The Golden Hour

by Beatriz Williams

  By the time Thorpe reappeared in Nassau a week later, as if by magic, I already understood the obvious. That he had opened up my desk during the night of the Bay Street riot, as I slept away the effects of losing a pint or two of blood on a shard of window glass. That he had copied out the contents of the folded papers I kept in a special compartment at the back of the drawer, and replaced them without the slightest sign they’d been disturbed at all.

  For the record, I didn’t hold it against him.

  Elfriede

  August 1905

  (Berlin)

  Daily they walk in the Tiergarten, Elfriede and Johann, because of course he must have fresh air and exercise, and so must she. Grief like this, you need something to do. Today the weather’s not so good, but still they venture out, carrying umbrellas as a precaution, or else a talisman against actual rain. (Rain mostly falls when you’ve forgotten your umbrella, isn’t that right?)

  The Diet is in recess for the summer holidays, and the windows of the Reichstag wear an aspect of abandonment. Johann kicks at the gravel. Who can blame him? No friends, no family. No ponies to ride, no tennis, no woods to explore. Just a boy and his mother in the corrupt city, the hustle bustle of Berlin. Waiting for their luck to turn.

  “Maybe we could visit the animals in the zoo today,” Elfriede says.

  “Maybe.” Johann kicks some more gravel. He’s a tall boy, a big boy, husky like his father. He outgrows his clothes almost as soon as they’re on him. That jacket he’s wearing, the one she bought him in Rotterdam because his old jacket, the one she bought him for Easter in Florida, was ruined by the salt spray on the ship? She’ll be damned if the shoulders aren’t already straining when he leans forward to grip the handlebars of a bicycle.

  “We could walk,” Elfriede says. “It’s a long walk, but that’s good exercise.”

  “All right.”

  Their feet crunch softly on the gravel. Nearby, a woman’s feeding the pigeons. They flock around her, hooting and fighting, dirty and overfed, and Elfriede wonders why the woman does this. The pigeons don’t need the food, clearly. Some maternal instinct, maybe? Some desire to be needed? To be the center of somebody’s universe, even if that somebody is only a bunch of dirty, mindless Berlin pigeons? To matter, that’s all.

  Johann speaks suddenly, with force. “We’re not going to find them, are we?”

  “What’s that? Of course we’ll find them. Why do you say that?”

  “I mean they don’t want to be found. They don’t want us anymore.”

  “That’s . . .” Elfriede pauses before she completes the half truth. “That’s not true, darling. They’re your sisters.”

  “They’re not my real sisters,” he bursts out.

  “Johann!”

  “It’s true. Isn’t it?”

  Those last two words turn plaintively upward. He’s making a question, not a statement of knowledge. Elfriede keeps walking, keeps marching them forward, shoes grinding into the path. From the opposite direction, a man approaches them in a pale, crumpled suit, smoking a cigarette.

  “Who told you this?” Elfriede asks quietly.

  “Aunt Helga said—”

  “Aunt Helga. Yes, of course.” Now Elfriede stops and turns, kneels into the gravel to face her son. Above them, the clouds hold down the stifling August air. “Listen to me. It doesn’t matter what Aunt Helga said. All four of you, you are your father’s children, do you hear me, you’re all his children in God’s eyes, fair and equal, and God . . . why, God does not make mistakes, Johann. Human beings make terrible mistakes sometimes, but God does not. Those girls are your sisters.”

  The man walks by, and the smell of his cigarette sends a jolt through Elfriede’s chest.

  Johann asks in a small voice, “Then Aunt Helga’s a liar?”

  Oh, for wisdom! For wisdom at such a moment! Elfriede grips her son’s shoulders. “Don’t say such a thing. Of course your aunt’s not a liar. She doesn’t know, that’s all, she doesn’t understand the truth. She thinks—she thinks I made a mistake, that’s all, an awful mistake, and maybe I did, we all make mistakes, but tell me this! Would you rather I hadn’t made this mistake? Would you rather you had no sisters at all? Would you rather they didn’t exist?”

  “No.”

  “Do you love your sisters, Johann?” She almost shouts the words.

  “Yes!” He starts to cry, actually to cry, a thing he strives never to do. “Yes, Mama!”

