Keeper of the Mill

by Mary Anne Kelly

  “Will you be taking your breakfast in your room?”

  “May I have it out of doors?”

  “I will notify the kitchen. Weather permitting, naturally.” She scribbled doggedly. “Otherwise, you will find your breakfast in the East Room.” Distracted, she pulled one earring off, then the other, and caressed each downy lobe. Her ears, uncovered—Claire tried not to be seen noticing—were trumpet-like and ugly and, ultimately, compelling. “My name is Fräulein Wintner. If you have any problems, you will come please with them to me.” She regarded Claire with a lifted face, her unfortunate ears once again safely parked away. “And not disturb the family.”

  “Okay.” Claire followed Fräulein Wintner’s bobbing head of crisply bouffanted, honey-colored hair. They made their way up the polished wood stairway and down the wide, old-fashioned corridor to the last room.

  “Who’s that playing piano?” Claire asked.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Fräulein Wintner lied. “Here you are, Fräulein.” she handed Claire the lacy iron key. “We trust your stay with us will be enjoyable.” She smiled without warmth.

  “And I hope,” Claire couldn’t resist saying, “you’ll enjoy having me.”

  The woman turned without a word and Claire stood there, alone at last. There were two windows, one in each corner, both open to the morning breeze and softly framed with white priscillas. A powder-blue wooden bed, with a high, clean white eiderdown and two Goldilocks pillows, was tucked in invitingly with a white chenille spread. On the floor was an Afghan carpet, and on the pine nightstand a white ceramic lamp, a bowl of fruit, a nosegay of wild-flowers, and a box of Swiss chocolates. There was a straight-backed pine chair and an ornately painted pastel wardrobe—alive with roosters and pomegranates—and footed with lion’s paws, their toenails lacquered a heavy-duty salmon. On top of that were even more pillows and a straw basket of freshly dried baby’s breath. Heaven—Claire smiled to herself—absolute heaven. She shut the door, kicked off her shoes, and lay down on the billowy softness of cool sheets.

  Someone ran, clop, clop-clop-clop, down the length of the hall. “Aber du hast mir versprochen!” (“But you promised me!”) Claire recognized Fräulein Wintner’s plaintive voice call out before she fell, like pelting darkness, off to sleep.

  The telephone jangled Claire back from a netherworld of melodic dreams. She fumbled around for the antiquated phone on the wall, the unsettling music of her dream becoming real and only down the hall. “Hello?” she said and cleared her throat.

  “Good morning!” The brisk, metallic twang of Jupiter Dodd came through without the usual cross-Atlantic delay. “Oops. Is it nighttime there?”

  “No. You just caught me napping. I think it’s late afternoon. What’s up?”

  “Hold on to your hat, sparklin’ eyes. Matt McGee was up here yesterday—”

  He didn’t have to tell her who Matt McGee was. Everyone who’d ever worked in the world of advertising knew that name. His agency had been on top for as long as Claire could remember, and he specialized in mega-accounts only.

  “What was he doing up at She She?” she asked idly, getting up and peeking out the window. There was an old black Mercedes with running boards in the driveway behind the greenhouse.

  “Well, I’d like to tell you he came up solely for Davey’s new campaign pitch.” He lowered his voice. “But I’d be more honest by saying I think it was the gorgeous new lawyer we’ve got—anyway, he was up here, so of course I utilized every moment, chucking slides at him from the fashion thing with Hideoki—he was looking for locations for the new Harris cigarette campaign he landed, and whose slide do you think he picked up on? That solitary old, dogeared slide you sent me of Bavaria in springtime to convince me to let you shoot the accessories there. It just happened to be in the same manila. You remember? The crowd of healthy German kids on the green hill?”

  Of course she remembered. She wouldn’t have been able to afford her flight or accommodations without She She footing the bill.

  “Well, Matt McGee went nuts; said this was exactly the sort of thing he was looking for—fresh without being tropical—he’s fed up to here with tropical—make a long story short—he wants you to shoot the campaign. Claire. Back in the big time. Sky’s the limit! Hire whoever and whatever you want. Jesus. Maybe I’ll come over myself, once you get things rolling. Have they got a fax where you’re staying?”

