Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker(19)
Dirk pulled away. The lightning made a black-and-white image of Felix’s open face, his bed-tousled hair, the Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed the crust of bread. His skin from neck to the second button, for the first was open, was papery and slightly damp from the humidity in the summer kitchen.
“Well, look me up if you come to Wittenberg, or I’ll see you in the Munich house, I expect, or the Meersburg salons. I’m a longtime hanger-on to this family. They’re good to guests,” said Felix, relenting. “There’s some ale in the cold cupboard, I believe. Pull two glasses for us.”
Dirk pulled two steins of ale and set them both before Felix and turned away to climb the stairs in the darkness. The midnight lightning was over, the thunder receding. He could hear his heart. Whether it was sympathetic or not, he had no idea.
23.
He never did speak to Hannelore again, true, but that didn’t mean she had no effect on his life. Toward the latter part of the summer, in Meersburg, it became whispered loudly that the unmarried kitchen maid might be with child. Too early to show, but she was telling. The miller’s son, it seemed, had become a romantic casualty of the season and therefore he would accept no credit of paternity. Hannelore was keeping silent as to the identity of the father. When Baron von Koenig pressed the point, the overseer conducted interviews of the staff.
It became apparent that someone had seen Hannelore leaving the defunct chapel by the lake, carrying her shoes, looking disheveled.
Additionally, it was the opinion of many in the kitchens and stables that young Dirk Drosselmeier had been observed mooning about the girl from time to time.
But further questioning revealed that Felix, the bosom chum of Kurt von Koenig, family scion, had been rehearsing with his instrument in the chapel all summer.
A family retainer hastened to Wittenberg to resolve the matter. The advocate returned some days later with a statement. Felix had admitted the child to be his own, after all, and he supplied a settlement to be paid upon the unwed mother. Such things were done in that set, apparently.
Dirk pondered this as he collected his items—three shirts now, and a buttonhook, and a junky old knife that needed sharpening. He remembered the walking stick that had belonged to the old man in the forest, the woodcutter. It was more useful now that Dirk was no longer the slender slip of a kid, but a young man, and ready for a young man’s life. At least he hoped so.
For the first and only time, Dirk was called for an interview with the Baron. “Your last chance,” said Baron von Koenig, “to own up to your responsibility and to claim this child as your own.”
“I was given to understand that your houseguest Felix has already confessed to that?”
“Stahlbaum is a quixotic character. His motivations and his behavior are untrustworthy. Perhaps he was giving cover to you, as he could see for himself you are in no situation to take on a family. I understand from the maiden that he was friendly enough with you.”
“Hannelore hasn’t named me as the father,” replied Dirk. He’d learned a little about dignity. “I’m not a father. Neither of her child nor of any other.”
“Keep it like that, you’ll be a lot better off,” growled the Baron, who probably wasn’t such a bad sort, thought Dirk, but seemed to be tired of dealing with the progression of pregnancies that summertime at the lake perhaps provided all too regularly.
“Am I to proceed with the household to the autumn address?”
“I’d been inclined to bring you, but not now. Deserved or not, a shadow falls upon your reputation. We strive to be a strict Catholic household, at least in town. You wouldn’t think to return to your parsonage in Bavaria?”
“If a scandal attaches to me? It would dishonor Pfarrer Johannes. And I’ve been given no useful message to deliver to him. So, no, I don’t think I ought to return.”
“I supposed as much. Well, as it happens I was visiting a paper merchant in Meersburg to arrange for a volume of the scientific findings among some friends of mine. Adventures in atmospherics. The merchant mentioned he is in need of an assistant. I shall send you there with a letter of controlled enthusiasm. Maybe he’ll find you suitable. If not, God be with you upon your own road, if He can find you there.”
The Padlocked Garden
24.
Dirk was surprised to find how deeply he resented being let go from the retinue that served the von Koenigs. With only a letter of introduction in hand and some back pay in his pocket, he was turned out upon the dusty road in the direction of Meersburg. It wasn’t to be a long journey, but he found it grating to watch the family entourage wheel past him without acknowledging him. Salt and brine them all.
An older farmer, carrying thumps of rain-dampened hay in a wagon, picked up Dirk eventually. “Going near enough Meersburg to make it worth your while, and the company is welcome, if you’re going to talk,” said the fellow. It seemed, though, that he didn’t really care if Dirk talked. It was more that he wanted an audience for his soliloquy. So Dirk fed him the occasional interrogative syllable, tinder in an oven to keep it going, and more or less failed to listen to what the farmer said.
However, when they passed a substantial church building positioned over the lake, a great basilica structure painted a pale strawberry, the farmer commented, “You want religious paintings and such, there’s the place. The whole congress of heaven is painted floating on clouds right above you. The ceiling of the nave. You’d think the wind up there would have disturbed at least someone’s flowing robes so you could get a good look at the particulars of angels, but God’s uncanny breeze keeps everyone modest.”