HS02 - Days of Atonement

by Michael Gregorio

  ‘Have you no reply to make?’ he added, punching me lightly on the arm in a friendly manner. ‘I was saying that you are fortunate in having a wife and children to come home to. For an old dog such as myself, an hour spent in the company of another man’s family is all that I have to look forward to. How else am I to shake from my head the sights and smells that we have seen? Sometimes I long for normality. There, that’s why I thrust my company upon you!’

  Out of sorts on account of the things we had seen? I was no less affected, but why did I deny him the right to be perturbed? Why think so insistently of him as my enemy?

  ‘I believe Helena has made a strudel,’ I announced dispiritedly.

  The door opened suddenly, though I had not pulled the bell. Lotte stood back to let us enter. The warm sweetness of baked apples wafted out to do battle with the cold.

  ‘We did not know what time you’d be back, sir,’ Lotte said with a curtsy that I had never seen before. She spoke to me, but her eyes were fixed on Lavedrine, as if she were trying to comprehend what brought him there. We would not be the first Prussians to lose their home to a smiling Frenchman.

  ‘This is Monsieur Lavedrine, Lotte,’ I said quickly. ‘A guest. I hope that delicious smell of apple, cinnamon, and honey is not the product of my imagination? I’ve spent all day thinking of it. I am famished!’

  ‘The mistress has finished baking,’ Lotte mumbled. ‘And the table is set. For five . . .’ she added, uncertainly.

  ‘We’ll need to make another place,’ I replied. ‘How is Helena?’

  Lotte glanced uncertainly at our dirty clothes. ‘The mistress is well, sir. But what have you been up to?’

  ‘A spot of manual work,’ said Lavedrine with a smile, fiddling with his hat, the perfect image of the unexpected guest. He was very good at it.

  ‘Helena, we have a guest,’ I called.

  My wife came dutifully along the passage from the kitchen, candle in hand, showing no sign of surprise. Neither for the state of our clothes, nor for the presence of the Frenchman. She stopped in front of him, and dropped her eyes to the tiled floor.

  ‘Monsieur Lavedrine, you are most welcome.’ She did not look in my direction, nor give any sign of noticing me. ‘Come in and warm yourself, sir.’

  We proceeded into the parlour. Helena sat down on the sofa, pointing Lavedrine to an armchair on the other side of the hob. In that same room the night before, I had lost her confidence, and I was uncomfortably aware of the unresolved state of our differences. She did not invite me to sit, and I made no move to do so.

  ‘I beg your pardon, madame,’ Lavedrine began, smiling like a pickpocket who has just lifted a heavy wallet. ‘This French invasion was my idea. Your husband had no part in it, I assure you. I pressed myself upon his generosity. He could not say no.’

  I stood by the window and watched them in silence.

  Lavedrine had left his oil-stained coat in the hall. He was wearing a dark green jacket made of thick woven tweed, and heavy baggy trousers of dark-brown twill with a chevron pattern. A peasant dressed for duck-hunting, I judged malignly. The impression was reinforced by the stains of oil and mess from Gummerstett’s warehouse, which still spotted his clothes. I was more formally attired. My black kersey suit showed less evident signs of the labours of the morning. The starched collar of my white shirt pushed its stiff wings against my jaw. Yet, I had to allow, there was a careless elegance in Lavedrine’s rough eccentricity that seemed to reinforce the innate charm of his manner. Had we appeared together at a ball in the same clothes, I knew which way the eyes of the women would turn.

  ‘You’ll have to make the best of a dull Prussian dinner,’ I said from the window.

  ‘Monsieur Lavedrine will excuse our shortcomings,’ Helena replied abruptly, without looking in my direction, stretching out her arms to take the baby, which Lotte brought into the room at that moment.

  ‘I cannot do everything in the kitchen, and look after the bairn, ma’am,’ the maid explained, clearly put out by this unexpected visit. She pronounced her German very slowly, her eyes fixed on the Frenchman all the while like a Mesmerist’s dupe.

  I glanced over at Helena, felt a sudden surge of relief, and knew myself for a fool. She had taken a brush to tame her curls, or Lotte had been ordered to do it. Her hair was tied up tightly at the nape of her neck in the old style.

