“Hedgehog,” he explained. “Bad gullies.”
“It’s so dark so quickly,” she marveled. “It never gets really dark in Queens. Between the lights from the city and the airports.”
The car still smelled of Father Metz. Incense and dandruff and leathery age. The Saint Christopher medal, worn but still recognizable, remained on the glove box. She touched it fondly.
“Watch,” Cosimo said, and turned the headlights off by pulling out the ivory knob on the dash. He was still heading in the direction he’d been driving when he’d picked her up, away from the Mill.
They left the Rectory and Saint Hildegard’s off to their right. There was nothing here, only fields and rolling hills with dark orchards. The stars were fierce and close. She felt the car axle bump down onto the field again. He’d taken it off the road. “What are you doing?” she cried. “We’re going the wrong way! The tires!”
“Look!” His eyes glittered. She forced herself to look away from him and into the night. It was clean with the rain and puddles everywhere. The clouds, moving swiftly, pulled apart. A hauntingly beautiful full moon rose up before them.
“The moon to plant,” Cosimo said. He stopped the car.
They looked together at the suddenly luminous pitch of the world.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you.” He said it as a fact, not a question.
“No,” she said, surprised at the truth of it. “I’m not.”
“Almost everyone is, you know. The whole village of Saint Hildegard’s. They even cross themselves when I walk by. They call me a changeling. Left by fairies.”
“What nonsense,” Claire said. “Your mother was one of them.”
“Oh, she was the one who started that rumor.”
Claire tilted her head at him curiously. Was he putting her on? Well, if he was, he was still a frightened and disturbed boy to confide such thoughts to a relative stranger like herself. “You know what you are?” She smiled gently. “One of those rare persons, sensitive to every vibration. The world is just more cruel and unevolved than the likes of you, Cosimo.”
“You don’t think I killed my father, do you?”
“I must admit, the thought did occur to me, but I dismissed the idea just as quickly.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why that?”
She sighed and dropped her head back on the worn gray-brown upholstery. “Instinct, I guess. I can’t imagine it. Don’t forget, I was there when you saw your father … there. It didn’t seem to me as though you were acting.”
They remembered, together, that terrible sight. Whoever had done that, she realized, was capable of anything. She shuddered. “It must be awful for you,” she said. “All this. Just awful.”
“It’s not as if we were orphans,” he said with childlike optimism. “Fräulein Wintner always takes care of us. She looks after all our finances, so we need not be troubled by that.” He said this with relief. Whew. Not having to pay the bills. Claire almost laughed.
“I quite like Fräulein Wintner,” Cosimo said, defending her from Claire’s obvious skepticism. “She’s different from other girls.”
“Really?”
“Mmm. Sometimes she lets me—” He looked shrewdly at Claire. “We won’t bother about that, though.”
“No,” Claire agreed, imagining all the same what Fräulein Wintner let him do.
“You know, she had a rough time of it, as a child. Have you ever seen her thumb? No? It’s like a ball. A globe. She sucked it into a ball when she was a little girl. She used to worry so. Her parents would fight terribly. She would suck it with great force.” Cosimo stuck his thumb into his mouth and gobbled it with such rigorous noises, Claire was taken aback. They both laughed.
“And of course, there’s Evangelika.” Cosimo stopped laughing. “She won’t leave. She raised us, after all. She’ll stay and always give me my meals. That’s sure. She’s been here forever. Well. Since the war. And she does the wash when the girl doesn’t come. She doesn’t mind too much. Well, she yells a bit.”
“Really. And Fräulein Wintner too? She won’t leave either?”
“Stella says she won’t want to now. Now Father’s gone and she’s had a setback of her plans and will have to regroup. Like in a game of chess, when it’s ‘Check!’”
“Plans?”
“You didn’t know? Wanting to marry Father.”
“I’m shocked. Your father wanted to marry Bibi Wintner?”
“Let’s put it this way, he let her believe he did. Stella says Father thought he could use everyone.”
