Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker(74)

“But I don’t have time to learn Mouse. What if the Mouse King comes back tonight? He was very cruel.”

“You must ask him what he wants.”

She was almost in tears. “I told you! I can’t talk to mice!”

He felt her forehead. Warm. “Are you sure you need this blanket so snugly pulled up, my dear, you’re quite hot.”

“I’m chilled. I want to know why the mice are here.”

“Are they here in this room? Now?”

“You know if they are.”

He kept his eyes trained on her, didn’t turn left or right so as to avoid confirming or denying her apprehensions. “Shall I get you a glass of milk?”

“Did you ever meet a mouse? What do they want?”

He began to arrange a few of the figurines into a procession. “I knew a Nutcracker once who was the sworn enemy of the king of the mice.”

“Why?”

“The Nutcracker wanted to chop down a tree to get a golden walnut, but the king wouldn’t let him.”

“Why not?”

“Because the mice wanted the walnut for themselves. They were waiting for it to be ripe, so they could crack the shell open and eat the nut inside. They didn’t want to share. They’re quite greedy.”

“Why did the Nutcracker want the golden walnut?”

“I think it held a secret, but I don’t know which one. Do you?”

She closed her eyes to think about this and he began to hope she had fallen asleep. He tiptoed to the door, shushing Fritz, who was just back with another armload of tin grenadiers and Hussars. “Fritz, where is your father?”

“Mutter and Vater are in the yellow parlor with the tannenbaum. We aren’t allowed to go in until late tomorrow night. It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow, you know.”

“Oh, is it? And the Christ Child may bring you some gifts?”

“It’s possible.”

Drosselmeier found coyness in a young boy repellent. He excused himself and knocked on the door of the yellow parlor.

Sebastian and Clothilde and the downstairs maid were dressing a voluptuous balsam tree with laces, baubles, and candles. A few wrapped presents were laid below. Marzipan and gingerbread figures hung on silvered string, keeping company with small toys like drums, bells, other musical instruments. Drosselmeier cradled a small ’cello in his palm, then let it free. The tree wanted at least one golden walnut on a string. Well, tomorrow, soon enough.

“You’ll join us for the grand unveiling tomorrow evening?” pressed Clothilde.

“Are you having a serious problem with mice in the house?”

“No more this winter than any other,” said Sebastian.

“What an insult to a tree, don’t you think?” asked Drosselmeier. “I mean, to be severed at the ankle and dragged in and mocked like this.”

“This tree grew for a decade so it could be honored in death and give joy to the children. At least that’s how I like to think of it,” replied Clothilde. “We would not think of inviting forests into the house in Lyon when I was young, but I have come to admire the barbaric German custom.”

“It is so beautiful it makes me ill,” said Drosselmeier.

“Are you becoming sentimental, old godfather?” asked Sebastian. “We have enough of that between the two of us, under the circumstances. We rely on you to lend a certain crankiness to the proceedings. It’s not too early for a glass of Tokay, if you’re thirsty.”

“I have some work to finish up in the shop,” said Drosselmeier, and left the house. Only on the street, steeped in the cold clarity of snow-odor, could he identify the aromas he had left behind: the sap of a fir tree, its pungent slow blood; the lavender of soaps and camphor of blankets; the gingerbread; the dusty wood-mold smell that comes up from the floorboards in the winter; the reek of a cabbage being boiled senseless, with caraway and perhaps a touch of fennel seed.

He worked with wood and glue, a brush and a pot of gilt, on through most of the night, paying no attention to the mice. He’d long ago used up the blue of the sky—he’d called it Nastaran blue—from the pot he had once opened for her with a knife. But the very same wide-mouthed jug had made a good home for his brushes all these years.





88.


Christmas Eve. Drosselmeier closed down the workroom and drew fast the shutters. He fixed his cloak with fingers stiffened by labor, and he picked up his parcels. Most were smaller gifts, but one was large, so he hired a carriage to make his way through streets masked with snow grit.

He descended the carriage and paid the fare. When the wind dropped suddenly, he felt encased in invisible ice. He turned to the swept stairs of the Stahlbaum manse. Lamplight from between the swagged drapes at the front windows, like the limelights of theatre, turned the snow on windowsills to gold.

Entering, he shucked off his coat and sidled with the packages into the servants’ passage. He made his way to the yellow parlor, where Sebastian was lighting the candles on the tree with tapers.

“Clothilde is upstairs with them, keeping them calm until the clock strikes. Drosselmeier, you’ve outdone yourself. You’ll make them sick with glut.”

“I’m the godfather. I’m allowed. How is the little invalid?”

Sebastian didn’t answer.