by Bill Mesce
*
“What do you think the chances are I’ll get a crappy bed even here?”
I had to admire the lad’s savoir faire. Old World elegance has a tendency to impress even the most curmudgeonly sod, but Ricks barely raised an eyebrow, and it was a sarcastic eyebrow at that.
We had seen the turrets and pinnacles rising above the barren trees almost as soon as we’d turned past the two moss–mottled stone lions marking the entry to the drive. A few twists and turns and there the chateau sat atop its motte, in an open field of a dozen acres surrounded by thick woods. This was, it should be said, not a true castle, built more as a castellated estate than a bastion, granting the chateau a grace many of the ancient high–walled behemoths of the British Isles lacked. Consequently, the ivy–clad walls were lower, the interior structures less imposing, and, edged with snow and icicles, the whole affair had a timeless, harmless, fairy tale quality. Against that particular impression, the vehicles clad in U.S. Army olive drab clustered just outside the front gate – several quarter–ton lorries and jeeps, an Army sedan – seemed an offensive anachronism, as was the skeletal thirty–meters of wireless tower emerging from some place within the walls.
A figure in an officer’s cap appeared alongside the Military Policemen stationed on either side of the portcullis. The officer waved our jeep to park alongside the others. “Major Voss!” he chirped as we clambered out of our jeep. “Good to see you!” He was thirty or so, with small, dark eyes under brief brows, his narrow, pointed face already blotchy from the cold. “I’m Lieutenant Alth, Sir. I’m working with Captain Courie as his assistant trial counsel. Leave your baggage, gentlemen, I’ll have somebody bring it up later.” He paused, gave me a curious, wary look before escorting us through the gate and across the inner ward.
“I hope you weren’t standing out here in this cold waiting for us all morning,” Harry said.
“We had a man looking out for you. From the north tower you can see almost all the way to the main road.”
“How delightfully period of you!” I said. “A watchman! ‘To the north tower with you, Yorick!’ But, Lieutenant: no hot lead poured from the barbican on opposing counsel? Missed your opportunity there!”
To which Alth halted in his tracks and turned to study me again. “Sorry?”
“Just ignore me, Lieutenant. I do have an unfortunate tendency to prattle.”
“And you would be?”
“This is Mr. Owen,” Harry said by way of introduction. “He’s a newspaperman.”
Alth’s little hyphen brows came together; part curiosity, part unsettlement. “Captain Courie didn’t say anything to me about, well…”
“Colonel Ryan knows,” Harry assured him. “Where is he?”
“He came in early this morning, Sir,” Alth said, his eyes still on me. “He’s in Wiltz with Captain Courie.”
“Sight–seeing?” Ricks cracked. “I hear Wiltz is lovely this time of year. How’s the skiing?”
Alth finally drew his eyes off me, re–setting them on the wry–smiling captain. The lieutenant, as I was to find, was a rather literal–minded chap, and sarcasm often seemed to slip by him poorly decrypted. “Sorry?”
“What’s Colonel Ryan doing in Wiltz?” Harry clarified.
“He and the captain are both conferring with General Cota.”
“I was expecting to do some conferring myself with the colonel and your captain.”
Alth started again for the double oak doors of the main keep. “I understand it came up at the last minute, Sir. Mr. – Owen is it?”
“He’s cleared,” Harry again vouched. “If you have any question about Mr. Owen’s authorization, take it up with Colonel Ryan.”
“It’s not that, Sir.” Alth opened the heavy wooden doors; though not as biting as outside, the arch–ceilinged entry hall was chill enough for the stained–glass windows bracing the door to carry a lacy rime fringe. “It’s the matter of…accommodations.”
“Oh–oh,” Ricks said.
“Make it easy on yourself, laddie,” I cooed. “I’m sure you can find some wee nook I can tuck myself into.”
“Believe it or not, Sir, we’re getting a little crowded.”
Ricks was shaking his head. “See?” he said to Harry who hushed him.
