The Silver Castle

by Nancy Buckingham

  Responding to the wine, Raimund and I became lighthearted. We derived great amusement from watching a gross middle-aged couple at a table beyond an archway, who were tucking into heaped platters of food. Laughingly, Raimund found my hand and held it, caressing my fingers lightly. He was undoubtedly the best-looking man in the room, and I was aware of envious glances from other women.

  Presently, a man and a girl came into the restaurant. He was tall and blond, she was petite and dark and vivacious. Gazing around for a suitable table, they spotted us and came over. The man used English, with that uncanny instinct so many Continentals possess.

  “Hello, Raimund. I didn’t know you ever came here.”

  Raimund’s good humour had vanished. He answered sullenly, “Well, you know now.”

  The couple glanced at each other, ruefully amused. The man said, “So that’s how it is. Don’t worry, my friend, we have no intention of latching ourselves onto you for the rest of the evening. We wish to be alone ourselves.” He flicked enquiring eyes at me. “Come on, Raimund, aren’t you going to introduce us?”

  With remarkable lack of grace, he muttered, “This is Gail. Gail, meet Niklaus and Heidi.”

  “Are you here on holiday?” the girl asked with a smile.

  “That’s right,” Raimund answered hurriedly, before I could open my mouth. “She’s staying with us at the Schloss for a couple of weeks, and I’m showing her around.”

  So he didn’t want them to know the real reason for my visit. I said deliberately, “As a matter of fact it’s not so much a holiday as a quest. My father lived in Switzerland for years, and he died recently. Unfortunately I never had any contact with him, so I’ve come now to try to get to know him in retrospect, as it were.”

  “It sounds intriguing,” Niklaus observed. “Like a detective story. Have you discovered anything interesting yet?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake leave the poor girl alone,” Raimund snapped. “We’re supposed to be out enjoying ourselves.”

  “But I don’t mind, Raimund.” I glanced back at the other two. “It’s quite possible that you knew my father. Benedict Sherbrooke, the artist....”

  Their deeply ingrained Swiss courtesy almost, but not quite, concealed their consternation. Their eyes asked Raimund questions that I couldn’t begin to understand.

  “How amazing,” Niklaus exclaimed. “Heidi, Liebes, I fear we are not going to find a decent table here, after all, so we’d better try somewhere else. Wie schade! It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Gail. Wiedersehen, Raimund....”

  Speedily they eased themselves away from us, shook off the headwaiter, who protested volubly that there were several excellent tables free, and vanished through the swinging doors to the vestibule.

  Raimund gave me an apologetic little smile. “Don’t mind them, Gail, they were just embarrassed.”

  “They were shocked,” I corrected. “I wonder why.”

  “You’re imagining things! Now, what shall we do after this? Would you like to dance? There’s a new club opened on Limmatquai that’s supposed to be very good.”

  “The point being,” I suggested sceptically, “that we’re unlikely to run into any more of your friends there. Am I right?”

  “Gail, please. §I wish only for you to enjoy yourself. Must you be so difficult? Just relax, and let us have a good time together.”

  I could have argued with him, but what good would that have done? So taking Raimund’s advice, I tried to recapture our earlier, happier mood.

  * * * *

  A stiff breeze was blowing inshore from the lake as I set out from the Schloss Rietswil, and I turned up the collar of my sheepskin jacket more snugly against my chin. I felt a curious sense of elation, as though I’d achieved a victory. I was out of doors, and I was alone.

  We had spent the entire morning on a leisurely drive around Zurichsee, Sigrid ordering Karl to pause at every landmark—a fortified castle, an ancient monastery, the site of a famous battle five centuries ago. I collected a mass of irrelevant information ... irrelevant because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear and which, consequently, I found irritating. Was it not interesting, my hostess asked, that the renowned educator Pestalozzi had been born in Zurich, and that James Joyce was buried there? Did I know that Thomas Mann had retreated here from the Nazis, and that Wagner had been an exile of an earlier age? When Sigrid launched into a story about Thornton Wilder and Our Town, I stopped listening. Tell me instead, I pleaded silently, about Benedict Sherbrooke ... that unrenowned painter who had lived and worked and died here.