  I gave myself up to enormous pride, then.

  Helena presented herself exactly as I wished Lavedrine to see her. That is, as I knew her. As a wife and a mother, a polite hostess, a charming and intelligent woman, who was not uncomfortably married to a member of the lower aristocracy; a Prussian woman who would greet a Frenchman civilly.

  A moment later, Süzi and Manni shyly entered the room, hand in hand, and plumped themselves down on the rug in front of the fire. They did not say a word. Their eyes were wide, unblinking, and they were fixed on Lavedrine.

  ‘Aren’t you going to welcome our visitor?’ Helena chided them, but the children who were five and four years old only giggled, exchanged a glance, then stared back at the stranger with open mouths. ‘Nor say hello to your father after his journey?’

  I moved instinctively across to the sofa, caressed the baby’s head with my hand, then touched my lips to Helena’s forehead for just one instant. But even in such a short space of time, she seemed to draw back imperceptibly. I disguised the motion quickly, leaning closer to kiss baby Anders on the cheek. Here, I was better rewarded. The child let out a cooing ghaahaaa that was not exactly a ‘papa,’ but was close enough to ensure my contentment. Then Manni and Süzi jumped to their feet, taking their lead from their baby brother. They wrapped their arms about my legs, letting out cries of welcome and joy. Manni grabbed hold of my coat, pulling me down, begging me to give him a piggyback. As I rode him around the room, Süzi hung on to the tail of my jacket like a barrel organist’s monkey. Everyone laughed with glee.

  All was as it should have been. With one exception.

  Helena.

  Her stiff passivity when I kissed her stung me badly. Why had she not returned my kiss? I sulked for some moments, then reproved myself again. The presence of Lavedrine poisoned everything. She had kissed me passionately once before in his presence—the morning after the dead bodies of the Gottewald children were found. She knew how embarrassed I had been. Did she avoid kissing me now to spare me further discomfort? Or was her lack of warmth meant to punish me?

  Lotte came bustling in again with an extra chair.

  ‘Thank you, Lotte,’ Helena said. ‘I’ll do it. Seat the children, if you will.’

  She turned for an instant, laid the baby in the corner of the sofa, then carefully wedged him in with a pair of cushions. Then she moved across to the dresser, and took up a knife, a fork, and a slender glass beaker. ‘I hope you’ll enjoy what Lotte has cooked for us, monsieur,’ she said to Lavedrine. ‘Roast potatoes, and a slice of cold ham. With short beer, and the row that children always make.’

  ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever been offered a better menu, madame,’ he replied gallantly. ‘Given the musical tradition in the north of Germany, I am inclined to think that the voices of the children will sound like a chorale by Bach!’

  Lavedrine’s eye hovered fondly on the long table, where Lotte was putting Süzi into the high-chair Countess Dittersdorf had sent us after hearing that the French dragoons had used our baby-chair for firewood while occupying the house.

  ‘We can take our places,’ Helena announced, surveying the table, a finger to her lips, a look of concern on her brow. ‘Sit here next to me, Monsieur Lavedrine,’ she called. ‘You can see the children, without being disturbed by them. Is that all right?’

  Helena had arranged the seating as she always did when we had a guest. The plates and covered dishes were laid out so that Serge Lavedrine would have the first choice of everything. The Frenchman sat down with an energetic ‘Bien sûr!’ while Lotte tied bibs beneath the children’s chins, then ran off to the kitchen.

/>   I sat down at my usual place. Helena was facing me, Lavedrine on my left, the children on the right. Manni simply could not tear his eyes from the visitor. Suddenly, the boy put his hand up to cover his mouth, and whispered something to his mother. Then, he stared at Lavedrine again, and smiled.

  The Frenchman noticed, for he smiled back, and said, ‘May I ask, Frau Stiffeniis, what the little boy told you? He was speaking of me, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Certainly, monsieur,’ Helena replied, and dimples of amusement appeared on her cheeks. ‘He asked if you were French, and whether Hanno would be obliged to shoot you after we have finished dining.’