  “Then that’s all there is, darling! That’s all there is, to love each other! Just do that, okay? That’s all your father wants. That’s all God wants.”

  To her right, several yards away, the man spins around. “Stop yelling at your child! What kind of mother are you, making him cry like this?”

  “I wasn’t . . . I didn’t . . .” Elfriede, gasping with her own tears, straightens and turns, and by this single act of engagement the breath flows back into her body. The strength returns to her, the tears dry against her eyes. She stares rudely into this man’s face. “How dare you,” she says, and she takes Johann’s hand and walks away, toward the zoo.

  They return to the Hotel Adlon around one o’clock, desperate for lunch. Elfriede stops at the desk, as always, to inquire after any letters, and the clerk produces two: one from Helga, who’s returned to Schloss Kleist and now, finding no other occupation apparently, fires off her little darts of poison almost daily; and the other from the private detective. Elfriede tears this one open first. (Helga can wait.)

  Dear Frau von Kleist,

  Further to your instructions, we have investigated fully the possible lead in Hamburg, but regret to report that the woman in question is, beyond all doubt, not the same as the subject of your inquiry. We will continue to pursue our investigation as directed.

  Most respectfully yours,

  L. S. Schulmann

  Now, as you know, the Hotel Adlon is the premier hotel in Berlin, really the only place to exist if one must exist there at all, and naturally a widowed baroness and her son receive the most attentive treatment from the staff. When Elfriede shoves her disappointing letter from Herr Schulmann into her jacket pocket, together with the unopened poisoned dart from Helga, she turns from the desk to discover a uniformed attendant begging to escort her to the usual table in the restaurant for lunch.

  Because Elfriede’s so disappointed by her letters, because she’s too upset to think properly, because she’s used to only the best treatment from the Adlon staff, she finds nothing oddly precipitous in this request. So they cross the marble lobby, she and Johann and the attendant, and enter the restaurant. There, in a quiet corner, beyond the tangle of tables and chairs and gilding and potted palms, the scent of great expense, sits her usual table, where she and Johann take their meals when they’re not taking them from room service in the suite upstairs.

  But the table’s not empty. A man in a handsome khaki uniform rises from his chair at the sight of them and such is his impeccable appearance, the precise ironing of his collar and creases, the knot of his tie, the shininess of his hair brushed back in immaculate order with some type of hair oil, probably, Elfriede requires a moment or two to realize that it’s actually him.

  Johann, being a child, takes no time at all. He utters a cry and rushes forward, all resentments forgotten, to throw his arms around Wilfred’s waist.

  “Have you found them? Have you found them?” he demands.

  Wilfred’s smile disappears. He puts his arms around Johann’s back and says, “I’m afraid not, old chap, but never fear. We shan’t rest until we find the girls, shall we?”

  “No, sir.”

  Elfriede can’t speak. The waiter, attempting with limited success to disguise his pleasure, draws out her chair. Wilfred catches her gaze. A little of the smile returns to his wide mouth.

  “I had your letter on the ship,” he says.

  “I was afraid it wouldn’t have reached you.”

  “It did. I apologize for my tardiness. I’m afraid I couldn’t arrange
another leave so soon.”

  “I didn’t—of course I didn’t expect—”

  “But I took the liberty of making clear at the Foreign Office that if any civil service chaps heading to Germany stood in need of the services of an expert military attaché, I should be more than happy with the appointment.”

  “Oh.” She sits down. “Oh.”

  The waiter stands by. Johann boldly orders lemonade. Elfriede thinks she’ll need something a little stronger.

  On the last day of the month, Elfriede and Wilfred are married, not in Berlin or even in England, but in the small village in Scotland where his regiment is based, before Wilfred’s bemused parents, a host of Scotch Presbyterian aunts, some gleeful fellow officers, and the diplomat whose timely Berlin mission provided the means for their reunion. His name, since you ask, is Mr. Cholmondeley. He’s about forty, dark-haired, genial and intelligent. He thinks Wilfred’s a top bloke, a pukka chap who’s got all the damned luck with women, and he’s tickled pink at his role in the whole affair. He gives the bride away in the small service at the regimental chapel. Johann bears the ring.