  Back at the Schloss for lunch there had been a discussion of plans for the afternoon.

  “As we are having guests for dinner,” Sigrid said, “I suggest that we do not go out again, Gail.”

  “I think I should like to go for a walk,” I said decidedly.

  Her brow creased into a frown. “I should stay indoors if I were you. It is blowing up rather cold.”

  “A walk would do me good,” I insisted, adding, “Perhaps I’ll stroll up to the chalet and have another look around.”

  Sigrid accepted her defeat. “Perhaps you would make a note of anything of your father’s that you wish to keep,” she said, “and we will arrange to have the rest disposed of. I expect my stepson will attend to finding another tenant sooner or later, and he’ll want the chalet cleared out.”

  Some need in me, an urge to fly the flag of independence, made me say, “Did my father owe you any rent when he died? If so, I’d like to settle up with you.”

  “Do not be foolish, my dear. Benedict never ... I mean, there is no question of your paying anything.”

  So he had lived at their chalet rent free. It had been the one form of charity that he’d been willing to accept.

  When, after we’d had coffee in the salon, Sigrid announced that she was going upstairs to rest, I seized my chance to escape.

  Reaching the main highway, I crossed it and started up the steep stony track that led to the chalet. In the budding thornbushes on either side of me small birds were chattering, busy with nest building. High above, somewhere out of sight, a skylark sang. Reaching a gap in the bushes, I paused and looked back the way I’d come. Zurichsee was ruffled by the keen wind, its blue waters patchworked with dark chasing shadows, mirroring the cloud-swept sky. Standing here, I looked down on the silver silhouette of the Schloss Rietswil and I imagined I could see a face at the high turret window. Karl or his wife, Ursula, or one of the local girls who came in daily to do the cleaning? Or just a trick of the ever-changing light?

  At length I came to the clearing where the chalet stood. I could hear the wind sighing through the conifers, their pointed tips whipped into a frenzied dance. I shivered, shrugging deeper into my jacket.

  In one movement I opened the door and walked straight in. It was a shock to find someone there before me. We both gave a start of surprise, and I found myself confronting the boy I’d seen here that other time, the boy who had run away into the woods. Sigrid had called him Willi and explained to me that he was weak in the head.

  He had been crouched down on the floor by the stone hearth, carving a piece of driftwood with a knife. Now he rose slowly to his feet, his pale blue eyes staring. Sigrid had said that he was harmless, yet I couldn’t help feeling a little afraid. He was holding the knife like a dagger, its pointed blade gleaming. If he was simple-minded, who could tell how he might react to this unexpected intrusion by a stranger?

  I smiled quickly, to assure him that I was no threat.

  “My name is Gail Sherbrooke. Benedict Sherbrooke was my father ... you know, the man who used to live here.”

  His wild, threatening look remained unchanged and I realised it was stupid of me to expect the boy to understand English. I attempted to say the same thing in German.

  “Ich heiss Gail Sherbrooke. Benedict Sherbrooke war mein Vater ... weisst du, der Mann ... der Mann wer ...” I gave up the struggle. No glimmer of understanding showed in his eyes. He had retreated against the wall now and,
slight though he was, he seemed menacing as he stood watching me warily, the knife still gripped tightly in his hand.

  With sinking confidence, I gestured at the piece of carved wood lying abandoned on the floor. “Gut ... es ist sehr gut!” But my compliment had no effect.

  With a sudden idea I stepped across to the easel and, taking up a brush from the jar, began to act out a mime ... mixing colours on the palette and applying them to a canvas. Then I pointed at myself, trying to convey to him that I was an artist like my father. I was hoping that this would evoke a sympathetic response, but instead, he seized his chance to get past me and escape. With three strides he was across the room.