  Jupiter rambled on. He was so caught up in his own excitement, he didn’t notice Claire’s lack of enthusiasm.

  She held the receiver tightly and closed her eyes. “Jupiter,” she finally got a word in, “I hate to tell you this, but I don’t do cigarette campaigns.”

  Silence at the other end. “What does that mean, you don’t do them?”

  “Just that. I can’t—I won’t—shoot cigarettes …”

  Jupiter was still. She could hear the commotion of his chaotic office around him. Then a resounding, quacking laugh jarred the line and wheezed to an amused finish. “Ahhh, dumpling. You really had me going there for a minute, you know that? You’re bad.”

  “I mean it, Joop. I won’t use my”—she hesitated to use the word talent, then figured what the hell, that’s what it was she was using—“my talent to further that addiction.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I’ll force you.”

  Claire groaned. “You can’t. I made this decision years ago. I just won’t do it.”

  “But you used to shoot tons of nicotine. I remember! What about the Maldive thing with the flying fish? That was some of your best work!”

  “Yes,” she admitted sadly, rubbing her eyes, “I remember. I’ll bet you used to do a lot of things you wouldn’t do anymore yourself.”

  “So what?”

  “So what? Jupiter, you sound just like my son!”

  “You ought to think about your son. That’s just who you should be thinking about, and that steep private-school tuition you’re always complaining about.”

  “You’re right. I am thinking about him. How am I supposed to justify glamorizing cigarettes and then stand there one day and tell him not to smoke?”

  “Claire. Grow up.”

  “I have grown up. That’s just what I have done. Why do you think no one smokes in New York anymore? Because they’ve stopped advertising gorgeous people smoking on TV, that’s why.”

  “Listen, Claire. People don’t not smoke because of stopping advertising.”

  “Now you listen, Jupiter. If you or I didn’t believe in the monumental force of advertising, neither of us would have gone into it.”

  “If you don’t shoot the cigarette campaign, you can come right home. I won’t pay you for any of it.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “I can and I will.”

  Claire’s heart sank. “Thanks a lot, Jupiter.”

  “You’ll shoot it, then?”

  “Hell, no. I’ll just have to come home sooner than I expected and start paying off the trip myself.”

  They both waited. Finally, Jupiter said, “Look. All I ask is this. Look around for a couple of locations and just think about it.”

  “But I told you—”

  “Don’t talk, just listen. I’ll call you back tomorrow. You can give me your answer then.”

  “It will still be the same.”

  “Then you still have until tomorrow to enjoy yourself on my money. Good-bye.”

  He hung up, then so did she.

  A very bad feeling overtook her. She knew it well. It was that old schemer, Temptation. It sure would be nice to have a lot of money to play with.

  She went back over to the window and looked down at the old-timer Mercedes. Man, oh man. They didn’t make them like that anymore. She wondered whose it was. Above her head a floorboard creaked. Claire shivered. The afternoon had grown cooler, and she went to look for her soft gray sweater. She found her brush with it and went back to the window, tugging it through her auburn hair.
/>   That lovely young girl who’d been crying was down there, quite recovered, it seemed. She held on to a kitten, stroking its fur, while she chatted to a fellow her own age, about twenty, in the doorway of the greenhouse. He was dressed roughly, and his big hands dropped from his pitchfork when the girl turned and walked off, the pebbles crunching under her narrow feet. He kept watching and she kept walking, swaying, knowing he still watched. This poor fellow doesn’t have a chance, Claire thought wryly, pleased not to be that treacherously vulnerable age anymore.

  She must call Iris. She picked up the phone and was told by the ever-surly Fräulein Wintner that all transatlantic calls must be made from the desk. She should give her name and number, hang up the phone, and Fräulein Wintner would ring her back when she got through. Claire sat on the bed, trying not to suspect she’d have been better off staying at the modern Americanized Sheraton after all, when the call came through. “Hello?” She cupped one ear and called. “Iris?” This connection was not as clear as the first had been.

  “Hallo?”

