by Hill, Roxann
“The main thing is that Baby will be well again. As far as my suitcases are concerned . . . pfft. All they held were stupid clothes. That stuff can be found as easily as sand at the beach. And the watch wasn’t that nice, anyway. Too clunky, Emma thought.”
That comment was meant to be funny, but David examined me even more thoughtfully.
Somebody must get men. I don’t.
28
The Citroën’s engine was purring and it was snowing outside, for a change. Baby’s head rested on my lap. His tongue was still hanging out the side of his mouth. His eyes were half shut. The one hind leg had a splint and was tightly wrapped. Around the wound, his fur was shaved off and a thick bandage hid the stitches. From time to time, he shivered or cried very softly. It was a good thing that the backseat had enough space for both of us.
Emma had curled up in the passenger seat and covered herself with my ski jacket, as usual. She didn’t sleep. Instead, she kept looking back every few minutes to see how Baby was doing.
David set the windshield wipers on high because the snowflakes were nearly blocking all visibility. It started to look more and more like somebody higher up was bombarding us with fat cotton balls. Mother Hulda was definitely barking mad.
“Global warming,” David said, mostly to himself.
“Yeah, I can hardly remember a winter as harsh,” I said. “Definitely not at Christmas. Your windshield wipers are incredibly loud. Are you sure they’re working right? I mean, are they merely spreading the flakes around?”
“What’s wrong with you? They work perfectly. But with this weather, they have no chance. That’s how it is with such a—”
“Classic.” I finished the sentence drily.
He looked at me and we snorted with laughter.
“I’m hungry,” Emma said.
I searched in the plastic bag we’d brought back from the Christmas market. Everybody got a smiley-man cookie. They tasted just like the gingerbread cookies I love. Afterward, I gave Emma and David the pink, heart-shaped butter cookies.
“Fantastic,” David said as he chewed.
“Your tip was golden, Emma. Your papa does love butter cookies.”
“Of course!” Emma said. “Especially because they’re pink.”
“Because they’re what?” David asked.
“Pink. The cookies are pink. And Papa, you always say love is pink.”
David furrowed his brow. “I never say that. Maybe I’ve said once or twice that love is blind.”
“Did you refer to your previous relationships in that way?” I asked without even trying to mask my curiosity.
David shot me a quick look over his shoulder. “Who knows?”
“Love isn’t blind,” I said. “Love isn’t pink either. Love is dumb.”
This time, even Emma laughed.
I shifted positions a bit, careful not to upset Baby, and brushed against the package that lay abandoned at my feet.
“You haven’t told me anything about the urgent business you had to take care of in Nancy,” I said. “What was so important that we had to make the detour?”
David hesitated and mumbled, “Did I perhaps forget to tell you that?”
Did I perhaps forget to tell you that? These words unleashed a feeling of déjà vu. Just two days ago, I’d heard them come out of Valentin’s mouth. The conversation that had followed would always be burned in my brain. That phone call didn’t go very well.
A dull suspicion came over me. Perhaps this phrase was some kind of guy code used by simpleminded men to announce the coming of far-reaching catastrophes. So I drilled deeper.
“No,” I said, “you certainly did not tell me why you needed to go to Nancy. But at the moment, I’m all ears.”
David cleared his throat. Aha, I thought, this is also part of the ritual.
“So,” he started, “you’ve most certainly noticed that our Citroën is something really special.”
“Hmm,” I said. I could almost physically feel David’s discomfort.
He busied himself with unnecessarily adjusting the heating. I waited.
“What was I saying?” he started again.
“Our Citroën is something really special,” I repeated.
“Oh, yes. And in order to fully restore it, rare original parts are needed.”
I couldn’t believe it. “We drove all the way to Nancy because you needed to get whatever rusty things you need for this pink tub from a scrap dealer?”
David nervously ran his hand through his hair. “The way you say that, it has a bit of a negative sound.”
I tapped the package with my foot. “And what precious things did you pick up?”
“Side-view mirrors. Made of chrome and almost as good as new,” he announced proudly.
“Are you serious? We’re touring through half of France just so you could get a couple of stupid mirrors? I knew you were off.”
“What?” he said. “You’re one to talk! You travel hundreds of kilometers just to get to a man who only uses you and keeps you like a trophy—all so he looks younger, the old geezer. Don’t you know that you mean absolutely nothing to him?”
David never should have said that. Now I wouldn’t hold back anymore. I’d let him know exactly what I thought of him.
Just then, our car hit a dreadful bump. It lurched toward the right like we’d gone into a pothole. David struggled to bring it to a stop.
“You wait in the car with Baby,” I told Emma. I carefully moved out from under the dog’s head, grabbed my ski jacket, and joined David outside.
He stood at the edge of the road and stared down at the front of the car. I heard a loud fizzling sound.
“The tire?” I asked.
David nodded. “A flat.”
“We can fix that, can’t we? Every car has a spare tire, even a classic like this.”