  I could only feel thankful that he’d gone. Then, with a stab of surprise, I realised that the boy must have been just as frightened as I was, perhaps even more so. He’d been trespassing, and he was no doubt afraid of the consequences. I ran to the door, in time to see him plunging into the shadows of the forest.

  A feeling of pity took hold of me. Stooping, I picked up the carved wood and let my fingers run over the crude surfaces. The grotesque face still suggested the same feeling of primitive power, but it was a little more finished now. It seemed to me that the boy must have been drawn to the chalet by some need to feel close to my father. The meticulous tidying of the place—it could only have been Willi’s doing—seemed to prove a kind of reverence. With the death of Benedict Sherbrooke the boy had lost a friend, possibly his only friend.

  Was I being fanciful?

  I wished that I could call him back, that I could make it clear that I’d meant him no harm. Sighing to myself, I moved idly around the sparsely furnished room, touching things and once again trying to feel some echo of my father’s presence. But there was nothing, just a sensation of emptiness. I remembered that Sigrid had asked me to note the things I wanted to take back to England with me. I must keep a few items as mementoes ... his brushes and palette, perhaps a few of the books on the shelf ... mostly poetry and art books.

  There was the large collection of my father’s paintings at the Schloss, too. What was to become of them? Would they eventually put money in my pocket? How could I avoid the thought? Yet money had not been my motive, not for a single second, when I’d come hurrying out to Switzerland. I was kidding myself, though, if I expected anyone else to believe that.

  Or was there someone, after all—a simple, retarded boy who had loved my father? A boy who, now that his hero was dead, had made almost a shrine of his humble home. No, I wasn’t being fanciful, I was pierced through with certainty. Suddenly it seemed vitally important to make Willi my friend. For me to be his friend.

  But that wasn’t to be achieved, I decided, by seeking him out at home and involving the aunt and uncle who’d brought him up after his mother’s death. Instinctively, I knew that this would be the wrong way. Whatever might grow between us must be private, a secret that only the two of us shared.

  I thought I knew the way to make a beginning. The other day, I’d noticed a sketch pad in the corner cupboard. I fetched it out now and found a stick of artist’s charcoal. At art school I’d made something of a gimmick of turning out lightning-quick sketches of people, and I did one now of myself and Willi. We were shaking hands and smiling at each other. Surely the message was clear? I propped the drawing on the easel. I felt certain that the boy would return to the chalet when he thought it was safe. And perhaps, when he’d seen the drawing and understood its meaning, he wouldn’t attempt to flee from me the next time we met.

  * * * *

  Leaping firelight and the flames of a dozen candles illumined the pine-panelled room as we dined.

  Upstairs in my bedroom as I’d put on my simple lime-green jersey dress and a loop of gold beads, I’d expected to be far outshone in elegance by my hostess and her daughter. But Helga turned out to be no competition at all. About the same height as I, she had angular shoulders with a thick waist and hips. She wore a tight silk gown of giant peonies splashed against dark green foliage which looked as if it had been created for a woman who bulged in altogether different places.

  From the first moment we were introduced Helga had regarded me with unconcealed suspicion. But I guessed she suspected everyone—every woman, at least—of stealing a march on her.

  It was evident that I’d been thoroughly discussed—presumably on the phone—and Helga knew all the details I had given about myself to Sigrid and Raimund. She shot questions at me as if they were accusations.

  “You live in London—which part of London?”

  “I have a small studio flat in Chelsea,” I replied, suppressing the borderline truth.

  “Why is London everywhere so dirty?” She curled her lower lip in distaste. “In Zurich all the streets and buildings are so clean and nice. You have to agree it is a far better place to live.”

  “I’m sure it is—if you happen to be Swiss.”

  Helga missed the irony, and plunged on. “Ernst and I have a most beautiful home in Zurich, in Wollishofen. Last year we had a swimming pool built, and this year we are planning a squash court.”

  “How nice,” I said sweetly. “I wonder what you’ll find left to do next year.”