  “Iris?”

  “Mfphph.—ullo?”

  “It’s me, dear. Claire. I’m here. I’m at Saint Hildegard’s Mill.”

  “Oh. Clai-aire!”

  “Can you believe it? I’m actually here. Iris, it’s beautiful! The flowers—”

  “The flowers are blooming now here, too,” Iris shouted defensively.

  “Yes. Yes, well, I just wanted to let you know. I have a lovely room.”

  “Don’t forget to look in the clock.”

  “No, I won’t. I’ll look everywhere. I won’t forget.”

  “And don’t trust a soul. Now, beware of those who take the joy from what you love. Don’t forget, it all looks nicy-nice on the outside, but something festers there.”

  “All right, I won’t forget.”

  Iris’s voice cleared. It changed. “Claire?” She sounded young again and full of yearning. “What do you see?”

  Claire went to the window. “It’s … everything green. An old man far off walks the hill. There’s a stream.”

  “And the tree?”

  “Yes, the tree is still here. I see the tree.” She listened kindly to Iris’s reminiscent silence.

  “You won’t not call again. Claire?”

  “No. I won’t. I promise I’ll call you soon. If Johnny comes over, uh, just tell him I love him.”

  “All right.” Iris wasn’t going to be the one to tell Claire that that tart Portia McTavish had shown up on Johnny’s doorstep as soon as she was gone.

  “I’ve got to go. There’s a wonderful smell of Schweinshaxen in the air and I’m starving.”

  “Go now. And have a beer for me.”

  She laughed. “All right,” and they hung up. The extension somewhere else was hung up as well. A golden Bavarian beer. Her mouth watered and she turned to go when she saw Blacky, Isolde’s intended, her dear old lover and enemy Blacky, strolling from the chapel on the hill and heading toward the Mill.

  He certainly was a fine catch, she conceded, his notorious black hair having electrified to a leonine halo of pure white. He wasn’t that big, but he always seemed to be, with those great shoulders and his barreling neck. Women adored him. They always had, she remembered ruefully, watching him pick his way over the messy remains of the gardener’s compost. He had a way of rubbing his meticulously clean hands together at the start or finish of anything. They were rammed, at the moment, in the pockets of impeccable linen trousers. He looked bad-tempered. Why ever had she left him? she wondered, admiring his upsetting yellow eyes, and suddenly she did remember, she remembered exactly why she had left him.

  It was in the early days when they’d both just returned from India, and he was busy setting up his practice. She’d gone with some models to see the African ballet that was in town for a week or so and afterward had gone backstage with the rest of them. Well, they’d had a grand time and gone off to the clubs to show those Africans just what a jolly town Munich was. It got very late, and Claire decided to get back home. Blacky would be returning from the hospital shortly, and she wanted to be there when he got in.

  It turned out he already was home when she got there. She still remembered everything, strangely enough, right down to what he and she were wearing. She could see it all in front of her, as clear as a film. Anyway, there he was, and there she was, and she kissed him and started to tell him about what a marvelous time she’d had, and he said, “How did you get home?” and she said, not even thinking, “I hailed a cab on Maximilianstrasse, only one of the dancers wanted to go back to his hotel and asked if he could share mine, so of course I said ‘Sure,’ and I dropped him off first; that’s why you got in first, I guess.” She hadn’t noticed Blacky’s stony silence until she turned around and looked at him. “You don’t mean to say”—he’d blinked uncomprehendingly—“that you got into a taxi with an African ballet dancer on Maximilianstrasse?”

  She held her blouse crumpled in her hand. “Yes. Why?”

  “Where any of my patients might have seen you?”

  “Oh, Christ, Blacky. Just listen to you!”

  “At this hour of the night?”

  She couldn’t believe he was so upset. He refused to forgive her. He wouldn’t even speak to her at breakfast the next morning. She told him he was being childish and racist and she was a grown person and would do as she wished.

  Well, by the time he’d come home that night, he’d pretty much cooled down (realizing, she supposed, that his practice would survive and no one of major importance had seen her getting into the cab), but she, who’d had a thoughtful, self-righteous and pretty pious afternoon behind her, was just getting started. Now it was he who couldn’t believe how upset she was. They fought all the time. In the end, surprising both of them, she’d left him.

