When the time at last wore away, Frau Hofmeister brushed away the crumbs and prepared to leave, as you might expect. Then she paused, frowned, sat back down and told Elfriede that she was not her father’s child, that Elfriede had been conceived during a cure along the Baltic seaside nineteen years ago while Elfriede’s father stayed home to tend the business. She met a beautiful Danish student, an artist who was staying also at the hotel, and one day he forced her—well, urged her—well, coaxed her—into his room, no, not his room, they were taking a walk together and—my God, he was so beautiful, so soulful—what could she do? It was just the one time—well, maybe more than that—maybe a dozen times, maybe most of August, it was like a dream—but it wasn’t Elfriede’s mother’s fault, it was fate, it was God’s will, and Elfriede was not ever to tell her father this thing. It would break his heart.
Elfriede doesn’t remember the rest of this conversation, or how her mother made it out to the door to her carriage, or how they parted this final time before Elfriede was called to her mother’s deathbed. In fact, the entire episode seems unreal to her, and she’s long dismissed it from her mind as a symptom of shock. But the words return now with remarkable clarity, as she holds this letter in her hand, postmarked London. Also the brightness of her mother’s eyes, which Elfriede once attributed to her incipient illness. God sent him to me, Mother said, and then, That’s why you’re so beautiful, you know, you have his eyes and his hair and his soul. And again: God sent him to me, in my misery. Until that moment, Elfriede never knew her mother was miserable at all. Until this moment, she doesn’t remember.
Eight fifty-two.
Elfriede takes her butter knife and slices open the envelope.
There was no salutation. No date.
Forgive me for addressing you. Not for anything in the world would I disturb your peace of mind. I wish only to explain how much your friendship has meant and will always mean to me, except of course that I cannot. God has not given us any words large or subtle or beautiful enough, in my language or yours. On my knees I pray for your happiness. But if happiness is impossible, if you are made to feel hurt or misery of any kind, if you have any need whatsoever of a stalwart friend, you must dispatch a message to the address below. A postcard will do. W.
At one minute after nine o’clock, Elfriede knocks on her husband’s door, bearing his breakfast tray. The room is radiant with autumn sunshine, and so is Gerhard’s hair. She pours his coffee and butters his toast. Before she lifts the newspaper and reads him the headlines, she tells him she’s ordered a carriage to convey them about the estate for an airing on this warm, beautiful morning, so exceptional for November.
Nurse and Johann accompany them, swathed in wool. Gerhard, gentleman as he is, tries to insist that the ladies face forward in the open landau, but he’s overruled. Herr Doktor’s instructions. Nurse and Johann take the backward seats, except Johann won’t sit, he’s too thrilled by the journey. He points out the lake, the fountains, the stables, the forest, the distant hills, the driver’s hat, the two smart bay horses. Once, Elfriede reaches out to touch his pale hair, and its softness entrances her. But then he notices the intrusion and bats her away. She slips her hand underneath the carriage blanket and finds Gerhard’s fingers.
Really, it’s not that warm, just by comparison to the gray chill of the previous fortnight. The leaves have all dropped and the trees are like skeletons. As they pass the fringes of the wood, Elfriede can see deep inside, and the number of fallen trees amazes her. She turns to Gerhard with this observation, but he’s scowling at Nurse. Some infraction of the rules. Nurse doesn’t seem to notice. She’s pointing out something to Johann. The breeze blows against them, bearing the true chill of November, and Johann climbs up on the seat next to Nurse and cuddles into her side.
Elfriede’s used to this. Day after day, she climbs up the stairs to the nursery and plays with her son. She knows better than to send Nurse away during these hours. She knows better than to push herself on a small boy of three years, who knows nothing of mothers, only of Nurse. She’s learned to bear the pain of his attachment to this woman, who has soothed all his hurts and hungers in Elfriede’s absence. But she doesn’t give up. Sometimes she brings sweets. Some new toy or game. Certain wars are best won by centimeters, stealing tiny parcels of ground from your opponent who looks elsewhere, until one day you’re in possession of the whole.
