Keeper of the Mill

by Mary Anne Kelly

  Evangelika rocked herself. Her voice reverberated in the hollow belfry. “Adam was weeping so! There was no hope there. No sound would come out of it. ‘Iris!’ Adam kept calling. ‘Save Iris!’ The doctor said Iris would die too. But she kept living! ‘Take it away,’ the doctor said to me, ‘and bury it. Else who knows what the villagers will do with a Jewish corpse.’ I took the baby out, away from the Mill. I thought I would bury it in the Christian cemetery. Oh, it was so blue. So cold. I covered it in my shawl, no one should see it. I went to get something to dig with. I found a stick. I started to dig. I thought I heard something. I thought it was a ghost. I was so frightened. I kept digging, quickly. Then I heard it again. It sounded like a cat. I thought a cat was by the body. I went over to the kleine body. I leaned over it …” Evangelika clapped her hands and held them together. “It was alive. The boy was alive! I didn’t know what to do. I thought Hans’s mother had poisoned Iris. I thought if I brought the baby back alive, they would kill it. I was frightened. I thought to bring it to the priest. I wrapped it up in my shawl again and went on my way. By and by, as I walked along, it came to me. I would bring the baby to Kunigunde.”

  “Hans was Iris’s son!” Claire marveled. “And Iris never knew. Never held her son!” She was horrified. All those years Iris believed Adam had stayed on to live with a mother who’d tried to poison her. But it hadn’t been Adam’s mother who’d done the terrible deed. It had been Ursula. Cruel Ursula.

  “Kunigunde loved the baby right away.” Evangelika looked over her shoulder as though someone might be following her. “She named him Hans. She thought he was her doll. The villagers really believed he was hers. He was so new, you see. So fair. And Kunigunde was such a recluse. It might well have been that she was pregnant all those long months she was locked away, praying.

  “But later she got tired of the poor thing. His leg wasn’t right. It never had been right, from lack of oxygen when he was born, you see. That’s why he limped. But to Kunigunde he was like a broken doll. If he couldn’t be fixed, she didn’t want him anymore.”

  “So you raised him,” Claire said.

  “That’s it. I raised him, ja. He was mine. Kunigunde sat in her garden, and I got to raise Hans. My boy. My poor boy.” She looked morosely over the side where Hans had fallen.

  Stella Gabriella crossed herself. “And we never knew—”

  “My mum knew,” Puffin hurried to say. He wouldn’t have Evangelika taking over now. This was his show here. “My mum knew all along. She figured that out fast enough. She saw Evangelika go into the cemetery with a bundle and she saw her come out. Still with a bundle. She knew something was up. Always dead clever, my mum.” His face was drained of color. “I couldn’t believe it when the housekeeper called and told me Mum had packed it in. I mustn’t fret, Uri said. Uri, that’s the housekeeper, she rang up the other day. Oh, she’s the fastidious one, Uri is. ‘Pills,’ she said. ‘Nice and neat. Wouldn’t want your mum to be locked up. Never want that …’ It’s not Mum’s fault she saves things. The flat all filled with rubbish. Just so many years she had to do without, you see. Was it more than a week ago?” He bit his lip. “The day before Hans died, it was. I didn’t tell you, Temp? Funny, that. I ought to have told you. She said I mustn’t worry. Mum’s time was up, and there was nothing we could have done to change that. As the Arab says, it is written …” Distraught, he snatched at his hair.

  Claire shivered, knowing now that Uri, the housekeeper, was Ursula herself. She had called Puffin as her own housekeeper, to tell him of his mother’s suicide. Then committed suicide. It was ghastly.

  “That’s why,” Cosimo spoke. He touched his face, his own hair, his strong, long nose. “That’s where I come from. That’s why.”

  “You can’t know what it was like,” Evangelika said. “It was the war.” She looked from face to face. “I had to keep him. It was perfect. You see, no one knew. Only Kunigunde and I. And after a while, she forgot …” She felt Claire’s eyes on her. “I had nothing else,” she pleaded. “Iris had so much. She had a new life. She would never know. She couldn’t come back. The Jews would never come back.”

  Temple said to Puffin, “It was you, then, rang the bells?” Still hardly believing, unable to say, “It was you who killed them.” Even now.

