Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker(56)

Dirk looked at his fork, laid like a little hand upon the scallop of meat, its silver fingers bowed open, upward, to receive.

“I murmured to you while you were sleeping—”

“Felix, stop.”

“I talked to you about her—”

“Really, I don’t want you—”

“I was trying to find out for sure. If it was Nastaran who excited you.”

Dirk shook his head. He wasn’t one for tears, and had never been; this was about as close as he came. “And you—” He harrumphed. “And you—”

“Well, and I found out. When I whispered of her in the dark, you responded as any lover would when considering his beloved.”

“Felix.”

“You couldn’t know, you were asleep, but I learned what I had to learn.”

“Felix.”

“Yes.”

Dirk said, “I was responding to you, I think.”

It was Felix’s turn to put his fork down. He laid it upside down, in a closed position, its tines in the viscous sauce, a few bread crumbs stuck to the arched hip.

Dirk’s voice was low. “I wasn’t asleep yet. I heard you. I can’t tell you what happened fully—who knows anything about that sort of thing? But it was your voice I was responding to. At least in part. The music in your voice.”

The ma?tre d’ approached to supply a bottle of sweet wine before they began to talk again, a few moments later.

“So you see,” Dirk finally said, “I was ready to dance.”

“You’re the one with the eye-patch. But how blind of me.”

“Ah well. You need only have asked.”

“You could have asked, too, you know.”

“Me?” Dirk snorted. “I don’t have that kind of language in me.”

“If you need to speak, you learn a language.”

“Touché. Someday I will learn.”

“And all along,” said Felix, “I thought you hadn’t been back in touch with me because of Nastaran. I thought you felt guilty about her death.”

“There wasn’t much to feel guilty about. I didn’t invent the snow-storm that kept us from returning that night.”

“I’ve always wondered, Dirk.”

“What have you wondered?”

“Whether you knew when we left that she wouldn’t be there when you returned.”

“Felix!”

“It isn’t that improbable. You knew how unhappy she was. I wondered if she had talked you into taking the boys away, clearing a moment in which to end her own life.”

“That would have made me culpable.”

“Well. In a fashion, perhaps.”

“How dare you!” Dirk couldn’t speak of her. She had left a lambent stain that sometimes wicked itself forward into his nightly dreams from some casket locked during the daylight.

Felix shrugged. “I don’t mean it as an offense.”

“Anyone who might help someone take her own life is committing murder. I’m outraged.”

“You needn’t see it that way. Death might be the only way forward for someone. Or it might seem so at the time. The Werther solution. I wondered if you were plunged into regret for your complicity.”

“Complicity!”

“Oh, you’re capable of agitation. I oughtn’t be surprised. I’m wrong in this matter, too? So I’m wrong. You needn’t fuss so. Even the scope of your umbrage gives one pause, though.” He began to eat again. “They have a fine torte mit schlag here, I can’t recommend it highly enough.”

Dirk pushed his plate away. “I’ve had enough. I can’t eat any more. Let’s go.”

“Where do you propose?” Felix signaled the staff and withdrew a purse from a string around his neck. “Will you come home with me?”

He was ready for that. “Yes.”

“Very well.” Felix laid out the coin on the tabletop and from a standing position took a last forkful of veal. “Everyone will be thrilled to meet you.”

“Everyone?”

“Ethelinda and the children.”

Dirk jostled the table pushing back his chair. The plate rocked; the fork jumped to the floor. It landed like a thrown tool, its tines down in a seam between old floorboards.





68.


Felix Stahlbaum led Dirk Drosselmeier to a prosperous residential neighborhood of Munich, a boulevard that, somehow, Dirk had never before come across. Linden trees flanked both sides of the road and also stood in single file along a narrow strip of garden in the middle, which ran from one end of the road to the other. Snow began to fall with a sound like small claws—brittle pellets rasping against a few dried leaves clinging still. Felix stopped before a house at the bottom of the road and fished for a key in his greatcoat. The establishment was tall and warm-looking, its stucco the color of the flesh of pale Oriental peaches. White tinged with cream and blood. Lamps glowed behind windows that were shuttered on the ground level and draped in the upper stories.

“You’ve rooms here?”

“This is my home.” Felix bounded up the stone steps, gesturing. He turned as he was bending to insert the key, and winked. “Marriage confers considerable privileges, as perhaps you know. The boys are Günther and Sebastian.”