Blood Ties (13 page)

"Go," she hissed, her eyes flickering briefly.

"Fool," he said quietly. Quickly he moved into
the house.

The women were still huddled in the basement room. They had
heard noises, but could make no sense out of them. Seeing him, his face
blackened by smoke, his mother became hysterical and he slapped her into
silence. Then he led Karla and her up the stairs.

"My God, they are burning us down," Karla cried
as he led them through the flames to the rear of the house. Holding his mother
and sister by the hand, he led them to the tree line, then through a path in
the forest that led upwards to a small clearing. From there, he could see the
flames of their burning house lighting up the sky.

"We are finished," Karla said, tightening her
hand in his. Their mother seemed dazed, struck dumb by the shock of it.

"They will never finish us. No one can finish
us," he had answered. But, in his heart, he knew that they would come
soon.

He was nineteen years old.

Dawn sprawled on the four-poster bed, staring at him. Her
hair fell awry over half her face and one strap of her gown had slipped off her
shoulder and lay on her forearm. She was drunk.

He pitied her. Tonight was further confirmation that she
did not matter to him anymore. Again, he cursed himself for bringing her to
this reunion.

Luckily, the Baron's strength had given out and the party
had quickly dissipated before she could make a further fool of herself. She had
employed the ultimate weapon of a scorned woman. She had thrown herself at
another man hoping to injure him. It was ludicrous. But Siegfried would be
alert to any opportunity that came his way. Oddly enervated, his mind was
crowded with thoughts of Olga.

Moving out of her field of vision, he went to the sitting
room and lit a cigarette, looking out of the window into the star-filled night,
exhaling clouds of smoke against the glass. Olga in his arms, gliding over the
dance floor, was a fixed image. That, and the coolness of her eyes behind high
cheekbones, the delicate curve of her lips as they opened to express some
observation. Had something inside of her called to him or was he merely
romanticizing some yearning in himself? A dark wave of doubt swept over him. In
disgust he smashed his cigarette against the pane. Was returning to the bosom
of his family, that gallery of freaks, actually what she desired for her son?
He deliberately ignored the obvious economic factor.

"I made a damned fool of myself," Dawn said
suddenly from behind him. The words were slurred, but apparently she had
regained some of her poise. He turned. She stood in the bedroom doorway,
supported by the doorjamb. She had combed her hair, smoothed her dress and
replaced the shoulder strap.

"It's hardly worthy of discussion. Go to bed."

She started to obey, then checked herself.

"I had good reason," she said.

"There is no good reason to get drunk. My family must
have thought you were an idiot."

"I don't care what they think," she said, her
belligerence rising again. She paused. "That's not really true you know. I
wanted to make a good impression. You know that, Albert. I really wanted
to."

"Then why didn't you?" Why am I responding? he
wondered, searching for some clean way to send her off. What do I owe her? He
was appalled by his own reticence. In business he could be totally ruthless,
dissimulating, without mercy. Pity, like guilt, was a destructive emotion.

"I have eyes, Albert," she said. "You and
Olga. Sparks."

"That's absurd."

"Women know."

"That old cliché." He was not ready to admit the
accuracy of her observation. "And what about you and Siegfried?" It
was unworthy of his maturity. He felt petty, foolish. Siegfried had been only a
device.

"He was at least attentive. He wanted to be with me. I
felt ... alone."

He wanted to ignore her. He was hardly in the mood for her
drunken insight.

"Goddammit," her voice rose. The carefully
modulated tone became a shriek. "What the hell is going wrong,
Albert?"

"Go to sleep." Again he had postponed it.

"You're not being fair." He saw her coming
closer. When she reached him, he backed away.

Once he had loved her, had felt the need for her. Now she
was merely a stranger. There was a long pause. He lit another cigarette.

"All right, Albert." She seemed to be taking a
new tack. "I'll stop being a harridan. I simply had too much to drink. You
know I can't drink. I became jealous. Let's say it was without cause. You were
merely being polite. She is your aunt, you know." Her drunkenness seemed
to have faded. "I'll admit I made a fool out of myself with
Siegfried."

"Let's talk about it in the morning," he sighed.
He had not turned to face her. Don't wait, he told himself. Tell her now.

"Let's forget it, Albert. Okay?" she pleaded.
"Forgive me. I made an ass of myself."