“The Signal Corps unit has one wing,” Alth explained, “and we brought down a platoon of MPs for security. Then we set aside space for the jury pool. We’re expecting at least some of them to be senior officers who require quarters appropriate to their rank.”
“I knew it,” moaned Ricks.
Alth nodded about the foyer. Where there would normally be wall hangings, perhaps a painting or two, some appropriately medieval instrument of destruction on display, a rug, an entry hall table, there was…nothing. Stone. Bare and cold. Sometimes there remained only the hooks where something had hung, and scratches where it had been roughly pulled away. “The krauts didn’t leave much when they pulled out.”
“Never,” Ricks declared, emphasizing his point by tapping on Harry’s breast, “never bet against me on this.”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant, Sir,” I said, “but would that be one of the senior officers you mentioned?”
“Sorry?” He turned to follow my nod, up the wide staircase that curled round to the head of the entry hall from the landing leading to the next floor.
Standing at the balustrade was a woman, middle–aged, probably under better circumstances a handsome woman, but the war had puffed the skin round her wide, dark eyes, hollowed out the space beneath her high cheeks. Her straight hair, a mix of gray and blonde, went back in a practical, unadorned sweep. She was a sylph–like thing, lost in the volumes of an oversized German officer’s greatcoat, her legs clad in the kind of baggy, twill trousers one might expect to see used for garden work, ending in bulky, fur–lined boots. But none of this detracted from her air of authority. If she was spare, it was the spareness of an oak beam, and it was clear in the way she stood on the landing that there was no mistake about who held proprietorship of the great house.
Alth’s polished major domo air faltered. He ahemed and shuffled his feet like a child caught tracking dirt into mater’s freshly–cleaned parlor. “Um, gentlemen, let me introduce – I hope I get this right – the Countess – “ and then he said something that sounded like dough–drain.
“D’Audran,” she corrected. It was a throaty, casually firm voice.
“Countess, this is Major Voss, Captain Ricks, Mr. – ”
I stepped forward slipping off my wool cap with what I like to think of as the smoothness of a practiced gentleman. “Monsieur Owen, Madame. Might I assume you to be the lady of the house? Votre maison, Madame? Parlez–vous anglais?”
She didn’t move, didn’t even seem to breathe; studied us with unblinking eyes. Then a slow, almost sighing breath. “In my fashion. You have traveled long? Have you eaten?”
I took another step forward. “Not since breakfast, Comtesse.”
A slight, appreciative nod. “Ahh. ‘Comtesse.’ Parlez–vous francais?”
I shrugged apologetically. “Tres peu.”
Now Harry was standing alongside me, hat in hands. “I’m sorry for the imposition, Ma’am. I didn’t know – … We weren’t told someone was living here.”
The studying eyes settled on Harry, looking for some sign of insincerity in the apology. I knew she’d find none. “You are tired, yes? Hungry? Come.”
As she descended the stairs, Alth explained: “We don’t have a mess staff. The Signal Corps fellas have been on their own. I think that’s one of the things Captain Courie is trying to arrange.”
“I will prepare,” the comtesse declared. “As you say: it is my house. Still. So; you are guests. S’il vous plait.” She had not waited for us to follow, but swept by through the archway under the stairs. Announcing he would see to our luggage, Alth nodded us after her.
“Much appreciated, Ma’am,” Harry called after the woman who had already nearly disappeared down the d
ark corridor, “but I’ll have to pass.”
“Excuse?”
The rim of Harry’s cap passed through his nervous fingers. “I need to see someone first.”
“By your leave, Comtesse,” I said. “He has business.”
I saw the dark shape of her head tilt, then nod. “Ah. The boy.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Harry said. “Lieutenant Sisto.”
“There will be some for you,” she said, and then seemed to dismiss Harry with yet another nod before she turned round to lead Peter Ricks and I onward. We passed other rooms, usually only dimly lit, most as defurbished as the entry hall. “Excuse the condition, gentlemen. My last guests so enjoyed the chateau they took much of it with them.” We were eventually deposited in the chateau’s kitchen, the kind of large–scale affair typical of a good–sized restaurant or hotel. The kitchen was littered with dirty plates, both the house’s porcelain and U.S. Government Issued tin plates, utensils, and mess kit cups. “I am afraid my new guests are also too much at home. Forgive the appearance, please.”