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s an illusion to imagine ourselves in charge.” He raised his chin to the magnificent moon. “I mean, in charge of what? Confusion?” They were silent for a bit, transfixed by the Bavarian stars and the black Alps in the south. Then he said, “Bibi—Fräulein Wintner—she’s always trying to drum up business so Father would want to sell. She wants to live where it is warm. Where there are palm trees and wild beasts. Heard too many of my father’s adventure tales, I think, from trips to Kenya and Thailand and all. Oh, she is a keen little thing. You have to give her that. Wait!” He reached his long fingers across the dash. With the other hand he fiddled with the radio.
“What is it?” Claire cried, concerned.
“It’s Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata.’” He shushed her.
“Oh,” she said, “I thought something must have happened.”
He managed to get the station in tune. It was no chore to sit and listen. It really was splendid. They sat religiously and heard it the rest of the way through.
“Perhaps, before I leave, you will play the whole thing through for me,” Claire said.
He hung his beautiful head. “I’m afraid I never could. It was the piece I played always for my mother, you see. I could never play it for anyone else. Never.”
“What a pity.”
He turned on her, startling her. “What do you mean?” He loomed, hostilely, above her.
“All that beauty bottled up and put away on a shelf for no one to enjoy. Just that you are fortunate, Cosimo, to have access to such beauty. And I am sorry for whoever won’t hear you play it.”
“Oy. Beauty, beauty, beauty.” He made a goony face. “You’re like Stella. Loving things just because they’re beautiful.”
“I love beauty for beauty’s sake, yes,” she defended herself, stung.
“You love it for its meaning. Everything with you has to mean something. Be so profound.”
“Yes,” Claire said. “Otherwise I might as well be a piece of fluff spinning in the wind, being everywhere but never knowing it. So in that sense I suppose you’re right.”
“Ach! You need not be so arbitrary. At least not with me. You see, I know your secret.”
“Do you really? So, you’re good at other people’s business, eh? And I had you pegged for being oblivious.”
He opened the car door, the hinges squeaking, and he pulled up a handful of green.
“What secret do you know?” She smiled carefully.
He held the stuff up to his nose and sniffed it like a dog at a bush. “Engelwurz,” he pronounced, ignoring her question and handing it over for her to inspect with her nose. “Angelica archangelica. Used to expel evil and disease. Contaminated air won’t infect you if you have it in your mouth.”
“Hmmm. Sounds good.”
“The Archangel drove the Devil from Paradise with its help.”
“No fooling.”
“Good for toothaches, poisoning, and rabies bite as well.”
“Wow.”
“The birds go wild for it. That’s what spreads the seeds. Usually it’s happier in shady spots.”
“Cosimo, what about these birds around the Mill? The magpie. You know. What’s the name?”
Cosimo looked at her suspiciously. “Elster. Raubvogel.”
“That’s it. Magpie is ‘robber bird.’ I found one in the attic.”
“You didn’t hurt it?”
“I let him out.”
Cosimo smiled. “He just comes back because when he was young, he had some trouble with his wing, and I kept him up there till he could fly again. I used to feed him Bauernschinken. You know, meat. He loved it so.” His face relaxed as he remembered and he looked really beautiful, his long black eyelashes sweeping his cheek.
How tragic, all that had happened to these two beautiful children.
“Does that bird you took care of ever, sort of, I don’t know, take things?”
“Only shiny little things. You know, soda-tin tops. Pop tops. Like that. Harmless things.” He looked, worried, at Claire. “He’s mad for shiny things.”
“Cosimo, is there a treasure at the Mill?”
His face changed to one of elaborate scorn. “If there was, my father used it up.”
“No, I don’t mean like a fountain of youth or a grotto of faith or anything like that. I mean something tangible.” She knitted her brows and tried to peer more closely into his face. “Something, perhaps, your mother might have told you about?”
A large, great teardrop traveled down his cheek. “My mother was the treasure,” he said. He turned and grabbed hold of Claire’s shoulders. He shook them back and forth.
“You can’t imagine what it’s like if your mother shouts at you. If she shouts she doesn’t understand you, could never understand you! Ooh! I hate so much that we must die,” he cried. “I hate it so!” He shook her again and again.