As we spoke, a layer of snow had already formed on my jacket. I shook it off.
“In and of itself, it’s no big deal,” David said. “But at night, in the middle of a country road, and in this weather . . . I don’t think we’ll succeed.”
“But we can’t sleep in the car. We’ll freeze to death. And Baby is too weak.”
David raised his head and looked around. “We’ll have to walk to the next town.”
“In a snowstorm? With a little kid and a wounded dog?”
“Look over there,” he said.
“Where?”
He pointed diagonally in front of me. I followed his finger and made out the contours of a large black building, about ten or fifteen meters from where we stood.
“There’s a light,” he said. “In one of the windows of the old castle.”
“Are you completely insane?” I snapped.
“Why?”
“There’s a light. In one of the windows of the old castle,” I mocked him in a deep voice. “It’s like a line in a horror movie. When we get there, a hunchback with a candle in his hand will open a creaky door for us. We’ll go in. And we’ll never get back out again. Not alive and not in one piece, anyway.”
David sighed. “Do you see another possibility?”
I stuck my hand deeper into my jacket pocket. I was freezing. “No,” I said.
“So let’s try our luck.”
David’s comment sent a shudder down my spine. My good luck had left me days ago. Since then I’d been relentlessly chased by nothing but bad luck.
“What about Emma and Baby?” I asked.
“Better to leave them in the warm car for a few moments than to drag them out into the cold.”
“Okay,” I said. “But promise me: if we see ‘Dr. Frankenstein’ written above the doorbell, we’ll turn right back around.”
David grabbed my hand, and we walked toward the light.
29
David was right.
Tall windows, thick stone walls—I could even make out a tower. This actually was a castle. Next to the wooden door, which had been worn down over time, a small lamp shone above a doorbell. Evidently, the building had electricity. That was something, anyway.
David rang the bell, and we heard it chime inside. We waited. Nothing happened.
I was just about to suggest going back to the car when the door handle started to move. The door opened a crack. And, naturally, it creaked.
Now the only things missing were a hunchbacked servant and an insane ax murderer—an end truly worthy of this day.
An old woman, not particularly tall, in pants and knitted jacket, squinted at us from behind the door. The cold wind blew snowflakes inside. She put her hand on her forehand to block them.
“Bonsoir, Madame,” I said.
David greeted her, too, and bowed his head lightly.
“Bonsoir,” she answered.
David started speaking French, so once again I didn’t understand a word. I tried to make a nice face, but it wasn’t easy to do in the frigid cold.
David stopped talking.
The old woman examined us with a skeptical gaze. She had clever brown eyes and many wrinkles. But it was clear that she’d been a true beauty in her earlier years.
I tugged on David’s arm. “Did you tell her that we have a child in the car and that our dog is injured?”
“Yes,” David said nervously.
“Oh,” said the old woman, looking at me. She proceeded to speak in German, instead of French. “You’re from Germany.”
“Yes,” I said, and pointed at the street behind me. “We have a flat tire.”
“Your husband just told me.”
“We really don’t want to disturb you, Madame, but would you happen to have a place for us to stay? Only for this one night. Maybe even in a nearby building or in a barn? And if that’s not possible, then at least for little Emma and our dog, who’s just had an operation? It’s simply too cold for the two of them to stay outside.” I was speaking so fast that I nearly stumbled over my words.
A smile spread over the old woman’s face. “My dear child,” she said. I was amazed that she spoke without an accent. “You think that you can come to my house shortly before Christmas—a family in need of shelter—and I’d make you sleep in my barn? What do you take me for?”
She stepped aside and made an inviting hand gesture. “Bring in the child and the dog immediately. We’ll catch our death of cold if we keep standing outside.”
“But this is a big dog. Really big,” I said. I marked Baby’s height at my upper thigh.
“He won’t be afraid of me,” she said.
David and I hurried back to the car. Baby seemed a little better and had managed to sit up halfway. We covered him in the blanket again and carried him together toward the castle. Two additional lanterns were turned on, making the short trip easier.
Emma walked next to us across the snow. Wheezing, she dragged David’s huge travel bag behind her. The castle door was wide open now. As we reached it, Emma stopped and gasped for air.
“And what is your name?” the old woman asked.
“I’m Emma. And this is my papa and Michelle. And my dog’s name is Baby. He’s still groggy from the operation.”
“My name is Madame Segebade. Welcome to my house.”
“This is not a house,” Emma said. “This is a castle.”
Madame Segebade smiled. “But a small one.” She proceeded forward. We wound up in a long corridor with many oil paintings hanging on the walls, along with framed photographs of German shepherds. Madame Segebade was obviously a dog person.
She pushed a sliding door to the side, and we entered a giant living room. A fire burned in an open fireplace. The floor was covered in hand-woven carpets, and there were countless boxes sitting around. A Christmas tree was laying in the middle of the room, not yet in a proper stand.
Madame Segebade shrugged shyly. “Please excuse the mess. I was not expecting visitors. But where is my head!” She pointed to a large leather couch. “You’d do best to lay the dog there.”