At the moment, however, Nurse still possesses just about all of Johann. She tucks the blanket over his tired little body and puts her arm around him. Once he’s secure in her embrace, she glances up and meets Gerhard’s scowl with a small, private smile, before turning to admire the woodland scenery. Already Johann’s long eyelashes brush his cheeks. Underneath the blanket, Gerhard’s hand gives hers a little squeeze, before it withdraws entirely.
Elfriede leans forward and tells the driver to return to the house.
They stop at the gardens first, however. As the lake comes into view, Gerhard orders the driver to halt the landau. They will walk the rest of the way, he says, it’s only a short distance. Look, there’s the house, not a quarter mile away.
The driver obeys, the horses pull up. Gerhard alights first and hands out the others, first Elfriede and then Johann—with an oversize swing that makes the boy shriek with delight—and Nurse last of all, keeping his gaze strictly on the distant hills. When the carriage moves off, he turns to Nurse and tells her—tells, rather, the top of her head, since she’s only a servant—to take Johann to see the horses in the stable. Nurse looks at the two of them, Elfriede and Gerhard, arm in arm, and her face takes on a strange, hurt expression.
“Yes, of course, Herr von Kleist,” she says. She clasps Johann’s little hand and turns in the opposite direction, toward the stables, while Gerhard leads Elfriede along the lakeshore.
They walk quietly. Gerhard was always a man of few words, after all, even at the passionate height of their marriage, that first year that seemed so promising, emotions so new and delicate they were better unspoken. Now the words are fewer still. Limited to observations on the weather, on the headlines in the newspapers. They reach the gravel, and the crunch of their feet awakens Elfriede to their silence, to the fact that they haven’t said anything at all about what matters, about their marriage, about their boy, about the past three years. Ahead, the house takes shape like a great ornament, gleaming in the sun. So entranced is Elfriede by its radiance, she takes no notice of her immediate surroundings until Gerhard lays a hand on her arm, where it links through his.
“Look,” he says softly. “The summerhouse. Do you remember?”
She hesitates. “Remember what?”
“Come, Elfriede. Surely it’s not so very long ago.”
“It seems like another lifetime. She seems like another girl, your wife then.”
“And yet she looks the same to me. This arm, it’s the same arm.”
“You’re too gallant.”
“Do you think . . .” Gerhard lifts his hand to touch the brim of his hat. “If we go inside, what do you think we might find?”
“Ghosts, maybe?”
He’s rubbing his temple now, like he’s trying to awaken something inside. “I don’t know. Something of our old selves, maybe?”
“I don’t think it’s as magic as that,” she says, laughing a little.
They stand in the path, at the crossing that leads to the summerhouse. The chill breeze blows on them both, erasing the faint warmth of the sun. November, it can’t make up its mind. Elfriede doesn’t want to go, she feels some uneasiness about the summerhouse; what’s more, she feels that Gerhard doesn’t want to go, either, that he shares her foreboding. Still they turn down the path together. It’s beyond their control. The summerhouse has taken on its own will. It wants them there, willing or otherwise. He opens the glass door for them both. Shuts it again, because of the chilling air.
“You should sit down and rest,” she says.
He sits obediently, stiffly, and takes off his hat to scra
tch the stubble of pale hair on his head. Invalids, she can’t get free of them. Gerhard sets his palms on his large, gaunt knees. He’s lost weight because of his illness, but his skeleton hasn’t changed, thick and brutal as ever, only more visible. Elfriede sits down beside him. The same chaise longue. The cushions, she thinks, have faded in the sun. Maybe she should have them replaced.
“I’m sorry about that, what happened in the carriage,” he says.
“What happened in the carriage?”
“He’s terribly attached to her, you see.”
“Do you mean Nurse and Johann? I know that. I don’t mind.”
“Surely it must give you pain, to see the two of them together.”
“Yes, a little. But it’s not her fault, is it? I’m glad he’s had someone to love, someone who loves him in return. Every child needs that.” Elfriede links her hands together in her lap. “I hope I can teach him to love me, as well.”