Peter Ricks looked at the mess a little angry, a little ashamed. “Like the major said, Madame, our apologies.”
“Please,” and she sat us at a scuffed wooden table where, I imagine, the house staff had normally dined. “You do not mind it is informal, yes?”
“This is fine,” Ricks said, and began to one–handedly unbutton his coat.
She noted the hook, then. “May I?” She said it with a complete lack of pity or condescension; a simple, cool grace that made it hard to say no, even for the caustic Ricks, and he allowed her to help him slip the coat off.
She stoked one of the cooking stoves from a large pile of cordwood, then, from the pantry produced a cognac bottle still retaining a few drops of liquid and poured them out for Ricks and I. “For the cold,” she said, “until the fire is up. My husband, he try very hard to make the chateau comfortable. He has the furnace put in.” She set a gloved hand on a cold radiator by the wall. “Then the Boche take the coal. So…”
The stove was warm now. She took a large skillet from the overhead rack, disappeared into the larder and returned with several eggs and some other victuals. “There is not much, how you say, ‘variety’? But something better than…” She nodded at an open crate of American Army 10–in–1 rations. “At least the German leave my chickens.” For the first time, she smiled, though it was a rueful one. “One day, you are the Comtesse D’Audran.” She executed a curt, regal bow of her head. “The next, you chase the chicken round the yard so you can eat.”
“Madame, we’d be more than happy to fend for ourselves,” Ricks offered, already rising from his seat, but she waved him down.
Soon, the chill of the kitchen was dispensed with the warmth of the stove, the aroma and crackle of eggs and butter and mushrooms in the skillet.
“Not meaning to pry, Comtesse,” I pried, “but might I ask the whereabouts of le comte?”
She lost not a beat in her ministrations over the stove. “Je ne sais pas. When the German come, Yves say, ‘I will go to Brussels to arrange for us to leave. I will send for you.’ That was in 1940.”
“Perhaps he – “
“Perhaps I think he is dead. Or perhaps…” She shrugged prosaically. “My husband had many – Que? ‘Fault’? The ‘weakness’?”
“I think the appropriate word might be ‘foible,’ Comtesse.”
“Foible?”
“It’s a bit of both: a fault and a weakness.”
She nodded, understanding and agreeing. “He was good here,” and she pointed to her heart, “but not very brave I am afraid to say.”
“Qu’elle domage.”
She expertly flipped the large omelet with two hands grasped round the edge of the oversized pan. “The other gentleman, the colonel? He did not think it…good?”
“Proper,” I offered.
She smiled I was able to sense what she’d meant. “Ah, oui, proper. He did not think it proper for a lady to do as such?” She illustrated by neatly slicing the omelet into portions, and sliding one each onto plates for Ricks and I. “But I always enjoy to make myself the cooking.” She set the plates down for us, provided what may have been the only clean utensils still in the kitchen as well as some linen napkins. “It is not so much.”
Ricks had already taken his first bite. “I disagree, Madame. This is delicious! Thank you.”
She nodded.
“This is very kind of you, Comtesse,” I seconded. “We hardly deserve it.”
“C’est vrai,” she said drolly. “There is more for your friend and the boy. Maintenant, you will excuse me to leave?”
We rose from our chairs only to be waved back down.
I watched her disappear down the same corridor from whence she’d led us. “Delightful lady!” I turned to find Ricks cocking that damned sarcastic eyebrow of his at me. “Aye, Captain?”
“I’ve been in England about seven months, Mr. Owen, and that’s given me time to pick up some of the local color. Based on my study of English custom and language, I believe the comment appropriate to this moment would be: you randy old goat!”
I almost choked on a mushroom. “Excuse me?” I spluttered.
“Although my personal favorites are, ‘filthy rotter,’ and, ‘dirty sod.’ Did I use them right?”