  “Hans laughed at me,” Puffin said to Temple in a quiet voice. “I told him I would tell, and he laughed at me. He said, ‘Go ahead, tell the children. They’re grown now. What harm will it do?’ He turned his back on me. I said ‘Wait. Just wait.’ ‘What is it?’ he snapped. He was so brusque. ‘I only wanted to talk,’ I said. ‘After all, our destinies have been entwined.’” Puffin held his palms up, empty. “But he saw no romance in our tragedy. He had no romance in him.

  “He pushed me out of the way. Right here, it was.” Puffin touched the air around his thigh. “He pushed me to the side like a sack of old potatoes. I said then I wanted my share of the treasure. I knew it was still here. My mother knew it would still be here. It was part of my inheritance, whether we were brothers or not. Anyone could see that. I was willing to be reasonable. I told him he could keep the Mill, but he would have to share the treasure with me. He had to share.

  “You should have heard him laugh. Oh, I do wish I’d never heard him laugh. One didn’t often hear that sound. So big and metallic. It was not his nicest feature. He said Cosimo had searched the whole of Saint Hildegard’s Mill for it when he was a little child. If he couldn’t find it, nobody could. He said his father, Adam, had given the treasure to his mother, Kunigunde, to hide. His father said that way, someday, the true owner would have to come back for it. He laughed and laughed. He just kept laughing.

  “I pushed him. Once. I shoved him just the way he’d pushed me. I didn’t expect him to go over. I didn’t think of it. But his foot was caught up in the rope. He fell backward. He looked into my eyes while he was falling …” Puffin looked intently at his nails. “I heard his head crack against the side …” He raised his eyes to Temple. “I didn’t really care about the money. I only ever wanted it for you.”

  “Why did you never tell me!” Temple cried.

  “You? I’d never tell you, dear. I’m the one to protect you. Know what I mean?”

  “But look,” Claire pleaded, “it’s not too late. We could tell the police how it was—”

  “It was Fräulein Wintner,” Puffin interrupted her. He put his gray gloves on, wedging down each finger with the other hand. “She was cold as ice. I took great pleasure in killing her.”

  Someone clattered up the stairway.

  Nobody moved. The door was violently thrown open. It was Mara. All she saw was whom she expected to see, Temple and Claire. So sure had she been to find them in an embrace, she was taken aback at the sight of the others.

  “You!” She aimed her fury at Puffin.

  “It’s always been me, love,” Puffin said, eyelids lowered, mocking her.

  Then they heard the disturbing dee-da-dee-da of the police siren drawing close.

  “That’s what you think,” Evangelika said in her crusty voice, surprising everyone. “That’s what you’ve always thought. You, you, you! Ursula and you! The only ones with secrets. Well, it wasn’t Hans your mother Ursula was blackmailing.” She pounded her scrawny fist on Temple’s back, “it was me. I was the one who paid all your fancy schools and fancy needs. All those years. Every Pfennig I earned. Every last Pfennig! I never bought for me. It all went to you. I had to. Else Ursula would have told that Iris was Hans’s mother. She knew. She saw me take the baby to Kunigunde. She was hiding in the woods. She would have told. And I would have lost him.” She wrung her hands, still leaning on Temple.

  “No,” Puffin said, not believing.

  “Oh, ja.” Evangelika nodded her head emphatically. “I am the Keeper of the Mill. Ich bin’s!” She touched the wall of the belfry. Hers. “Who else kept the secret, never told that it was Kunigunde kept the diamonds? I did. It was me who kept the secrets.”

  Puffin gazed w
oefully at Temple. The Polizei were coming into the Mill. Puffin stood up.

  “Puffin! Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” Temple cried.

  Puffin saw his old friend’s eyes swimming in tears across the way. “It’s done,” he said. “Already done.” Puffin smiled. He bowed. He picked up Hans’s cane from where it was wedged between Cosimo and the white wall behind him.

  “Don’t hurt them,” Claire called across the well of space. “Just let them go.”

  “Promise me”—Puffin winked at Temple—“you’ll ring the bell.”

  Temple, his face wet with tears, nodded.

  “Say it.” Puffin pointed a finger at Temple.

  “I’ll ring the bell,” Temple said.