Claire held on to the edge of her seat, trying not to scream. No one would hear them here. Then suddenly he stopped. He let her go and he slumped back into his seat. “We’d better go back,” he said, waking up. “Stella won’t like it.”
“Shall I drive, Cosimo?”
“That’s a good idea.” He shrugged. “I stole the car.”
Temple Fortune was the first person she saw when they drove up the gravel path. Their eyes locked and the feeling of dizzy levitation she was beginning to recognize as what accompanied his being near took over. Then he noticed Cosimo. Disappointment flashed across his face. She had an urge to push Cosimo from the car. Fortunately, presence of mind prevailed, and she managed to sit still and let him leave. Nothing seemed to have calmed down since she’d left. If anything, the decibel level had been revved up. The strolling musicians had been let go or had cleared out at the first drops of rain, and rock music from tapes was blaring. Claire looked around for the police and saw none. Cosimo skulked away into the house, as was his way. She could hear Evangelika squawking at him, furious about the mud on his Sunday shoes. She noticed Mara sidle up to Temple Fortune and push up against him in her devotional and sultry way. Claire slammed the car door, feeling it shut with her own possessive finality. Try as she might, though, there was no comfort there. At least she hadn’t made a fool of herself. He didn’t know, he would never know the extent of her feelings. She would stay right here and watch him with his Mara. She would swallow the truth whole, let it sink in so she could grieve and get over it.
She locked the car door with her own set of keys. And just let Fräulein Bibi Wintner try to have her arrested! She would make such a stink they would hear her in Toledo. Or at least in Queens. She reminded herself, if doubtfully, that she was, by gum, an American citizen.
The girls in their yellow organza gowns danced in swirls around her. She held her breath until they passed, knowing she looked neither graceful nor lovely. Her hair was frizzed, her boots muddy, her forehead shiny. Blacky waved to her from across the garden. He had a great bandage across his nose. At least he was enjoying his wedding. Isolde was nowhere to be seen, and Claire decided, this once, to stay away. She looked for Puffin but couldn’t find him either for the throng. Discouragement overtook her. She sat down on the nearest bench. Puffin appeared, wizard-like, and handed her a stein of Spaten beer. She took a grateful, huge draft. She was going to go home with no cache of diamonds as she had imagined. She might as well admit it.
“What’s up?” He joined her on the bench.
“Oh, you know, nothing. I was just feeling a little low.”
“Weddings,” Puffin sympathized.
“No, not that. Well, maybe partly that. Also, I guess it bothers me that someone is probably going to get away with murder.” She didn’t give a hoot who got away with murder till now, but as she heard herself say it, she did care.
Puffin made a face. “If there was a murder. Personally, I’m beginning to think we’ve got a couple of overactive imaginations here. And after the first twenty-four hours, if no one is arrested, the chances are slim anyone will ever be.”
“I don’t know where you heard that.” Claire frowned. “My sister is a detective on the New York City Police Department, and she says ninety-five percent of all murder cases are solved.” And, she did not add, her sister also said it was most often someone in the victim’s own family who’d done it.
“Well, if someone did kill him, love, I say let’s run him for office.”
“No.” Claire had another delicious slurp. “There I can’t agree with you, Puffin. Nobody has a right to kill another human being. No matter what he’s done.”
“So they shouldn’t have stopped Hitler in Munich before he got started. That’s what you mean?”
“You’ve got me there.”
Mara Morgen was dancing with Blacky. Her eyes flashed, and she pressed provocatively against him. Blacky twirled her romantically into a dip and leaned, apache-like, above her.
Temple Fortune sat down on the bench beside Puffin. “Shall I remove her for you, darling?” Puffin asked him sweetly.
Temple sighed good-naturedly. “Let her be. She hasn’t had the easiest time of it.”
They sat there watching the party, watching Mara, really, for Isolde was nowhere to be seen. They watched her do her belle-of-the-ball until it became uncomfortable. She was a mite overdoing the sultry vamp, Claire decided, feeling Temple’s self-consciousness, feeling sorry for him.
