Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker(29)

“I thought you might be. Stop a while; whoever you want will pass by in time.”

Felix meant something other than Dirk did, but it was true, Franz and Moritz wouldn’t be far. Dirk could keep an eye on the proceedings from a bench. Warily he settled in the lackluster sunlight. Soon enough he spied Franz, watching some young louts of the town play skittles; Moritz hunched on the sidelines, too. Felix Stahlbaum looked to see what had caught Dirk’s eye. “Who will be the winner?” he asked, amusing himself.

Dirk couldn’t follow. He said, “Someone suggested to the Baron that I was—was with Hannelore.”

Felix shrugged, toasted Dirk. “Vive la différence. You were involved with her. Weren’t you?”

“But you admitted it was you all along.”

“Who knows why we say and do what we say and do? I thought better of ruining anyone’s life,” said Felix after a silence.

“Because of that rumor, I lost my chance to stay on with the von Koenig household,” replied Dirk. But then, he might not have been sent to the papermaker, and might never have met Frau Nastaran Pfeiffer. “No matter. What’s done is done. I didn’t know you realized I was in the chapel that day. That’s all.”

“The door was open. Who else knew where the key was hidden? Anyway, I tried to play up a storm for you, as I recall,” said Felix. He yawned. “Sorry—a late night.”

“For everyone,” agreed Dirk. “You are still playing?”

“My Lehrmeister has me working over several string trios of van Beethoven. And I’ve just got my hands on a ravishing piece by de Saint-Colombe. Practice does get in the way of my theology studies, I am afraid.”

“You will be a pastor? After you’ve fathered an illegitimate child?”

Felix laughed. “I intend to learn only enough theology to know how to sin more effectively, thus to become more deeply penitential. The darker the sin, the richer the value of spiritual recovery.” He was speaking in a level of nuance beyond Dirk’s apprehension: droll, insincere, affectionate. “No, I hope to become a better performer, to be worthy of the music I am learning. If knowing music can bring me relief, can—move me across the border—how to say this—can release me, perhaps, to write my own, so others may be moved as I have been—is there any other ambition? Theology and art aim in the same direction.”

Dirk had nothing to say on the matter, so he slurped at the ale. Felix said, “What are your aims, young man?”

“I have no talents,” said Dirk. “I only watch and listen.”

“You have a talent of charm, I see you do.”

“I cannot see—what did you say about it—across borders. I have never been able to see that. But I know someone who can, I think, but is stuck—cannot take the step.”

“Music usually helps,” said Felix. But he seemed to realize that remark was glib, and he relented. “Tell me what you mean.”

Without naming Nastaran, Dirk told Felix about a woman from somewhere in the Near East, a woman possessed of a dybbuk of sorts, pestered by an incubus, that caused her to walk at night in her sleep. She couldn’t name the destination, so she was haunted and trapped in this syndrome. If she could be released, Dirk said, who knows where she might go?

“Perhaps into a church tower with you?” asked Felix, knocking Dirk’s calf with the toe of his boot.

“Franz! Moritz?” called Dirk, standing up.

“Wait,” said Felix. “I have an idea. I heard of someone who might help. I don’t know the man, and he has become elderly, but I’m told he lives right here in Meersburg. Would you like me to see if I can get an appointment for your mysterious somnambulist?”

“What must I pay you for your help?” asked Dirk.

“I’ll think of something.” He downed the last of his ale and tossed a few pfennigs upon the boards. “Though the von Koenig family is here only occasionally, the Baron knows everyone in Meersburg. Baron von Koenig will open any doors for me that I ask. I’m sure the door to Herr Mesmer’s apartments are no exception.”

Felix took down the address of the Pfeiffer household and left brusquely, without a good-bye. The cinnamon reek of rot that accompanies harvest was beginning to rise as the morning sun strengthened.





39.


The physician had a suite of rooms above the Heilig-Geist Spital in Vorburgga?e. Dirk and Felix found the man settled in a wooden armchair upon a heap of faded cushions. He was in his seventies, perhaps late seventies. He said, “I am Doktor Mesmer. I am told”—glancing again at the letter of introduction unfolded in his lap—“that I am to be at your service, young Stahlbaum.” He winced even to raise his right hand to grab Felix’s.

“This is a preliminary visit.” Felix glanced back at Dirk, who was standing behind him in the shadows. “I’d like you to explain to my friend what you might do to help the mistress of his employer’s house. She suffers an odd ailment.”

“I might do nothing to help her. Is that explanation enough?”

“He doesn’t understand your theory and practice, and I’m not competent to clarify.”

“I don’t entirely understand it myself,” said the old man. “Is that perhaps a flagon of schnapps you have brought as a present? A good deal of therapy starts and ends with a bolt of schnapps, I find. My nephew, who runs this hotel for the elderly, arranged my rooms right above the winepress, the rental cost of which helps support his whole operation. But little wine is pressed in my direction. It’s a sore trial to me, the proximity of possibility. Very Tantalus, very Aesop.”