  We all laughed, but Lavedrine laughed the loudest and the longest. The fact that he was seated at a Prussian table did not inhibit him. ‘After the strudel, dear Manni, I am willing to be shot,’ he agreed. ‘Not before. Then, I will die a happy man.’

  Lotte brought in hot plates and served the food. I poured out a bottle of wine from a crate that Lotte’s older brother had sent to us from Pomerania. It was a rich, dark ruby colour, and I felt a warm tingle as I took my first sip. Lavedrine raised his glass to me in a silent toast. With the exception of him, I thought, this is how dinner ought to be. In my own house, with good food, in the company of my wife, my children, and our maid, though Lotte was more like a sister to Helena than the hireling drudge that the word usually suggests. The faces of the children glowed like angels painted by Tiepolo on the ceiling of a Venetian palace. What harm could ever befall them?

  My mind shot off at a tangent. I was in the room of Aaron Jacob in Judenstrasse, looking down at the cranial casts of the Gottewald children. Was there, anywhere in the world, a hand so evil that it would strike down my own children in the same heartless fashion? I found myself peering intently at their bobbing heads, and a terrible fright possessed me. Was Manni’s head more pointed than his sister’s? Was it the difference of their ages, or was there some other reason?

  I chewed and swallowed mechanically as the meal progressed, my eyes drawn as irresistibly as Aaron Jacob’s iron filings to the magnet of my children’s heads. Despite my incredulity, the words of the Jew had made a deep impression upon me. The more I studied the children, the more fretful I felt. I rejected the man’s conclusions as nonsense, but wondered whether the pseudo-scientific jargon he spouted contained a grain of truth.

  I looked around the table, and tried to shake myself free of these demons.

  What was I thinking? I had sat down to dine with my wife and children, eager to savour the food that Lotte had prepared, anxious to taste the strudel Helena had made, convinced that I had put aside the horrors of the day. Lavedrine had expressed the same notion, and he appeared to have succeeded in dispersing those ghosts. He smiled at Helena, and held out his plate. She smiled warmly back and helped the Frenchman to more roasted potatoes. Why could I not enjoy the innocence of the moment? Why was my mind filled with putrefying corpses, the stench of Jewish hovels, the misery of those people, the macabre vision of those casts hanging from the wall? Why did the words of Aaron Jacob continue to ring in my ears?

  ‘Stiffeniis, your wife’s strudel is exquisite!’

  Lavedrine seemed transported by pleasure, while Helena sat looking intently at me. For the first time, I believe, since I entered the house. She raised her eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked. Alarm cancelled out her smile in an instant. Fear shone brightly from her eyes. She turned to Lavedrine. ‘Have you made some discovery regarding Frau Gottewald?’

  ‘Nothing new,’ he replied, raising his glass, taking a sip of wine. ‘Nothing that . . .’

  ‘Monsieur Lavedrine is afraid of shattering the fragile tranquillity of our home,’ I interrupted. ‘An error that I made myself, as you remember, Helena.’

  My voice was calm, but it smashed like a sledgehammer through a sheet of glass. Did he really imagine that we could wash down what we had seen with a glass of wine and a slice of apple strudel?

  ‘We found a body before lunch. There is every reason to believe that it is the corpse of Frau Gottewald,’ I said slowly, swinging the hammer again.

  Helena’s hands rose to her mouth to stifle a cry.

  Lavedrine froze in the act of raising his glass to his mouth.

  He glared at me as if I had been transformed into something horrid to behold.

  ‘God save us all, sir!’ cried Lotte, who was coming in from the kitchen with a pot of tea in her hands. She set it down on the tabletop with a crash, and made the sign of the Cross. ‘Come away!’ she urged the older children, pulling them down from the table. ‘It’s time for bed!’

  She bustled them out, and we three adults were left alone with the baby in the deadly silence.

  Then Anders began to suck noisily on his thumb. As the seconds stretched out, I suddenly realised my folly. I had unplugged a dam, and all the jealousy and resentment that came pouring out now threatened to drown us. Who, I asked myself, despised and resented me the most: Helena, or Lavedrine?

  ‘Where did you find her?’ Helena murmured.

