by Warren Adler
The knock on the door had surprised him. He had given Hans strict orders that he not be disturbed and had set the hour of the funeral service precisely so that the family could prepare in mood and dress. Olga? Despite his concentration, she lingered on the surface of his mind. Not yet, he hoped, thankful that it was Siegfried instead. His brother was abject, pale, his eyes bloodshot and swarmy. The smell of liquor preceded his entrance. Thoughts of Siegfried had not been among his priorities.
"I am sorry, Brother," Siegfried said, his voice hoarse as he moved unsteadily into the room. His hands shook, and his eyes looked furtively toward the liquor bottles.
"Help yourself," Albert said.
"I can't carry it alone, Albert," he pleaded. He gulped a glass of whiskey and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He started to speak, then collapsed in a nearby chair. In the sad figure, Albert could glimpse the burden of truth and what had nagged at him concerning Dawn's knowledge resurfaced again in his mind. Of course! The revelation stirred his feeling.
"Dawn told me," Albert said, sparing his brother the pain of telling. Siegfried nodded, exploring his brother's face, thankful for the calm.
"But I saw her," he said weakly.
"So did I, Brother," Albert replied gently, the ashen face of the dead woman recalling the horror. Did he know? Even in his drunkenness Siegfried read his thoughts.
"I could have saved her," Siegfried sobbed. "I could have stopped it."
Moved, Albert came toward him and they embraced.
"It was inevitable," he said, sharing the pain now.
"Mama..." The word gurgled up from Siegfried's throat, memory's slumber disturbed.
"I know," Albert said, feeling for the first time the terrible loss of that pure love.
He could feel too the pulse of the shared womb as the brothers clung together, consoling each other. Albert stirred first, raising himself.
"But we are still family," he said.
Siegfried nodded as Albert helped him to his feet.
"Now pull yourself together. There is still a life to be lived. After all, what's in a name?" Albert said. He was surprised to see his own smile mirrored in his brother's face. The alcohol fog seemed to lift and Siegfried wiped his eyes. They embraced again and Albert led him to the door.
"I was going to tell him," Siegfried said. "I wanted him to turn in his grave."
"Perhaps he will just the same."
"She protected him to the end. She allowed him to die," Siegfried said. "Perhaps that, too, was inevitable."
They embraced again and Albert shut the door behind him.
Albert had waited until the minister finished the brief service and the coffin was carried out of the rectory. The family did not stir. With the exception of Mimi, everyone was present, including the children. During the service, he had stolen a glance at the assemblage, the appropriately somber faces, awed in the presence of death. The women, all except Olga, were heavily veiled. There they were. The von Kassels, wallowing in the cult of death.
When the coffin had disappeared and the door to the rectory was closed, he stood up. He could feel the stir as his voice pervaded the room.
"We have stayed together as a family for more than eight hundred years," he began. It was as if the spirit of the old man had refused to leave with his remains. The room seemed to pulse with a communal heartbeat. Olga's face shined out at him, mysterious and lovely. "And we will remain as a family. But the mutuality and self-interest that hold us together will be somewhat different." He paused, determined to provide the full impact of his meaning. "Henceforth, as of this moment, we will never again deal in armaments or any other weapons of destruction." The tension eased in a low mumble, like the cresting of a wave. He let it happen. "As of now, the liquidation of all von Kassel stocks of weapons will begin."
His sense of authority was a decree and he knew that the others would bend to it, as they had bent to the Baron's will and to that of other von Kassels before him. Olga's face reached him, penetrating the subsiding stir, as the wave broke, washed over them. Was love as powerful as hate, he wondered? As blood? He left the rectory and walked out into the sunlight of the waning day, wrestling with his doubts.
Knowing that it would be the last time for him in this place, Albert picked his way through the trail to the lake, his mother's watery grave. He was calm now. The inner pain and terror had disappeared. Yet the one thing he coveted eluded him, even now, contemplating his mother's destroyed life. He could imagine her suffering abstractly, suspecting that there was comfort to her only in her sense of martyrdom.
He watched the shadows darken across the lake. Where had her soul gone? He lost track of time and it was only the last fleeting ray of the sun crossing his vision that recalled his sense of place, and he started moving toward the castle. He wondered how many of the others had left already, gone back to a new life, cleansed at last of the need to deal in death. The von Kassels would celebrate life now, pursuits and enterprises that enriched, embellished. He looked at his watch. It was nearly time.
The man was waiting near the old castle entrance, his car parked at the point where the bridge spanned what once was the castle moat. Albert took it and nodded.
"So small?" he said.
The man said nothing in response, walking quickly to his car. Albert felt its cold smoothness. It seemed light, almost weightless.
He had asked Karla to meet him at the bridge at seven, expecting her to be precise. Von Kassels respected time. Without turning, he heard her soft step behind him.
When he turned he saw her gray haggard face, drained now, the age fully revealed in each etched line.
"I have come," she said, as if it were necessary for her to assure herself that she had been the one to command the meeting. He could see in her face all the traits before which he had cowered all his life, disdain, contempt, arrogance.
"It is the one special joy I have," he said. "I no longer have to call you Aunt."
She said nothing, suddenly discovering what he held in his hand. Her eyes flickered understanding.
"He won't be going back to Estonia," he said, holding up the urn. She shrugged. He had wanted to see her daunted, but she gave him no satisfaction. She was obdurate, hard as flint. He could find not a shred of remorse.
"Damn you," he said.
They had been standing at the bridge's edge. He overturned the urn and spread the ashes in his palm, closing his fist over them.
"A handful of dust. That's all he was. That's all we are." He raised his fist, then flung the remains into the gully that had once been a moat.
"Von Kassel. That's what he was," she said, watching the ashes dissipate in the air.
"A state of mind," he said, searching suddenly for arguments.
"A family," she hissed. "It can only be held together by blood or hate."
He shivered, watching her receding back. Again he marveled at her strength, the defeated age. The darkness was coming quicker now and he let her put distance between them, then he proceeded up the path to the castle's entrance.
Olga must have been watching. She came quickly, blocking his way.
"I searched for you," she said. "I looked everywhere."
"Did you think I had gotten lost?" he said.
"For a moment." She put her arms around him. He felt her love in the strength of the embrace. "Now let us give the power of love a chance," he murmured.
"What's that, my darling?"
"I was just thinking, perhaps a bit too loud."
It was then that he heard the boy's voice.
"Mama, Mama," it cried from the darkness.
Touching her, he wondered if the ashes would dirty her dress.
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