"I forgive you," he said. His tone was
mechanical.

"So you're going to be rotten." He knew he had
hurt her by not allowing her to regain her pride.

"Go to sleep, we'll talk about it in the morning. I
have things on my mind."

"Like her."

"Really, Dawn..." he began, turning, checking
his. anger. The extent of his indifference shocked him. The anger was directed
inward.

"I'm just not very good at accepting
humiliation," she said quietly.

"You're exaggerating."

"Am I?"

"Well then." He hesitated. "Perhaps it was a
mistake to come."

"I was asked, remember. I did not volunteer."

He could sympathize with her confusion. He had brought her
for his own comfort, a kind of private insulation from the terror of his
family, a private place of refuge. He had not expected such a fierce onslaught
of emptiness.

"I'm sorry," he stammered. He sighed and turned
again to the window, searching for images in the night.

"You're torturing me, you know."

He didn't answer. She had come upon a kernel of truth. It
was another complexity to be deciphered. It was the truth. With an effort of
will he tried to lose her, ignore her. Words came, loudly. But he shut them
out. Only the tone made sense. Such a reaction could be expected in a scorned
woman. It was only natural, he told himself calmly. He heard the clicking of
her heels along the floor, the opening of a door, slamming. Then, as he
listened, the sound of the elevator and silence.

Pacing the room, energized now beyond the possibility of
sleep, he felt a compelling need to be with Olga, as if something between them
was unsaid. Picking up the telephone, he waited for a sound. The sleepy-voiced
night clerk answered indifferently. He asked for Olga von Kassel's room. There
were odd clicking sounds of the old system, then a ring. She answered quickly.

"Can I see you?" He did not introduce himself.
Had he assumed too much?

"Now?" He felt the thump of his heart. Had she
expected his call? Was she waiting?

"Please."

"But it is late..." Her protest seemed
perfunctory. Had he engaged her? "Can you?" He noted the delicacy.

"Yes." There was a long pause.

"I suppose the boy will be all right."

"I'm sure," he said selfishly.

"Well, not for too long."

"No," he promised. "I wanted to talk."

"Where?" she asked.

His mind reconstructed the courtyard.

"Near the tennis courts. In ten minutes..."

Doubts. He had felt them begin before, a tiny whitecap, one
of many on the distant plateau of ocean.

And yet he had weathered them before, since his childhood.
He remembered his first days of the boarding school in Massachusetts, faced
with the barrier of language and youth. He was eight and his peers were
unmerciful in their taunting him for his thick German accent, later for his
English malapropisms. As now, the doubts were never of the enemies, physical or
human, only of his own courage.

His outer skin, his armor, projected such a different
aspect, the strong, handsome, confident, fearless, courageous, young von
Kassel, who ran an arms empire of staggering proportions. Staggering was the
word others used. To him it was merely complex and enormous. He was not
staggered by it because it was so cleverly organized, so efficient. He could be
proud of himself on that score. The Baron had rebuilt the old family business
on, at best, a makeshift foundation, acknowledging that it was, indeed, his
youngest son who brought it together with amazing qualities, von Kassel
qualities. Albert had been proud and cocky at his achievement, had enjoyed the
besting of brother Rudi. Even as children, visiting with the Baron during their
school vacations, Rudi was always defeated having expended the most energy with
the least amount of success. Siegfried, on the other hand, always disqualified
himself from competition. No amount of browbeating from them, even from the
Baron, could get him to compete. Siegfried knew he engendered disgust in his
father and embarrassment in his brothers. He had grown into a charming rogue.
The Baron blamed it on the British and their effete schools.

"Thank goodness the British don't count for anything
anymore," the old Baron would say, usually in connection with any
discussion of Siegfried. The old man always expressed his pride in having sent
his two younger sons to the Americas, Albert to the States, Rudi to Argentina.

"I saw Germany falling," he had explained.
"It was not the first time I was involved in the end of a chapter. It was
simply another catastrophic wrenching of the old order. There would be hard
times ahead. One could not depend on Germany as a growth environment."

Like the Rothschilds. Sending sons everywhere.
"Perhaps the von Kassels picked up a splash of Yiddish blood during the Holy Land crusades," Siegfried had said on numerous occasions.

