“You must continue to look for him, Fräulein,” the steward said.
The cook bit into a carrot. Her jowls wobbled with every crunch.
They were united against her, but it only made sense. They were old country people and she was just an English stranger in a dirty, dusty dress. Raising her voice would win her no friends.
“Could you bring my trunk up to my room?” She smiled brightly. “I’d like to change out of my traveling clothes.”
“Yes, Fräulein York,” the steward said.
The cook went back to chopping carrots. The steward sipped his coffee. Did they expect her to retreat now?
“There is still the matter of Peter,” Helen said.
The cook’s knife slipped. Carrots scattered across the floor.
“The French girl takes care of the boy.” The cook’s words were barely understandable, some kind of antique form of Bavarian. “He’s not allowed in the kitchen.”
The steward’s mouth worked, thin lips stretching over his stained teeth.
“Is that true?” Helen asked the steward. “Why not?”
The steward covered the cook’s hand with his own. “The boy’s welfare is your business now, Fräulein.”
◉ ◉ ◉
Helen found Peter at the back of the freezing cellar, hunkering in front of a door set deep into rock. The walls were caked with frost. The boy’s breath puffed like smoke.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked. “Come back upstairs now.”
“Bitte, miss,” the boy said. He wedged two fingers under the door, then crouched lower, head bobbing as he worked them deeper and deeper. His hair was neatly parted, two blond wings on either side of a streak of skin pale as a grub.
Whatever he was up to, whatever he thought he was going to find on the other side of the door, he was fully engrossed by it. Helen let him have his fun for a few minutes while she poked around the cellar, ducking under the low spines of the vaulted ceiling. On the wall opposite the door, bottles were stacked into head-sized alcoves in pyramids of six. She wiped the dust off a few labels. French, and not that old. Champagne, Bordeaux, Burgundy. More than three hundred bottles. Enough to last the summer.
The cellar smelled salty. It must have been used for aging and preserving meat, in the past. The cold air’s salty tang flooded her dry mouth with spit. What she wouldn’t give for a piece of pork right now, hot and juicy. Her stomach growled. Perhaps the cook could be persuaded to let her explore the kitchen larder.
Helen wandered back to the boy. “Come along, Peter, that’s enough. Mimi is waiting for you.”
The light from her candle jittered across the brass plate bolted to the door’s face. The tarnished metal was crusted with frost. She stepped closer, lifting her candle. It was a shield—griffins, an eagle, a crown.
She nudged Peter’s foot with her toe. “Time to go back upstairs.” He was stretched out on his belly now. “Peter, come along this instant.” An edge came into her voice. She was tired of being ignored by everyone in the house.
He pulled something from under the door and put it in his mouth.
“Stop that.” She grabbed Peter’s collar and hauled him across the cellar to the stairs. He pitched forward onto his hands and knees. The object popped out of his mouth and bounced off the bottom step.
Helen picked it up and turned it over in her palm. It was a tiny bone, slender, fragile, and wet with spit.
She stared at Peter. “That’s disgusting. What are you thinking?”
“Mama,” he sobbed. His thin shoulders quivered under the velvet jacket. “Mama.”
Remorse knifed through her. She tossed the bone aside, scooped him into her arms, and hauled him upstairs. “Hush,” she said, patting his quaking back as he sobbed.
Tobacco smoke leaking from the library had turned the air in the foyer gray. Her trunk still crouched by the front door.
Helen lowered Peter to his feet. He was heavy. She couldn’t possibly carry him up to the nursery. She’d be gasping.
Helen squeezed his bony shoulders. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” He wiped his nose on his sleeve and nodded. “Good, no more crying.”
She lugged the trunk upstairs and dropped it in her room. Then she took the boy’s hand and called up the spine of the staircase for Mimi.
When her pretty face appeared at the top of the spiral, Helen shooed the boy upstairs.
“Take care of him, won’t you?” Helen said. “There’ll be no lessons today. Not tomorrow, either. Then we’ll see.”