  Claire looked down at the handsome, older fellow there on the drive in his own country. It hadn’t really been the African who’d separated them, she knew. He’d only been the excuse. Blacky, feeling himself watched, looked up and into her eyes. He is kind and good, she thought, smiling. That’s what he is first. Funny she should think it last.

  Old Father Metz sat in the Mill kitchen sipping his weekly allotment of coffee from Evangelika. He felt more comfortable down here, away from the intensity of the family and their exorbitant, bourgeois furniture. And that piano. You always had to sit through some exquisite piece painstakingly eked out by that maniac, Cosimo. And they watched you, watched your reactions. If you weren’t tapping your foot and outwardly enjoying yourself, one of them would prod you and inquire if you were.

  He didn’t mind coming—Hans von Grünwald was Saint Hildegard’s most generous contributor and must be coddled, for who else was there?—but Father was always relieved when the strenuous hour was over and he could relax in the peace and quiet of Evangelika’s open animosity and delicious pound cake. The gaunt, empty spaces of the old kitchen never failed to remind him of his own happier origins, his strict-but-loving grandmother’s farm out in Warteweil.

  Herr von Grünwald would, each week, deposit him here in the kitchen while he went to attend to the business of writing him out a check. Each was more comfortable away from the other, and so the procedure took a while. Father Metz’s back was turned to the cat. He was allergic. The cat knew this and preened herself sadistically nearby.

  Fräulein Wintner bustled in. She banged the milk pitcher recriminatingly in place on the hardwood table.

  Evangelika barred her way, leaning over and pouring poor Father Metz another cup of her ferocious coffee.

  There was no sign of Herr von Grünwald. Ah, well. Father sighed. Anyway, he was not looking forward to trying to start up the car. It was having one of its less enlightened days. If he waited long enough, Friedel the gardener would be done with his pruning and could give him a good push. So. He would go quickly to the bathroom, have one more slice of cake and linger a while until Friedel was done. He’d told his old housekeeper he’d be back in time for the Angelus. He could
n’t wait all day for Herr von Grünwald, after all. If the keeper of the Mill would come to church on Sunday like everyone else, as his own children Cosimo and Stella Gabriella did, he wouldn’t have to drive himself out here each week like an errand boy.

  Father Metz had just mopped his lovely hands dry with a soft white Turkish towel when Fräulein Wintner stood before him in the vestibule.

  “Father”—her voice trembled, yet she looked him sure enough in the eye—“will you hear my confession?”

  “Ach, Fräulein”—he brushed his wisps of silver hair from his haggard face—“if you can’t make regular confessional hours on Saturday, that’s four to seven, I will be happy to see you anytime up at the Rectory. As long as you call ahead.”

  She opened the door to her own quarters and remained persistently there, silhouetted by the overheated pinks and beiges of her privacy. There were rugs over furry rugs and canopies on her bed and lamps. Fräulein Wintner might have sprung from the same sparse and plain beginnings as he, but her life would be as comfy and pearly as a successful housekeeper’s could be. She trotted in front of him and tumbled a bunch of downy rose pillows to the floor where, he was amused to suppose, she imagined she would kneel at his feet.

  Evangelika clattered reproachful pots and pans down the hallway in the kitchen.

  “You know”—he lingered at the still-open door and smiled warmly—“I can’t help feeling we would both be more comfortable in the conventional confessional.”

  “I know.” She sat on the very edge of the soft hassock. The starched sides of her prim skirt stayed out, and the flesh-colored fastenings of her garter belt were almost to be seen. She lowered the top of her body enticingly forward. “But wouldn’t you want to know just how wicked I have been?”

  Old Father Metz’s housekeeper looked up, jarred from arranging his tray. Was that the Angelus? Already? It couldn’t be. He ought to be back by now. She rose decrepitly and looked the long way down to the Mill. It was the Mill bell ringing, not theirs. What was that—she tried her other glasses—dangling from the rope?