“Mara looks great,” Claire remarked.
“She doesn’t, really,” Puffin said. “She just never took her film makeup off. She’ll be broken out tomorrow. I told her to take it off but she would insist on running to see an old friend in Schwabing. She wanted to do it intact.”
“That’s all right,” Temple said, tapping his foot, listening with one ear higher than the other. He’s probably a little deaf in that ear, Claire thought indulgently. That’s why the right side of his forehead wrinkles like that. “I got the last close-ups today,” Temple added. “Let her have fun. Whoever you got to do her face today was brilliant.”
“Yes, brilliant,” Puffin nodded, pleased.
They watched Mara from their professional, sophisticated stances, but even then there was something a little sordid about a grown woman acting so silly about a man just married. Even if it was just for the benefit of Temple Fortune, it had the ring of desperation about it for a woman who, Puffin had been so quick to point out, had just been satisfied. Perhaps Mara and Temple hadn’t been together after all. But then where had they been?
“What’s that you’re eating, Claire?” Puffin leaned over and picked from her plate.
“Radi,” she said and handed him the dish of sweltering, salted radish, long and fat and white.
“Mmmm. Delicious.” He licked his fingers.
“Keep it. Keep it,” she insisted. She didn’t want it now.
Mara came tottering over, just in time, too, because Isolde was making her way back on the scene, heading for Blacky, rolling her broad runway shoulders. Mara was flushed and excited. Her flimsy dress outlined her flesh. She didn’t look quite so good up close. It didn’t matter now. The night was almost over.
“Enjoying yourself, Mara?” Puffin inquired.
“Oh, oh, oh. That sounds like a reprimand! I am neglecting my sweetie, aren’t I?” She pressed Temple’s ears into his head. “Jealous, darling?” Her words came out too loud and slurred. He flinched. She jackknifed her body over and pulled up her stockings in three
different places. People turned to look. Claire could almost feel Temple’s dismay. “Come.” Mara yanked Temple to his feet.
“I don’t want to dance with you,” he told her firmly. Then, more politely, “Thank you.”
“Then dance with our poor Claire.” She jostled him away as though she’d meant this from the start. “She has nobody, do you, Claire? Come on, up with both of you. No more sticking in the mud!” She practically shoved them together. She wasn’t worried about competition from Claire. Claire was older and heavier than she was. And from what Isolde had told her, poor as a church mouse. So what was to worry?
It took Claire and Temple a few clumsy steps to get into position. Then the music stopped, and they had to wait foolishly for a new song to start up. Mara winked at Puffin. He went to get her a fresh glass of champagne, but when he came back, she was already passed out, dead drunk, on two chairs. He’d have to call Friedel the gardener to help carry her to bed.
The song started up. It was Elvis singing “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”
“You see that?” Puffin said to a woozy Friedel. “Not one of you can speak a word of English. But just put on old Elvis and you all know the words. Go figure.” It was true. The entire German festivity had turned into a quite hearty Elvis sing-along. Entire tables of guests swayed back and forth. “You can really just imagine the war,” he remarked to Friedel. “All this sentimental, euphoric camaraderie.”
Friedel slapped his thigh with buffoon-like glee.
Puffin looked worriedly at Temple and Claire out on the dance floor. Temple had one hand on the small of Claire’s back and the other wrapped lightly around her fingers. They stayed in one spot and rocked very slightly back and forth. Claire could hardly breathe. She wouldn’t look at him. He wouldn’t look at her. They were both so happy that what they suspected was true: they fit. They moved in sync. When the music came to the hook, he put his cheek a little closer to hers and pressed her lower back in toward him. Here’s where I pass out, she thought, but she didn’t. He carried her through it, lifting her with his intoxicating scent. And then it was over, the longest and the shortest dance she’d ever done. She blinked as though she’d been dreaming. He cupped her elbow with his hand in the old-fashioned way and escorted her back to the bench. He sat her down, bowed almost imperceptibly, then took his spot up on the other side of Puffin.
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