“Oui,” Mimi said.
◉ ◉ ◉
When Bärchen came to dinner he was already drunk. The scarlet cheeks above his brown beard were so bright it looked like he’d been slapped.
“So many letters. My brother’s desk is stuffed to bursting.” Bärchen offered Helen a cigarette. “I can’t understand them. I have no head for business, Mausi.”
Helen blew smoke at him. “You always say that, but you seem to manage your own affairs well enough.”
“I must go to Munich for advice. I’ll be back soon, I promise. Two days at most.”
“Don’t stay away too long. You’ll come back to an empty wine cellar and a pregnant nursemaid.”
He giggled. “If that happens, it must be God’s will.”
Helen opened her mouth to make a joke about the furniture, but managed to stop herself in time despite the free flow of wine. The dining room chairs were particularly awful. Each one was topped by a sea serpent, thick and twisting, with staring eyes faced with mother-of-pearl. Under it was a rudely-rendered pair of human forms, male and female. And beneath them were thumb-sized lumps the shape of fat grubs. They dug into the small of Helen’s back.
Portraits glared down at the table from the surrounding walls. Wan blond children with innocent, expressionless faces. Handsome, smiling men and women, brown-haired and robust just like Bärchen. And sickly-looking older people, prematurely-aged, with smooth gray skin and straggly black hair framing hollow, staring eyes.
When the clock struck seven, they were halfway into the third bottle of claret. Bärchen was diagonal in his chair.
“Time for me to play pater familias.” He called out, “Mimi! Ici!”
Mimi appeared at the door, clutching Peter’s hand.
“Now, Mimi,” Bärchen slurred in French. “Is Peter behaving well? Is he in good health?”
“Oui,” said Mimi.
Helen watched close as the girl spoke. Yes, some of her teeth were missing, but how many? Helen pretended to yawn, making a dramatic pantomime of it and sighing ecstatically.
Mimi’s eyes watered as she tried not to yawn in response. When her lips curled back Helen caught a quick glimpse into her mouth. Her front teeth were gone, gums worn down to gleaming bone. Candlelight glinted on metal wire twisted through her molars.
Mimi clapped her hand over her mouth. Helen reached for a cigarette and pretended she hadn’t noticed. Poor girl. Nothing more sad than young beauty in ruin.
“Peter, come here,” Bärchen said.
With rough hands, he examined Peter’s fingernails and scalp, looked into his ears, then pried opened his mouth and poked a finger along his gums.
She knew what that felt like. Her father had done the same. His fingers had tasted of ash and ink.
One of Peter’s front teeth was loose.
“You’re losing your first tooth,” he said. “Does it hurt?”
Peter shook his head.
Bärchen wiggled it with the tip of a finger. “Let’s pluck it out now, and be done with it.”
Peter ran to Mimi and hid his face in her skirts.
“Oh come, Peter.” Bärchen laughed. “I’ll tie it to the doorknob with a bit of string. It’ll be over in a moment.”
Peter clutched Mimi’s waist.
“No? Then we’ll get a
n apple and you can bite into it like this.” He mimed raising an apple to his mouth and chomping down. “You can do that, can’t you?”
“No, Uncle.” Peter’s voice was muffled against Mimi’s hip. The girl had backed against the wall and was inching toward the door. Bärchen was taking this too far.
“It’s late, Herr Lambrecht,” Helen said. “Let the girl take Peter to bed.”
“Well then. The tooth with fall out on its own and then this will be yours.” Herr Lambrecht put a silver coin on the table. “Miss York will keep it for you.”
Mimi and boy slipped out the door.
“How was my performance?” Bärchen asked. “Was I convincing?”
“Very. I can hardly believe you never had children.”
“God forbid.” Bärchen shuddered and drained his wine glass. “Did I ever tell you about my nursemaid? Bruna was her name. She was devoted to me. You would have liked her. Very pretty. But like Mimi, not much of a talker. Not like you.”