“If you want me to dismiss her, I’ll dismiss her.”
Elfriede raises her head in surprise. “Dismiss her? Of course not. He’d be heartbroken.”
He makes a noise, a kind of sigh, maybe almost a sob, and rises from the chaise to approach the glass wall that faces the lake. “I’m sorry,” he says.
Elfriede turns in her seat to watch him. Lifts one of the pillows into her lap, something to hold. “Again? What is it this time?”
“These weeks . . . these past weeks . . . taking care of me . . . you’ve been an angel . . .”
“Oh, that. Well, I’m still your wife, aren’t I? Wives are supposed to nurse their husbands when they fall sick.”
“I haven’t deserved it, that’s all.”
“But does anyone really deserve such things? Nobody’s blameless. We give and receive not because of our deserts, but because we are. Because we are human beings, that’s all, God’s children. With all our faults.”
He crosses his arms against his chest and bows his head.
“Come.” She strokes the cushion with one hand. “You’re tired. Let’s go back to the house for some coffee.”
“Elfriede. Are we never to say anything to each other?”
“What is there to say?”
“Everything. Everything.” He shakes his shorn head slowly, back and forth. “Everything’s changed. I think sometimes of our wedding day. I remember that instant you appeared down the aisle of the church, as if you were fallen from heaven itself. I thought there was nothing more beautiful on earth. I wept at the sight of you.”
“Did you? I don’t remember that.” Elfriede pauses. “I was too nervous to look at your face, I think. It all went by in a blur. I don’t even remember saying the vows.”
“Ah, God,” he says, anguished. “Ah, God. How is it possible we have come to this?”
“Come to what?”
“Are we never to be man and wife again? Can you love me again, do you think?”
She thinks helplessly, But I never did.
“Can you love me again?” she says. “Maybe that’s the question.”
“But I never stopped.”
“You sent me away.”
“That wasn’t—my sisters thought—”
“Are you telling me that the Baron von Kleist is ruled by his sisters?” She stands and turns to face him. “You might have defended me against them. You might have remembered how much you loved me and done something.”
His head remains bowed, unable to meet her. Oh, that short, bristling blond hair, almost white in the autumn sunlight. All she can see of him. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t understand. I don’t understand. How could my beautiful angel turn into this—this—” He gropes helplessly. “It was willful, it was selfish, it was—how could you not love your own son?”
“I did. I did love him. But this black—thing—it shrouded me. Everything, all my feelings. I couldn’t find them. It was terrifying. I had nothing inside me. I couldn’t summon a single thing.”
“You didn’t try!”
“Didn’t try? Oh, God. Oh, Gerhard.”
He stands there like a pillar. His back is straight, his coat loose against his shoulders. What’s he staring at, out these windows? The lake? The forest beyond? He says gruffly, “These—these are women’s matters. I can’t comprehend them. I thought my sisters would know better than I did.”
“If you had fought for me—”
Gerhard turns at last, lifts his head, and his face is a picture of agony, made worse by his emaciation. He looks a thousand years old. “They told me you would kill him. The doctor—my sisters—they thought there was some danger to my son.”
“To Johann? You thought I would hurt Johann?”
“I thought, maybe it’s me. No mother would behave this way to her own child. So maybe it’s me she wants to hurt. Maybe she never loved me to begin with. That’s what my sisters said, when I was courting you. That you only cared about—about all this.” He nods to the world outside the summerhouse, the estate, the schloss.
The sun has climbed overhead. The greedy glass traps its warmth. How strange to see winter lying all around you in bare, brown sticks, and yet to feel the heat of summer. Elfriede’s skin prickles with perspiration. Gerhard’s expression turns softer, almost plaintive. He steps forward and reaches out to take her by the elbows.
“We must begin again,” he says. “For Johann’s sake.”