“All I meant was she seems a charming woman and delightful company.” But I was aware of a flush not coming from the cognac or the warm stove.
“I’m charming and delightful, too,” Ricks teased, “but I don’t see you look at me like that.”
I regained my composure and turned back to my omelet. “If I do, Captain, you should hope we have separate accommodations.”
*
Peter Ricks cloistered himself with Harry and Dominick Sisto leaving me to spend the afternoon prowling about the castle’s frigid and denuded chambers and corridors. I found the room assigned me as quarters: palatial in size, impoverished – as all the rooms were – in furnishings, but equipped with a bed best described as sumptuous. It was, evidently, one of those pieces too unwieldy for the Germans to dismember and remove: large enough to fit a family, equipped with a high–piled feather mattress as comforting as a cloud, but under a frilled canopy of a chartreuse tinge and a disquietingly feminine character.
In my wanderings, I eventually I found myself in a room I took to be a library: tall windows along one side looking out on the frosted ground leading off to the girdling forest, and along the other walls, wooden shelves – all empty, of course – that ran from floor to ceiling. I stood by the cold fireplace and kicked at the deep pile of ashes. I was there for some moments, my mind easing into a tired blankness.
“Mr. Owen! I’ve been looking all over for you!” It was Lieutenant Alth.
“I’ve been out and about,” I said, blinking myself back to alertness, finding myself still kicking at the ashes. “Getting the lay of the land as it were. So to speak. You might say.”
“Sorry?”
I turned and found him standing in the open double doorway. “What is it I can do for you, Lieutenant?”
“Major Voss wanted you to know he and Captain Ricks will probably be with Lieutenant Sisto most of the day. He says he’ll meet up with you at evening mess.”
“Which is when?”
Alth shrugged and smiled with the self–consciousness of a wife apologizing for the incomplete housecleaning greeting visitors. “Right now, the way things are around here, it’s whenever somebody shows up in the kitchen after dark.”
“I see.” I nodded at the empty shelves. “The Germans took it all with them, eh?”
“The books? The countess says they burned them.”
“Rather severe form of literary criticism, wouldn’t you think?”
“Sorry? Oh, no, it wasn’t like that. They burned them for heat.” He stepped back to withdraw.
“Oh, Lieutenant! If you’re not in a rush… A moment, please? Journalistic interest and all that.” I reached for the coat pocket which h
eld my notebook.
Alth viewed the little pad with a certain concern. “There’s not a lot I can say about the case until Captain Courie – ”
“I understand, of course, nothing of the sort lad, fear not. Just general background and all that sort of thing.”
Guardedly: “Sure, ok.”
“You seem rather young. Not an insult, mind, it just occurs to me you couldn’t have been in private practice very long before, well, all this.”
Another self–conscious grin. “I was still clerking for a judge – ”
“Where was that, might I ask?”
“Pittsburgh. That’s where I’m from. That’s where I went to school.”
“And you came into service when?”
“I was called up, oh, I guess it’s nine months ago, now. Seems like a lot longer.”
“Aye. And how long have you been over here? With Colonel Ryan’s johnnies?”
“What is it now? Two months. Just about.”
“Not very long at all.”
“No, I guess not.”
I paced slowly across the room, took a seat on the wide window ledge. Alth’s eyes were always on me, and had me thinking if I moved too quickly he’d dart away like some frightened deer. “I won’t bite, Lieutenant.”
“Hm?” Our voices echoed off the bare walls and words were not always clear.
“I said I won’t bite.”
“It’s just that I don’t know that I should be talking to you, Mr. Owen. You know; without – ”
“I know, without Captain Courie’s being here. But I haven’t asked you anything about the case, have I?”
“Well, no – ”
“And even if I were to ask you about Lieutenant Sisto, it would only be to inquire as to your personal opinion about him as, well, a person.”
I could see him trying to process the frankly byzantine non–questions. “Well, if you were to ask me, I’d have to say, like I keep saying, that I don’t think I should talk about the lieutenant or his case – ”