“Nothing can keep me from saying what I think.” Helen reached into her pocket and set the bones on the stained tablecloth. “For example, your servants are lax,” she said.
He shrugged. “What can be done? They’re old. Who would choose to live here, if they could be anywhere else?”
◉ ◉ ◉
After dinner they took their wine out the front door and onto the wide front terrace. Evening stars twinkled above looming mountains and a lakeshore veiled in mist. The three sides of the terrace stepped straight down into the water, like a dock or jetty. The skiff bobbed alongside, tied to an iron ring.
That morning, the water had been an inky sapphire, the color so brilliant it seemed to cling to the oars with Bärchen’s every stroke. Under the darkening sky it was tar black and viscous. In the distance, a dark object broke the surface, sending lazy ripples across the water. Helen squinted.
Bärchen followed her gaze. “Just a log, that’s all. I have a present for you.”
He pressed a silver cigarette case into her hand. It was her own—she’d pawned it for rent money three months ago. And it was full—forty slender cigarettes, lined up with care.
She grinned. “If we were back at the Bélon Bourriche, I could put on a pair of tight trousers and sing you a song, as many a young man has done. But you don’t want me sitting in your lap any more than I want to be there. So I’ll just say thank you.”
“It’s nothing. Will you be happy here, Mausi?”
“Of course. It’s so beautiful. Though I’m not sure how long I can stand to live in a place where nobody appreciates my jokes.”
He laughed. “Meresee is beautiful, but it can be a little confining. I’ll show you.” He led her to the edge of the terrace to peer around the side of the house. Its walls jutted straight down into the water, raising the house’s profile far beyond the shore. Behind, the steep mountainsides advanced on the lake, threatening to topple the house into the water.
“You don’t want to fall in. It’s deep, and so cold it’ll knock the breath right out of you.” He braced himself against the wall with an unsteady hand.
“I suppose this was a fortress, once,” said Helen. “Holding the border of some medieval Bavarian principality.”
Bärchen patted the wall. “A fortress, yes, but it never protected a border. It protected the salt.”
“Your family had salt mines?” Helen asked. No wonder Bärchen was wealthy.
“The mines belonged to the Holy Roman Emperor. The crown owed much of its wealth to Meresee. More precious than gold, once, this salt. My family protected it.”
Bärchen peered over the edge of the terrace. The water clung to the sides of the house. A shadowed stain crept up the foundation.
“Don’t fall in,” he repeated. “In winter it’s somewhat safer. When the ice forms, you can ski across the lake, or skate, if the snow has blown away. But even then, you must be careful.”
She laughed. “You’ve convinced me. I’ll be careful to be far, far from Meresee by winter.”
“Of course, Mausi.” Bärchen forced a chuckle. “Naples for the winter. Neapolitan widows like tall Englishwomen like you. Or Athens, if you please. The world is open to us. We are rich, happy, and at liberty.”
Bärchen was trying too hard to be jolly.
“Your new responsibility is eating at you, isn’t it, Bärchen?” She threaded her hand through the crook of his arm and drew him gently away from the water’s edge. “Why worry? Send Peter away to school. In England, many boys are sent away at his age.”
“Maybe you’re right. After the summer, if you think he’s ready. I’ll take your advice.”
“What do I know about children? Next to nothing—I told you so in Paris. You couldn’t find a less experienced fraud of a governess.”
Bärchen patted her hand. “You’re a woman. It will come naturally to you.”
“I doubt that very much.” Helen pulled her hand away. “But how much damage can I do in one summer? I’ll teach him a little English at least.”
“That’s fine, Mausi. Do your best.”
She grinned. “Are you sure you’re not his father? Peter favors you.”
“A family resemblance.” The last trace of dusk drained behind the mountains, and Bärchen’s mood darkened with the sky. His gaze fixed on the floating log. “If you think I’ll develop a father’s feelings, you’re wrong.” Bärchen’s deep voice rose to a whine. “It’s not fair to shackle me to a child that’s not mine. And it’s not fair to the child, either. He should have a mother’s love—devoted and selfless.”
