The Ragged Edge of Night(36)

“I am sorry,” Anton said to the man in black. “I’m sorry. For what they’ve done to you. May God have mercy on you, my brother.”

And on all of us. On us as well, merciful Christ.





13

When the music is gone, when he has played out the last wringing ache of memory, Anton walks back to the house. The cornet hangs from his hand; it drags through the tall grasses that grow along the irrigation ditch. He has no strength left to raise the instrument. In the distance, small and pale against the night, he can see Paul and Al herding the milk cow into the pen beneath the old cottage. Locking the animals up for the night—life on the old farm goes on, whether Anton is there with his family or no. Life everywhere continues. It is inexorable, and in its persistence, mysterious and infuriating. Life proceeds stubbornly, heedless of one’s wishes, as long as you avoid the men in black uniforms and keep your curtains closed by night.

Their evening chores finished, the boys scramble up the steps and disappear into the house. No doubt Elisabeth has supper waiting for them, a tough old laying hen stewed over the woodstove or rabbit roasted with potatoes. Has she set out a plate for Anton, or is she still too angry to feed him? As he comes closer, he can smell onions and the faint, warm comfort of freshly baked bread. He’s hungry. It seems absurd, to be hungry, for one’s body to want nourishment. How can we insist on living when so many are dead, when we did nothing to save them?

Twilight has yielded to darkness. A few determined crickets still sing in the winter weeds. As he rounds the corner of the house and makes for the staircase, he finds Elisabeth sitting on the lowest step, waiting for him. She is wrapped in a winter coat with a brown rabbit-fur collar. It’s the kind of coat a woman in Berlin would wear, or in Munich, and it’s the first time he has seen it—but then, it hasn’t been cold enough for winter coats until now. Elisabeth rises when she sees him. In the dimness, Anton can make out another garment folded over her arm—a man’s coat. It must have belonged to her first husband, for it isn’t Anton’s.

She holds the coat out to him. “Put this on. It’s cold, and that old thing you’re wearing looks like it wants to fall apart.”

Anton does as Elisabeth bids. “We had such a long summer, but it’s over now.” The coat is warm and heavy, perfumed with cedar to keep the moths away. “Thank you.”

“I heard you playing, out there in the field.”

He laughs, quiet and rueful. You’re never alone in a small town.

“You play that trumpet as nicely as you play the organ.”

“God has given me a few gifts, I suppose.”

“I think God has given you a great many gifts, Anton.” She hugs her body tightly and turns away to gaze out into the black orchard. Beyond the trees, a faint suggestion of Frau Hertz’s house barely stands out against the night sky. “I’m sorry we quarreled.”

“I am, too.” Is it this easy, making up with a woman?

“I can see, Anton, how important music is to you. But we do have needs as a family. There must be a compromise somewhere.”

“I know. You’re right; there must.”

She looks at the cornet for a long time. Then she bites her lip, a gesture that seems entirely too girlish for her. He thinks for a moment that she’ll ask him to play again, and he wonders, in his dark mood, whether he can conjure up any song that isn’t melancholy. But then she glances up the stairs to the cottage above. Maria’s squeals come down; her brothers are tickling her at the supper table. The children are rowdy enough tonight; there is no reason for music. It would only distract them from their meal or drive them further from sleep.

She says, “Paul—I mean, my husband, not Little Paul—” Then she hesitates, offering a shy, apologetic smile. He is her husband now. She has forgotten it, momentarily. “My first husband, Paul… We often enjoyed music together.”

“Did you?” Gently. In the five weeks of their acquaintance—and three weeks of marriage—he had never learned Herr Herter’s Christian name. He is glad to know that his charming, lively little stepson was named for his father. It keeps the man’s memory alive, now that he is gone.

“We listened to the radio shows every Tuesday night. When we first left Stuttgart, I mean.” She laughs, uncomfortable with the memory, disbelieving that she’s sharing it with him now. In a heartbeat of stunned silence, he can all but hear her thoughts: What has possessed me to speak of something so private, and why now?

“When you left the city? You make it sound like you ran away.”

“We did. My parents didn’t approve, because there were rumors, you see—my reputation was in danger.” She narrows her eyes. “But I never would have done anything sinful. They were only stories.”

“You are the last woman I would suspect of sin.”

“We came here, to Unterboihingen, but the radios were so bad back then. They aren’t much better now, to tell the truth. We could hardly tune anything in, but for some reason, on Tuesday nights only, one particular station would come in, clear as a bell.” She smiles, remembering, softening completely for the first time since Anton has known her. He is gripped by the sudden urge to touch her—not in any carnal way, only to lay a hand on her arm or her shoulder or on the fur collar of her coat, so that he might experience a part of her joy. As if he might capture in his hand the rarity of her happiness. “We would dance, then, just the two of us. The music was like something from another world, from dreams. It always seemed to me as if that music could pick us up and move us anywhere we wanted to go.” She stops and shuts her eyes tightly. “I sound foolish.”