubled look almost made me abandon our plan. Almost.

  “Thank you,” I said softly.

  She shook her head. “Don’t thank me. I only tell you because I know you’d find him anyway. What happens now is entirely your doing.”

  I nodded and left, anxiety tying my stomach in knots. Whatever I’d done with Stefan in my previous life had evidently led to disaster, but I needed to find out what the catastrophe had been—even if it meant repeating it.

  My head bowed and covered, I descended the cramped back staircase intended for the maids. I emerged in the kitchen and managed to pass the chef without distracting him from the pot of soup he was stirring on the cast-iron stove.

  “Bettina!”

  I’d forgotten that I was supposed to answer to that name and was halfway out the servants’ exit when Fräu Hauptmann called again.