“What happened to his mother?”
“It was grotesque. She swelled larger than this.” Bärchen held his arms out, encircling a huge belly. “How many babies can a woman’s body contain? Twins are common, triplets not unheard of. I can’t imagine how women survive even one, can you?”
Helen shook her head. Sour wine burned the back of her throat.
“My brother’s fault. He should have been more careful than to get so many babies on his wife.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” Helen said.
“It does in our family. One is fine. They should have been content with Peter and stopped there. But no, they had to have more children. And now they’ve all joined our family in the crypt.”
Bärchen stared at the house’s foundation stones. Helen followed his gaze.
“Do you mean there are tombs in your cellar? The door in the cellar leads to a crypt?”
He nodded. “I’ll go there too, eventually. Not soon—I’m still young.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I try not to think about such things. Paris makes it easy to forget.”
A chill breeze stirred the water. She put her empty wine glass down and chafed her arms. “And your brother?”
“My brother couldn’t live without his wife. He had to join her.”
“Let’s go in, it’s getting cold.” Bärchen shook his head. “I can’t leave you out here alone,” she insisted, pulling on his elbow. “You’re too melancholy.”
“Don’t worry about me, Mausi,” he laughed. “I have no urge to join my family. I love my life in Paris too much to give it up yet.”
At the door she stopped, half in, half out of the house.
“Do you know what happened to Mimi’s mouth?” she asked.
“I heard it was an accident,” he said, and turned back to the lake.
◉ ◉ ◉
Bärchen left at the first light of dawn. Helen’s pounding headache woke her just in time to spot him from her bedroom window, rowing across the lake in the skiff, pocking the water’s surface with each frantic pitch of the oars. She’d never seen him move so quickly, put so much of his bulky muscle to work. It was as though he were escaping something.
Anxiety wormed through her breast. If she called out to him, he’d turn around and row back. But
the window latch was stuck, the claw cemented into the catch with years of dust and grit. She struggled with it for a minute, and then gave up. Her head throbbed, her mouth was coated in grit, and her eyes felt as though they’d been filled with sand. She crawled back to bed and shoved her head under her pillow.
When she finally ventured up to the nursery in the afternoon, Mimi was sitting in the window seat, needle and thread idle in her lap. The boy was nowhere to be seen.
Helen joined Mimi in the window seat. “How long have you been caring for Peter, Mimi?”
The girl shrugged.
“I suppose when you first came here, you ransacked the house every time he hid from you.”
“Oui,” said Mimi.
“But you’re tired of it. He’s older now. He should know better.”
Mimi hung her head. One lone tear streaked over the rose of her cheek and dropped to her collar, staining the cotton dark.
Helen longed to wipe her knuckle along that soft cheek, lift the dregs of the tear to her lips as if it were nectar. But no. That might be fine in a sodden Pigalle bistro, but not here. She’d only frighten the girl.
She rested her palm on Mimi’s knee, just the lightest touch. “Stay here, I’ll get him.”
Helen found Peter sitting on the edge of the terrace, legs extended, trying to reach his toes into the water. He leaned back, balancing on his arms, and squirmed closer to the edge.
Helen’s heart hammered. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from calling out—a sudden noise might startle him. She crept closer, poised to run and grab him if he fell. When the boy turned his head toward her, she kept her voice low and calm.
“Come here, Peter.”
He ignored her. She slowly edged closer.
“Come away from there, please.”
When he was within reach she snatched him up, hauled him to the front of the house and set him down on the doorstep. She gripped his arms firmly and bent to look him in the eye.
“Peter, you can’t keep running off, do you understand? It’s dangerous. What if you’d fallen into the lake?”
“Bitte, miss.” The boy scuffed his foot. The light bouncing off the lake seemed to leach the color from his skin.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2019 Page 37