  Afterward, at the wedding breakfast, Elfriede makes halting conversation with Mr. Benedict Thorpe, Wilfred’s father, angular and brown-haired and shy, the sort of man who would much rather be reading a book or walking a dog. Other than his height, Wilfred seems to favor his Scotch mother, whose hair’s even brighter than his, though her eyes are more green than blue. She’s also the most effusive Scot in the history of the nation, not dour at all as Elfriede had imagined from Wilfred’s hints. “And he never said a word, not a blessed word,” she exclaims on the terrace of the officers’ mess, gallantly lent for the occasion, while Elfriede strains to understand her. “Of course he had his lady friends, he’s always been popular with the feminine sort, but my goodness, a German girl! I beg your pardon, I’ve nothing against Germany, splendid music, but I never imagined—well, and a widow! A baroness! Never a word until we had the telegram from Berlin a fortnight ago. And you’re a beauty, how splendid. God knows the family could stand a bit more beauty. I was so cross when Wilfie turned out ginger. I’d hoped by marrying a dark-haired Englishman that the stain would quite go away, but it’s like madness in the family, you know, like a bad penny. I should have loved a daughter with hair like yours. How quiet and charming you are! I can see now how he worships you. He’s utterly bewitched! What a difference in him. But how naughty, to say nothing to us about it, nothing at all!” And so on.

  A bit later, when Wilfred’s fellow officers are giving the toasts and everybody’s in stitches with laughter, Elfriede glances at her new mother-in-law and discovers she’s not laughing at all. She’s staring at Elfriede, or rather she seems to have been staring, because she looks swiftly away and releases an enormous bray of amusement. And yet, for an instant, Elfriede has the uncanny idea that she has been appraised in the way you might appraise a racehorse, with a pair of hard, calculating eyes.

  Because Wilfred’s got only thirty-six hours away from his duties, and because neither of them wish to leave Johann with a stranger, they spend their wedding night in the small, hastily let stone cottage that’s to serve as their temporary home. “We’ve already had our honeymoon, anyway,” Wilfred points out, as they sit before the fire and share the bottle of champagne presented to them by Mr. Cholmondeley at the end of the day. Johann’s asleep in his room upstairs, and because it’s Scotland, even in August, a soft rain drums on the windows.

  “Yes, we had a lovely honeymoon,” Elfriede replies.

  Wilfred sets down his glass, crushes out his cigarette, and kneels before her. His hands, gathering hers, are large and dry, like the paws of a bear.

  “I say, darling. Don’t be low. We’ll be happy like that again, never fret.”

  What possible reply? How can you, like a surgeon, untangle and extract the word happy from the contents of Elfriede’s shredded heart, in this moment?

  “I’m not fretting,” she says. “I’m as happy as it’s possible to be.”

  Wilfred, who always knows just how to touch Elfriede (and isn’t that really how she fell in love with him to begin with, isn’t that why she loves him so wholly) lifts her hands and kisses the backs of her fingers. “If it makes any difference, you’ve made me happy today. So happy I don’t think I can altogether bear it. Like looking at the sun.”

  In her head, Elfriede says the English word husband. Two strange, intimate syllables, now attached to this plain face, these eyes, that mouth, this shock of vivid ginger, all of which now belong exclusively to her. Wilfred, hers. But not her Mann. Her husband. She’ll have to learn the word all over again. She’ll have to learn a new vocabulary for this strange, intimate, rain-washed marriage of hers.

  Elfriede pulls her hands from his and burrows them into his rambunctious hair. “Take me upstairs,” she whispers.

  They haven’t made love since Florida, and the result is a little too rushed, more relief than ecstasy. But it’s enough. It’s all she wants, to be held and loved. He remains inside her for some time afterward, and even when he slides out they stay clasped, unable to separate one skin from the other, unable to speak. Solid, honest bone and muscle. Damp hair and warmth, the smell of human skin, human musk, how heavenly. Against her hip, Wilfred remains stiff, plenty of life left, a young man primed for his wedding night. But leave that for later. Right now, Elfriede hears the tempo of his breath and thinks he’s probably craving a cigarette desperately, and she loves that he doesn’t rise to open the window and light a smoke, that he craves her more.