Albert's sense of doubt had grown stronger as he grew
older. He felt like a stranger in his own family, and the realization that he
no longer loved Dawn only added to his alienation. Was he doomed to bounce
between new women, like some vampire picking up sustenance by draining the
emotional blood of his victims?

Reaching the lobby level, he walked swiftly through the
deserted corridor to a side entrance. Muted voices and soft violin music came
from a distance, punctuated by a sporadic burst of drunken laughter. Outside
the air was clear, filled with the perfume of sleeping plants. He moved quickly
beyond the puddle of light thrown by the entrance lamps, proceeding over the
gravel path to the darkened tennis courts, where he paused, looking back on the
castle sprinkled with flickering window lights, an odd gothic caricature, like
an abandoned movie set.

He was so absorbed in his own thoughts, he had not heard
her footsteps approach, only her voice emerging out of the light.

"I went the wrong way," Olga said. He saw the
outline of her face, sharply etched in the moonlit night. She had wrapped
herself in a shawl. "They are still carousing in the bar."

"My brother?"

"Yes. And the fat one."

"Adolph."

He waited, testing her tact. But she was silent.

"Did they see you?"

"I looked in. But I'm not sure." She paused again
as if an explanation was required. He felt compelled to oblige, knowing she had
also seen Dawn there.

"We had words," he said. He moved beside her and
they began to walk the path that skirted the tennis courts.

"The air is wonderful here," she said, ignoring
the confession. He heard the force of her lungs' intake. "Moscow is also getting polluted."

"So it's true even in the brave new world?" he
asked, rhetorically.

"He reminded me of Wolfgang. Your father," she
said.

"Was my uncle that serious?"

"Extremely. In a way they are three peas in a pod.
Your aunt, Wolfgang, your father."

"Wolfgang was the oldest." Albert instantly
regretted the remark. But the obscene image of her with the ancient wrecked man
must have been lying on the surface of his mind. Am I jealous?

"He was good to me," she said, responding
quickly, as if the remark needed an apology.

"I didn't mean to imply..." he began, but she
interrupted him.

"He was fifty years my senior. By any standard it was
an absurdity. He shared his flat with my family for nearly thirty years. Since
before I was born. I thought he was my uncle." She laughed. Was she
mocking him? Why the compulsion to tell? Perhaps she too wanted to start clean.

"I knew all the von Kassel stories before I was able
to read. He would sit for hours and tell us about his early life in Estonia, cursing the decadence and brutality of his family. It was as if he had always the
need to work himself up to his hate, like restoking old ashes. You were all
monsters, the lot of you. Brutes. Killers. Acquisitive. Greedy. Obsessed with
perpetuation."

"And did tonight's activities reaffirm his
opinion?"

Olga paused momentarily, a sigh escaping her lips.

"It is not easy to transfer hate," she answered.
"Observing through my own eyes, I thought the spectacle fascinating. The
family obsession has quite a bit of raw power. To the end, Wolfgang could not
get it out of his system. It seemed the dominant theme of his life." She
hesitated and he felt she wanted to say more. After a moment she went on.
"He made me promise to come. A death promise. Never, I had decided. After
all that venom, why should I expose myself and my son to such monsters. I had
been with him to Estonia. I know your history, perhaps better than you.
Merchants of death, Wolfgang called you. Evil incarnate."

"Then why did you change your mind?"

She shrugged and was silent, stopping suddenly to face him
in the dark. He could not see her eyes, lost in the shadow of her brow.

"I'm not sure," she said, starting to walk again.

"The amazing thing is that they let you leave."
He remembered Mimi's earlier accusation.

"Now there is a question easily answered," she
said with a smile in her voice. "They let out only the ones they trust the
most. Wolfgang was an editor in an important publishing house. We were both
members of the Party. The bureaucratic machine moves slightly faster when one
has those credentials."

"I hadn't realized your dedication," Albert said.

"I didn't say that."

"A Party member? The assumption is there. Perhaps you
are even an agent."

"An agent?" There seemed an inadvertent quiver in
her voice.

"Or whatever."

"And I am infiltrating the ring of the sinister and
mysterious von Kassels?"

"There is some logic in it. We are in a business that
interests them. They are, you know, a party to our commerce. We sell their
products."

"Then you should be on your guard."

"I am," he paused. "More than you
think."