Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker(78)

“She will be better for a good night’s sleep. Too much excitement, I fear,” said Clothilde with a faint air of censure.

“I’ll offer my good evenings to the guests after the main course, and forgo the pudding, and I’ll slip upstairs,” he said.

“I cannot sanction that.”

“I am her godfather. It is my place.”

To this Clothilde had no reply, and she turned to the guest at her right.

The snow fell upon the lindens, upon the Pan and the Pythia, or the Bacchus and the Athena, or the gnome and the goddess, whoever in heaven or hell they might be. The dark forest beyond the arithmetic of garden leaned in like an army circling the house at night, waiting for all the lights to be extinguished. It came down, merely, to this: Can a child be saved?

“I shall come back in the morning with a small pot of glue, and set up the Nutcracker’s jaw. He shall be right as rain by this time tomorrow,” said Drosselmeier to Fritz. “But for tonight, I’ll bind it with one of Klara’s ribbons to keep the wood from splitting further. That was a silly thing for you to do, you know.”

“What is the key for?” asked the boy with shocking lack of penitence.

“There are two keyholes in the back of the fairy castle. The key fits in both. Inserted in the top keyhole, the key winds up the music. But if you put it in the bottom keyhole, the key unlocks the castle itself. Like the golden walnut in which it was hidden, the castle itself is hinged. The buildings around its courtyard can open their arms to make a large platz. A whole kingdom making a hug.”

“For soldiers to march in!”

“Yes, I suppose, and also all the figures I have made for you over the years. The animals, and Mother Ginger, and the capering Arabian nomads and the Kings of Sheba and the merchants of Cathay and the Ukrainian peasants. They all have a home in the fairy castle.” He looked about. “It is like this dining table at a holiday. Everyone is welcome.”

“Even the boring old ladies,” murmured Fritz.

“No one is left out. Where is the key now?”

“Papi locked it in the glass-fronted cupboard. He was angry at me for ruining your gift. Nothing is going right tonight. Klara is sick, and the mice are frightening her. I think they are planning an attack.”

“A good thing you have so many new soldiers to help defend the castle.”

“But the key is locked up, and I can’t get it. And so we can’t open the castle to let the others rush in for protection during the battle.”

“The toys can help in the battle.”

“Mother Ginger? I doubt it!”

“Never underestimate the value of a mother in wartime. She has the most to fight for.”

Fritz thrust his lower lip forward, unconvinced. “What do you have to fight for?”

“I can’t sit here and have stupid conversations like this,” he replied, and pushed back his chair. The old woman sitting across from Drosselmeier thought he was talking to her, and she stuck out her tongue at him.





92.


Though he knew Clothilde would be vexed, Drosselmeier made his way across the black-and-white tiles and mounted the steps at the back of the atrium. He paused for breath at the first landing. The housekeeper or perhaps Clothilde had drawn the drapes across the broad window there, so if there were armies massing in the night, anything at all happening in the back garden below, he couldn’t see it. He stifled his urge to inch the drapes apart.

The door to the nursery was open a little. A lamp trimmed low was burning upon the mantel. Drosselmeier put his hand on the doorknob and leaned in.

“I knew you’d come,” said Klara. “It’s not fair that I should be sick on Christmas Eve.”

“It’s nor fair you should be sick at all. May I come in?”

“Mama will scold.” She beckoned. Her hair was fanned out across her pillow.

“I brought you a marzipan pig from the side table. You could adopt him or eat him, I don’t mind which.”

“He probably minds.” She took a big bite so there was nothing left but his face. “But too bad.” The snout and eyes in her palm looked up complacently at her. She gobbled them down. “You never told me why you have an eye-patch.”

“You never asked me.” He sat silently on the stool by her bedside.

She pouted. “Are you going to make me ask?”

“Not at all.”

Still he sat silently.

“All right,” she said, cross with him, “why do you wear an eye-patch?”

“I lost my eye when I was a little boy.”

“Oh.” She licked marzipan pig crumbs off her forefinger and sighed. For a while she just lay there in the half-dark, closing one eye and then the other in turn, practicing what it might feel like. “I think,” she concluded, “maybe a shark found it and ate it.”

“It was in the woods.”

“A very rare shark, then, a forest shark. Or a wolf.”

“That’s more like it. Are you feeling up for a story?”

“You’re trying to distract me from the mice, aren’t you.” She pointed at Fr?ulein Pirlipat, whose head was now almost entirely severed from her body. She maintained a certain composure throughout her ordeals, managing to seem both acquainted with grief and philosophic about it. “That’s what they’ll do to me next.”