Elfriede gazes at this man, this husband, pale and gaunt and sweating, his blond hair thinning along his temples, and some panic takes hold of her chest. Some giant fear, some ache. She’s nursed him devotedly, on her knees before God she has sworn fealty in exchange for her good conscience, and now he stands before her, he’s only asking for something she has already promised him, and what does she feel? Panic. The heat in the summerhouse reminds her of August, reminds her of lying hazily on the chaise longue under the shadow of Gerhard’s giant, straining chest. At the time, she closed her eyes—she was too shy of this daylight that illuminated their intimacy—but she remembers the sound of his grunting, the sharp, rhythmic sway of her breasts, the sweat that dripped on her skin. The roar with which he ended it all, like an African lion pronouncing victory. That’s it, a lion. Except his mane, even then, wasn’t long enough or tawny enough. He’s so pale and crisp, and before she can banish it, she thinks of Wilfred’s ginger hair, his laugh, his heat, his twenty-six freckles she dreamed of kissing.
Elfriede tries to pull back her arms, but his grip is firm.
“I must know, Elfriede. I must know if you still mean what you said three years ago.”
“What did I say?”
“My God, what else? What else? Elfriede, think. I have thought of nothing else.” He squints his eyes and rocks back and forth on his feet. He bows his head and whispers ferociously, “When you told me you didn’t want any more children.”
“Oh! That. I see.”
“You see? Elfriede, you can’t imagine—I have never felt such a blow. You sat on the bed in your dressing gown and looked at me and said this thing. In all my life, I have never taken such a blow as that.”
“I never meant to hurt you. Oh, Gerhard. It wasn’t that I didn’t—that I didn’t want to. I was sick. I was afraid, I was terrified of having more children, of facing all that blackness again. I wanted you to comfort me, to understand my fear. And instead you walked away from me. I still remember the sound of that door as it closed behind you.”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
“To hold me! To comfort me!”
“What, you thought I could hold my wife in my arms without making love to her? After all those months like a monk? I’m only a man, Elfriede. Anyway, I thought you must loathe my touch.”
Somewhere inside Elfriede’s head, a voice clamors in fury: But it wasn’t about you, Gerhard. Why must everything be about you? But the voice is a small one, just a last gasp of anger that dies away gently. The rest is pity. A pity she can’t articulate, of course, because how for God’s sake do you express pity for Gerhard
von Kleist? She wears her pity on her face, in her eyes, as she gazes at her husband.
He shifts his feet and looks to the side. “Well? And now? Are you still afraid?”
Again, Wilfred’s hair, Wilfred’s face, which she cannot quite see. How’s this possible, that his features are blurred in her memory? She can see one of them at a time, yes, his thin, plain cheeks and those eyelashes around his eyes of alpine blue. His long nose, the sharpness of his jaw, all of these dear things, one by one, each feature disappearing when she finds the next. Yet the sense of him remains in utmost clarity. The beat of him thunders in her chest. She shuts her eyes and pushes, pushes, thrusts him away, but it’s like trying to dislodge a pillar that holds up your roof, and Elfriede is not Samson. “I don’t know,” she says.
“Elfriede, look at me.”
She opens her eyes again.
“I must know. I must know if you’re well again. I must understand what you mean by returning.”
“I mean to—well, to return. To be Johann’s mother. To be your wife.”
“But what does that mean, Elfriede?” He pulls her elbows, pulls her even closer. “Listen to me. There, in that carriage. I thought to myself—it was all I could think—he’s so lonely, a small boy among grownups. He needs brothers and sisters. He needs a family, a mother and a father who will fill his nursery.”
“Gerhard, enough. Let’s not talk about this yet. We’ll wait until you’re well again—”
“Please, Elfriede—” He cuts himself off by kissing her, with such vim she can’t escape, she’s imprisoned by his mouth and by his arms that lock around her. His kiss is nothing like she remembers. His lips are hard, his tongue’s sloppy. What’s happened to Gerhard’s tender, subtle kisses? There’s no fighting him. She makes herself limp instead, and he lifts his head and loosens his grip. She steps away, smoothing her hair. Gerhard sinks to the chaise longue, panting.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I am too hasty.”
“You’re not well enough, that’s all. Look at you, you’re panting.”
The Golden Hour Page 16