“On the sofa?” I asked doubtfully.
“Of course! He needs to be somewhere soft and warm. The floors aren’t heated in this old place.”
We got Baby to the couch. He whimpered a few times, then he closed his eyes and started to snore.
“That seems taken care of,” Madame Segebade said, satisfied. “Michelle, if you could please help me in the kitchen? Certainly, you’re all hungry.”
“And how!” Emma blurted out.
“Could Emma and I also help you in some way?” David asked.
The old woman thought for a moment and made an expansive gesture that embraced the whole room. “Well, I don’t like to force anything upon you, but I was just about to make my living room look a little bit like Christmas. In truth, I was starting to despair. The tree is just too big and heavy for me.”
I could see that she wasn’t telling the truth, but her fib made it easier on David. “Emma and I are happy to put up the tree for you,” he said. “And if you like, Emma is a real expert when it comes to Christmas decorations.”
“Yes, that’s me,” Emma said with sparkling eyes. She immediately made her way to one of the boxes, reached inside, and pulled out a gorgeous shiny-red Christmas ball.
“I think those two will be very busy,” Madame Segebade whispered to me. I looked at her, surprised, and she winked and said, “Now we have plenty of time to prepare the food. And you’re chilled to the bone—maybe you’ll both have a little cognac with me?”
“That we could definitely use,” I said as I followed the old woman through several doors before arriving at the kitchen.
30
Gigantic! There was no other way to describe the kitchen. Utility sink, counter space, refrigerator, stove, fume hood—every element assumed proportions that I’d only seen in the movies. You know, those movies in which a staff of ten prepares meals for Lord Sinclair, and all sorts of intrigue arise when they have to decide who will help the butler iron the lord’s trousers. I love those! Back then, the world was still whole, and everyone knew their place.
Madame Segebade noticed how impressed I was. “A long time ago, more than a dozen people lived here. But now . . .” She sighed. “My daughter owns a gallery in Paris. She seldom finds the time to visit me. Perhaps she’ll manage to this Christmas.” She sighed again and smiled. “Do you have an idea for what we should cook?”
I looked at her helplessly. “Well, if I’m being honest, cooking is not exactly my forte.”
The old woman’s smile broadened. “We’re going to change that right away. What do you think of quiche?”
“Is it difficult?”
“No.” She shook her head. “If we both pitch in, it’ll be a cinch.”
She gave me a basket full of apples, a cutting board, and a vegetable knife. With her guidance, I chose the most beautiful fruit and peeled it.
As I worked, Madame Segebade prepared the dough.
“It’s so nice of you to take us in,” I said, cutting the apples into thin slices. “I never would have thought that there were such helpful people.”
“Oh,” she said, waving away my statement, “I’m only being selfish. Being alone is sometimes difficult. I very much enjoy having visitors, especially during the Christmas season.”
“I can understand that,” I said. “Being alone definitely isn’t easy.”
“And you?” she said. “The three of you will surely celebrate Christmas together.”
I had just cut into an onion. It burned my eyes, which began to tear. “David and I, we’re not married.”
“I’d already noticed,” said Madame Segebade. “You don’t wear any rings.”
“We met by accident,” I explained. “David is only taking me along. We both need to get
to Berlin urgently. It just worked out this way.” I sniffled. It was the onion’s fault.
As she rolled out the dough, the old woman pursed her lips and shot me a curious look. “There’s really nothing more between the two of you?”
“How do you mean?” I asked, still chopping apples.
“You’re very familiar with one another.”
“We’ve been through a lot these past few days. That bonds people together.”
“Hmm,” was her only response.
For a while we stayed silent.
“It definitely wouldn’t work between the two of us. David is a single father, and I am useless as a mother,” I heard myself say.
Again came the hmm. “But the child is already attached to you.”
“For no reason that I can understand.”
“All I can say is that children are like dogs. That may sound strange, but it’s true. Neither can hide their feelings. So you must have done something right.”
This time it was my turn to answer with a hmm.
I stood quietly in thought as Madame Segebade laid out the dough in a round, cast-iron pan. Together, we diced a large piece of bacon, fried it crispy, added onions and butter to it, and mixed in curd, eggs, and shredded cheese. Then we placed a thin layer of sliced apples on top of the dough, and Madame Segebade distributed the filling over it evenly.
“Done,” she said. We placed the heavy pan into the preheated oven.
For the first time, I noticed that one of the burners on the stove was turned on. Chicken was cooking in a red pot. “Oh,” I said, “did we forget that?”
“No. That’s for the dog.”
“You don’t need to cook anything for the dog,” I protested, uncomfortable.
“Your dog must get healthy as soon as possible. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. I used to breed German shepherds. After the operation, he won’t be able to hold down anything solid. The broth will do him good. And he’ll get the meat early tomorrow. It’s easily digested and will give him strength.”
I couldn’t think of a suitable response, so I simply said, “Thank you.”