  Lavedrine gestured vaguely in the air. ‘We cannot be certain,’ he offered, attempting to reassure my wife. ‘We have no precise description of Frau Gottewald. Except for yours, that is . . .’

  ‘What have they done to her?’

  I heard the sudden catch in her voice. I had not seen her so frightened since the night that Mutiez had come to carry me off. She had been strong in the face of the enemy then, knowing him for what he was. Now, she seemed to shrink before the unquenchable force that had obliterated the Gottewald family. She was frightened for her children. I felt the same trembling fear in my own heart. In our terror, I realised, we were reunited. Lavedrine was the odd man out.

  ‘Do not alarm yourself,’ he said, his voice ripe with concern. ‘Nothing is proven. Your husband is exhausted. The journey to Kamenetz was long and hard. Things took a sudden, unexpected turn this morning. And we have been extremely busy this afternoon. Then—I must excuse myself, madame—I made the final mistake, forcing my unwanted company upon you both.’

  ‘Tiredness is not the cause,’ I interrupted him. ‘Helena complained to me last night of cruelty, saying that I had kept her in the dark. She is convinced that only knowledge can defend us. By sharing the danger, and taking adequate precautions, we may hope to save our own, and other children.’ I paused, and gathered myself. ‘We must act quickly, Lavedrine. We must crush the evil-doer before he crushes us.’

  I heard the words as I said them, and did not recognise myself. Another Hanno Stiffeniis had spoken. This Hanno Stiffeniis was a husband and a father, a man who was frightened, too well aware that he could do nothing to protect those that he loved from evil.

  Lavedrine drained his glass, then set it down on the table.

  ‘You need rest, Stiffeniis. The restorative company of your family. Without the need to make idle conversation with an interfering Frenchman who really ought to have known better.’ He looked at me like a stern father, or a well-meaning physician. ‘Sleep is what you need. I insist upon it.’

  He rose from the table, pushing back his chair. ‘Frau Stiffeniis, thank you for the most delightful evening that I have passed in Lotingen since the day I arrived.’

  I made to get up, intending like a good host to see him to the door, but his hand pressed down heavily on my shoulder. ‘I know my way out,’ he said. ‘And if I am to take a pleasant memory away with me, it is this. The two of you seated at the table. That little baby in your wife’s arms. As if this unfortunate scene had never taken place. As if I had never come.’

  He towered above me for a moment.

  ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘We have to clear this matter up. I’ll be leaving town first thing tomorrow morning to look for information that may be of use to us. The French play bezique with the cards held close to their chest. My masters may be holding kings and queens that we know nothing about. I’ll be away for two days. Three, at the most. In the meantime, rest, sir.’


  He turned to Helena. She was holding the baby to her shoulder, patting him gently on the back. ‘Lotingen is in good hands. The best of hands. Your husband’s,’ he told her with a reassuring smile.

  A moment later, we heard the front door close as he left the house.

  I felt as though a storm had blown itself out.

  Helena came to me then, bringing the sun along with her. Or rather, my son, whom she placed in my arms.

  ‘Rock him gently for me, will you?’ she asked, her hand dallying about my cheek and neck as she released the baby into my care. ‘I’ll clear the table. Lotte will have her hands full with those two upstairs. You know the way they are at bedtime.’

  I carried Anders to the sofa, and sat down before the sinking fire in the darkness of the room, my face bent close to his. Gazing silently into his watchful eyes, I was aware of the sounds that Helena made as she put more logs on the hearth and began to set the room in order: cupboards opened and closed as condiments and napkins were put away; plates and dishes were heaped into orderly piles; the tinkle of glass as beakers were collected on a tray; the clash of knives and forks in a convenient basket for carrying through to the kitchen. But all my thoughts were centred on Anders, on the weight of that tiny delicate head resting in my hand.

  As his eyes closed in slumber, I looked up.

  My wife was watching me across the table.

  ‘I might be able to identify the body,’ she whispered. ‘I saw her face. Her clothes. I may be able to help you, Hanno.’ Her voice faded away to nothing, but I could see that she was determined. ‘It would not be the first corpse I’ve seen. Remember the woods.’