  “Is it enough?” he whispers into her hair.

  “Is what enough?”

  “If we don’t find the girls. To have children of our own, will that help at all?”

  She doesn’t answer, and Wilfred asks carefully whether she wants to have more children at all. Whether she’s afraid of what this might bring, whether children are too great a risk to bear.

  “No, I’m not afraid,” she says. “Not anymore. For one thing, there’s you. I can bear anything with you.”

  He reaches for her hand and kisses the new gold ring on her finger. “Yes, you’ve got me, all right. Luckiest chap in the world. And what’s the other thing?”

  “Because I’ve already survived the worst,” she says. “I have already lost everything.”

  In the years to come, Elfriede will remember those words.

  Part IV

  Lulu

  December 1943

  (Scotland)

  Mornings are terrible. I can just about keep the thought of Thorpe at bay during the day, what with all this business of staying alive in a foreign country, and at night, I summon memories—by force if necessary—that have mostly to do with making love to him. But when you wake, you have no discipline, nothing to distract you. You lie vulnerable. You open your eyes and there he is.

  Sometimes he’s lying on some cot or pile of straw, thin blanket, bowl of maggoty gruel, guards shouting. Sometimes I see him injured, his wounds untended, blood and pus, his skin hot with fever. Sometimes I see him parched with thirst while the guards taunt him through the bars of his cell. Now, it’s true, I don’t know this place, Colditz. It’s a castle, that’s all, so what I see—and it changes, from morning to morning, it’s never quite the same cell or the same jailers—what I see is like a medieval dungeon, like something the brothers Grimm might conjure up. Maybe the reality’s different. Maybe they’re playing checkers with the guards before a nice toasty fire. But that’s not what I see. I see him suffering. The anguish fills my chest and leaks from my eyes until I throw off the covers and rise, shaking, to meet the day. And the next.

  Only two weeks remain until Christmas, but nobody on the train displays much holiday cheer. Margaret and I share a compartment with a woman and two young boys, aged perhaps three or four, and it says something for our state of gloom that even the tots are subdued. We’re traveling north, you see, and if London was dark and bleak, the landscape now clattering past the window seems to ha
ve been cast in iron.

  Margaret catches my expression and checks her watch. “Only another hour or so,” she says, hushed voice, because the boys have piled up asleep on the seat, like puppies. The single lamp casts an anemic glow, and the air smells of stale cigarettes and an intractable damp. At our feet, Tuxedo lets out an anxious miaaaow from his wooden box.

  I return to my newspaper. By now, I’ve read every story twice, and I’ve started on the personals. Widow, aged 26 with one child, experienced nurse, seeks elderly gentleman for purpose of companionship and matrimony.

  At Edinburgh, we change trains for the line to Inverness. The sun set long ago, and we might be rolling through Timbuktu for all I can tell. The compartment is empty except for the two of us. Margaret lights a cigarette and stares out the window at the passing shadows, black on black, while I settle myself against the corner and listen to the rhythmic clatter, metal on metal. Her eyes grow heavy, and so do mine. I summon up Thorpe’s face in my memory, as I do whenever the tedium of the journey sinks its teeth into me, his face drenched in the sunshine of Shangri-La, just before he kisses me.

  To my despair, I can’t quite make out his features. Only the color of that golden light as the sun prepares to set.

  I wake in a large, shabby room papered in blue toile and filled with sunshine. For a moment, I can’t remember where I am. I imagine I’m in Nassau, in California, in Texas, and the confusion’s so acute, I almost feel myself floating between the two worlds, the two sides of my life, before Thorpe and after him.

  Then I become aware that the tip of my nose is frozen, and I recall I’m in Scotland, and the sunshine is not an ordinary feature but a miracle. I recall the night before—the arrival at the terminal in Inverness, the silent, gray-haired woman who met us there in an asthmatic Morris, the bouncing, skidding journey across what seemed to be the entire goddamned frozen Highlands before we arrived at what Margaret called the Pile, as if that were its name. I learned from the retainer, who showed me to my room, that it was really named Dunnock Lodge, and that this was where Thorpe was born, twenty-seven years ago. I can’t remember the retainer’s name, however. It’s escaped me in the night.