  There was a moment of timeless grace. The belfry beheld Puffin Hedges. Like a magician in slow motion, he picked up Hans’s cane. Absently, he stroked the bird’s carved head. He unsheathed the short sword. It slipped out like mercury, swift and glinting.

  Cosimo rose and stood in front of Stella. They braced themselves.

  In one sad, demented try at care, Puffin took aim.

  “Puffin! Puffin!” Temple called him.

  Puffin looked around at each of them, then held on Temple’s eyes.

  Somewhere behind her, Claire heard a mournful shriek. It was Temple Fortune.

  Puffin smiled wistfully at his old friend then plunged the sword into his own lost heart. Off the portico he dropped. The magpie was startled and flew, a quick shadow, into the wind. Over the hills you could hear the clouds lift and swallow the sound of the wings, free as the pealing of bells.

  9

  Claire checked her room one last time, then closed her suitcase for good. Blacky and Dirk would be downstairs any moment to drive her to the station. She was taking the train with Otto von Auto to Hamburg, where he would be placed on board a liner, and she would take a plane. It had all been arranged by Blacky with typical German precision. She looked out the window. There they were, Dirk and Blacky. Rupert would come home for summer vacation. Blacky had decreed it would be better for Dirk to stay home from now on. She had to smile. They really were quite perfect for each other, those two.

  Evangelika tugged on Dirk’s knotted hair with a comb. Dirk argued hotly and ran off. Evangelika tripped him neatly and started wearily in again.

  Blacky puffed on a beedi. The new Mill keeper, Blacky. He looked expansive and disheartened at once. The phone rang and Claire picked it up.

  “Coming home?”

  “Jupiter! I told you for the last time. I am not shooting cigarettes. Not for you or for anyone.”

  “Calm down, calm down. I wouldn’t think of asking you to waver in your moral sanctimoniousness. Remember Matt McGee?”

  “The fellow with the big bucks.”

  “Right-o. Well, he thinks it’s a great kick that you refuse to do tobacco. Thinks it’s a great angle. The whole agency has to give up all tobacco accounts.”

  Claire looked out the window for the last time at the uprooted magpie circling the hill, looking none the worse for wear. “What happened, he lost the tobacco account?”

  “Better than that. He’s got emphysema.”

  “Jesus.”

  “So you may come home to a relatively forgiving Manhattan.”

  “Ah. Thank you.”

  “You are welcome, my dear. Tell me, was it really wretched? That business with the loony?”

  “Anything else on your mind, Joop? Because I have to catch a train.”

  “A train?” He said “A train” the way someone else would say “An elephant?”

  “Just till Hamburg, then I put the car on a liner, and I take a plane to Queens.”

  “Uwww, how unfortunate for you, dear. But that’s life, isn’t it?”

  “So have you got something for me when I get back?”

  “Mmm. There’s an all-star ballgame out in East Hampton. That will freshen you up. Put you back on your toes.”

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “Call me when you get in. Maybe I’ll have something better.”

  “All right.”

  “I hear Johnny’s been hanging out at your parents’ house. Meek as a lamb. What about him?”

  “What about him what?”

  “Is he drinking?”

  “If he is, he can leave until he sobers up. Anything else?”

  “Maybe a small bottle of schnapps for me? A bientôt,” he said, and they hung up.

  * * *

  Claire dabbed Chanel behind both ears and holy water on her Ajna Chakra, took a deep breath and crossed the threshold from her room.

  Hans von Grünwald’s bedroom door stood open. Claire walked slowly toward it. Isolde sat in there, her back to her, at the elaborate, and once Kunigunde’s, Biedermeier mirror. It hadn’t taken Isolde long to have it hauled down from the attic. Friedel the gardner had done it for her. Everyone had had a raise in pay. Not much, but a raise. Blacky ran a tight ship. So Friedel was in a good mood. And now that Stella was clearly out of not only his reach, but all mankind’s, Gaby, the plump little serving girl who came to and from work on her bicycle, was looking better and better.

  Isolde lined her lips, eyeing Claire in the mirror with reproach. “You should have gone to Corsica with Mara. She asked you to go with her. All the world is there now. How can you go back to the States? It is utterly devoid of culture.”

  “Sez you.”

  “Tch. Everyone knows.”

  “You only say that because when you’re there you go to all those trendy places. You’ve never even had dinner in a typical American home.”