  I caught a grin from Raimund, but Sigrid was impatient with Helga’s bragging, and flattened her daughter with, practised ease.

  “It would be no bad thing if you swam and played squash yourself. That would take off some of your surplus weight. Gail, a little more of this Geschnetzeltes? Ernst, what do you think of this wine?”

  Her son-in-law had been listening to the conversation in silence, every now and then tugging at his beard with thumb and forefinger. Now, his opinion called for, he smiled at Sigrid and said judicially, “It is good, Schwiegermutter—as good as any in my own cellar.”

  “That is indeed a compliment.” She had recovered her good humour. “I was thinking, Ernst... there may be legal formalities to be observed when Gail takes her father’s paintings back to England. You could advise her about that.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” he assured me with a little bow. “I shall check on the position tomorrow, and let you know.”

  Feeling that I was being pressured, I said uncomfortably, “I haven’t really given the matter any thought yet.”

  “Then you must, my dear.” Sigrid’s voice was tinged with reproach. “The days pass so quickly, and before you know it the time will have come for you to be leaving us. Raimund can give you the address of a firm in Zurich which specialises in packing works of art for shipment abroad. Or why not let him arrange everything for you?”

  “Please, leave it for a little while,” I begged. “I’m still not sure what to do about the paintings. In any case, I wouldn’t dream of taking all of them, Frau Kreuder. I want you to feel quite free to select the ones you’d like to keep.”

  “That is most generous of you, Gail,” she said warmly. “Perhaps you will permit me to have one or two of my special favourites, then, to remember Benedict by.”

  Once again I wondered why, since Sigrid was supposed to think so highly of Benedict Sherbrooke’s work, there were none of my father’s paintings hanging on the walls. Why had every single one of them been banished to an attic, out of sight?

  Chapter Five

  As the days went by I fell into a routine of going to the chalet each morning. And each morning, disappointingly, my sketch remained on the easel, exactly as I’d left it. I couldn’t be sure whether Willi had seen my offer of friendship and rejected it, or whether he’d not been there at all. As a check, I plucked out a long strand of my hair and fixed it between the door and the jamb with a couple of drawing pins. Next day, the hair was still unbroken. But I felt convinced that, sooner or later, Willi would return to the chalet.

  By now Sigrid and Raimund had accepted, reluctantly, that I was unwilling to be chained to them, but my plan to discover more about my father made no progress. Once or twice I dropped in for coffee at the “Wilhelm Tell” in the village square and, on various pretexts, I visited the local shops
and tried to strike up conversations. Often I exchanged a few words with the men who worked in the orchards or among the vines, and once I paused to chat with the pastor as he emerged from his pretty steepled church. Though the local people were always polite to me, their unease was something almost tangible, and their answers to my questions whenever I mentioned my father’s name were patently evasive.

  Had the Kreuder family, with their considerable influence in Rietswil, put it about that they wished me to be spared the sordid details of my father’s death? It seemed the most likely explanation. But somebody, sometime, was going to tell me what I wanted to know. I was determined about it.

  One morning, after I’d been staying at the Schloss Rietswil for nearly a week, I went again to the attic where the paintings were stored. I’d not returned before, reluctant to face that sense of searing disappointment. Yet I was drawn here now by the memory of that other experience, that strange feeling of communion with my father’s mind. Today, however, it wouldn’t come. Gazing at canvas after canvas I found my brain becoming clogged, and I went across to the dormer window and stood looking out.

  From here, the angle of the roof across the courtyard restricted my view of the rising hillside. I realised, though, that from the window of the nearby turret I’d be able to see clear across to the chalet. On an impulse I went along the attic corridor and found a flight of stone steps that spiralled up into darkness. I flicked a switch, but no light came on. With my hand against the outer wall, I felt my way up, one careful step at a time. At the top was a solid door, a slit of daylight showing beneath it. But when I tried the handle I discovered that the door was locked.

  “Gail.” Raimund’s voice called me from the landing below. “Gail, where are you?”

  “Just a minute,” I called back. “I’m coming.”