Necessary Lies(26)
“Loyalty and duty, Willi,” K?the announced all of a sudden, “set intelligent men apart from the rabble.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” William asked.
“Exactly what you’ve heard,” K?the said. “I’m telling you what I think. But why should you care what I think? I’ll die soon. Don’t make a face like this, Willi. Lord is merciful and I don’t mind going. Not at all.”
“I’ve had enough, Mother,” William said, standing up. “We won’t take any more of your time.”
K?the didn’t even rise from the chair to see them off. They were both so stubborn, so single-minded, Anna thought. Neither one would give in. It made no sense.
Anna followed William to the car, hardly able to catch up with him. He got in and opened the door for her from inside. Silence, Anna had learned by then, was often the best strategy. It was better to let William calm down, not to try anything hasty. After a day or two he would mention K?the himself, comment on her stubborn character, on the way she always knew how to annoy him, suspected him of the worst. Anna would listen and nod and a few days later she would call K?the who would invite them for dinner as if nothing had ever happened.
K?the walks slowly to the window and looks out at the oak tree in the yard.
“Perfect to age cognac in, nicht wahr? ” she says. “Vati always said that only the oaks that grow alone, make good barrels. The wood has to soak up enough sun. If it doesn’t, it won’t release the taste or the smell.”
“Your father said that?” Anna asks, puzzled. It’s the first time ever that she has heard K?the mention her father. But K?the has already turned back and motions to her to help her lower herself into the armchair. She no longer wants to talk.
Conversations, even that short, mean improvement. When she learned of William’s death, K?the wouldn’t speak at all. For days she sat frozen in her wicker armchair, staring at the crucifix on the wall, a wooden cross with Christ’s steel coloured body, the wounds of flagellation scattered all over it. “You see, darling,” Anna sobbed into the pillow. “You were so wrong about her. She does love you. She always has.”
The nursing home doctor, a nice, chubby man with a gentle smile, a favourite of all the residents, said he was watching her closely, but that Anna should let her grieve. Then one day he called. “I think you should come,” he said, and Anna could sense relief in his voice. “When I walked into her room, in the morning, your mother-in-law told me to straighten the pictures on the wall and stop grinning like a fool. I think that’s a good sign.”
That was a month ago, and now Anna has come bringing a bunch of red tulips with her. K?the asks her to put them on the night table, and then, in a gesture that takes Anna by surprise, she smoothes Anna’s cheek with her hand.
“Annchen,” she says. “I am praying for him. And for you.”
Letters come every day. The screen door opens with a squeak; white envelopes fall through the mail-slot and spill on the floor. Anna picks them up and takes them to the kitchen to read. They move her, these words of sympathy, the memories of old conversations, the friendships of his other life, long before he met her. This one is addressed to Frau Herzmann, with the German double “n” William has dropped from his name in Canada.
The news of your husband’s death reached me only a few days ago through Frau Strauss, an old friend of the Herzmann family, from Berlin. I was saddened to hear that it was so unexpected, that he had no time to reflect, to reconcile what may have needed reconciliation. You will forgive me for saying that; we Catholics pray to be spared from a sudden death.
Your husband has often been in my thoughts and in my prayers. I’ve always considered myself to be his friend, even if we spoke rarely, for it is the depth of conversations that really matter. He came here for the first time in the spring of 1976, to examine some old music we have in our library, here at the monastery. I was asked to assist him. We talked a lot about Germany. He was of the generation touched by the war. Too young to have taken a stand, too old to say it happened before his time. This is a European disease, this mixing together of blood and soil. Pick a handful of it, they say, and you will squeeze blood.
At the time of this conversation, your husband was still shaken after a boat trip on K?nigssee, not far from here, in the Bavarian Alps. It was an occurrence of the utmost importance, he told me, the essence of what was wrong with us here, the blind worship of the past. He said that from the moment he boarded the wooden boat he was expected to behave as if he were in a church. Nobody on the boat dared to speak a word, he said. Everyone listened to a young guide in his twenties, with blond hair and blue eyes. The guide spoke of the purity of the place, of the mountains where Bavarian kings once hunted, of the sacred trees in these forests, of the lake’s crystal waters, the salmon and trout that live there. He stopped the boat and put his finger to his lips. They sat there for a long time, watching the darkness fall. Then, the guide blew his flügelhorn, and they all heard a single, long, haunting note. A moment later, reflected by the mountains, the echo of the horn came back, seven times. Your husband found it disturbing, very disturbing. One couldn’t help but notice that he was bitter about Germany that way. He said he never admitted he was German, if he could help it, that he refused to speak German, and looked at me when he said it as if he wanted me to protest. But I said he did what he needed to do. He asked me how I dealt with it. I said that for me it was a mission I had not chosen but could not refuse. He only laughed.