  “That’s because there’s no such thing. And no one’s ever invited me.”

  “Is that right? I thought that was how this whole thing started. My inviting you to come stay with me in my home.”

  “You always have to have the last word.”

  “I’m glad marriage hasn’t destroyed your sanguine temperament.”

  Isolde piled her hair up on her head. “My marriage suits me very well.”

  “I can see that. Are you coming to the station?”

  “I would, but I’m contemplating a headache. You won’t mind?”

  “No. You hate the train station.”

  “You remember. Thoughtful Claire. How will I get along without you?”

  “Very well, I’ll bet.”

  “So you never found your treasure.”

  Claire shrugged. “Time will tell.” She’d decided to look at this philosophically.

  Isolde peered at her shrewdly. “If you had found a treasure, it would be legally mine now anyway.”

  “Gee. Good thing I’m still poor.”

  “You’re not poor,” Isolde said sulkily. “You always think something wonderful is going to happen to you.”

  “Good-bye, Isolde.” She hugged her tenderly. Isolde tensed up, then remembered this was it, she was leaving. She threw her arms around Claire in a perfumy crush.

  “Auf Wiedersehen,” she said huskily, then let her go with a dashing wave of bracelets. Claire saw only the back of her head as she closed the door.

  Stella came up behind her. “I’ll help you with your things.”

  “Just these two.” She handed her the lovely woven basket Evangelika had given her for shopping in America. She followed Stella to the end of the hall and down the stairs.

  “Temple left this morning?” Claire asked her.

  “Yes,” she said gently. “For Ireland.”

  Claire nodded and checked again for her lens cap.

  “I won’t come all the way out,” Stella said. “I’ll bid you adieu right here.”

  “All right.”

  “I have something for you, though. Something you must choose.”

  “Time to go.” Blacky, coming in the door, smacked the palms of his hands together and rubbed them back and forth. “What’s that?” Blacky said. “Cosimo?”

  “Oh, it’s Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata.’” Stella Gabriella clapped her hands. “He used to play that all the time
. He hasn’t played it in years.”

  Claire listened. She found it difficult to move.

  “Come on, come on.” Stella pushed her into the kitchen. “No time yet for sentiment. You have to choose a pot to take home with you.”

  “Oh no!” Claire laughed. Stella had set up three bowls, each half full with water, on the long kitchen table.

  “What, now we have to wait for her to choose a direction?” Blacky cried. “She couldn’t do that in all the time I was with her. We’ll never make the train!”

  Dirk, never far from Blacky, mirrored his apprehension. He was looking forward to the train station. It was always milling with Turks.

  “Yes, we will,” Claire assured them. “I already made my decision anyway. We’ve been down this road before.”

  “Never mind, never mind,” Stella teased her, “every day is a new day. Are you so sure you want the same path?” She took hold of the table edge.

  Claire looked again at the bowls. Puzzled, she looked closer. They were different. These were not the tea bowls she had chosen from the first time. These were much larger. She looked to Stella. Her eyes told her nothing. Stella Gabriella shrugged. “It’s up to you,” she said in her breathless, detached way.

  Claire chose the middle bowl. Then it was really time to go. She made sure she had Stella’s address at the convent, hugged and kissed Evangelika, and went out into the yard.

  Evangelika wiped the headlamp with a corner of her holiday lily-print apron.

  Claire climbed in and rolled down the window. “Remember.” She stuck her head out and warned Evangelika, “Iris is expecting you with Cosimo and Stella in October.”

  Evangelika nodded back with apprehensive eyes.

  “Push over.” Blacky invited himself to drive.

  “I’ll pick you up at the airport,” Claire called shrilly across his lap. Dirk climbed in on her other side. Otto von Auto started grudgingly up. Claire gripped the formidable bowl on her lap.

  Evangelika waved them away with one fist heaving to and fro.

  As they pulled off, Claire saw Stella Gabriella watching her from her upstairs window. She was grinning, no longer fingering her beads in her usual way. All the small, shiny hinges and facets which hold a rosary together lay, unhinged and unfastened, on Stella Gabriella’s pink marble tabletop. She would have a new pair from the convent soon anyway. And Kunigunde’s ghost, she felt sure, could at long last rest easy.