“The best thing to believe, Gail, is that his brain snapped suddenly under the strain, and that he wasn’t entirely responsible for what he did.”
“Are you saying this to make it easier for me to bear?”
“Not only for you—for myself, too. And what little we know for certain does fit that theory. The phone call he made to me just beforehand ... he sounded like a man at the end of his tether.”
“Tell me about that. Raimund mentioned it, but he wasn’t very clear about what had been said.”
“Neither am I.” Anton passed a hand across the back of his neck, as if to ease a tension. It was so unexpected. I picked up the phone and Benedict was on the line.”
“Please try to remember what he said.”
“It’s difficult, but I’ll do my best. I know he started off, “Is that you, Anton? Listen, I’ve got to make you understand.” And he rushed on about not being able to face up to it, things were beyond bearing ... that the only course left him was to end it all. I tried to reason with him, to ask him what it was all about, but he refused to listen to me. It was too late for arguments and evasions, he insisted ... there was only one way out, and they were going to take it. That’s the sort of thing he kept saying, on and on in a jumble of words. I had no idea, of course, that by ‘we’ he meant Valencienne and himself. All I grasped was that he’d worked himself up into a state about something, and needed calming down. I expect Raimund told you that I tried to find him, but nobody had seen him that evening.” After a pause, Anton finished, “Next morning a fishing boat spotted the launch lying on the bottom of the lake. It was in quite shallow water.”
He had half turned away from me and was fingering some of the things on the small table beside the easel. But I knew his thoughts weren’t here. He was back to a morning, two months ago, when the surface calm he had painstakingly imposed upon his life had been shattered by brutal ugliness and scandal.
“You must feel very bitter against him,” I said in one breath.
It was a long moment before Anton replied. “I suppose I do. But to some extent I must blame myself.”
“You mean because you couldn’t find him that night?”
“No, not just that—for being blind. For being so absorbed in my work that I was unaware of a situation developing right under my nose. To that extent the responsibility was mine.”
“I think you’re being unfair to yourself,” I said impetuously.
“As I was unfair to you yesterday.”
“Oh that. But you couldn’t be expected to make a fair and unbiased judgement when you were suddenly confronted with Benedict Sherbrooke’s daughter.”
“At least,” he said, “I could have avoided being so disgustingly rude to you. I can only apologise.”
“Please, forget it.”
There was an oddly intent look in his eyes. “During the time I was in America I thought often of the English girl I met the day I left Zurich. I was on my way to the airport and I called in to collect an electric shaver I’d left for repair. As I came out of the shop, there you were.”
The episode was so vivid in my mind. I could recall every minute detail. “Do you need any help?” he had asked, and I’d spun around and he was there, looking in at me through the car window. I remembered being concerned that his grey suit was getting spotted with rain, but he hadn’t seemed to care. I’d liked his voice, I’d liked the look of him at once. And he’d smiled at me that day, just as he’d smiled at me yesterday, looking really pleased to see me again ... until that dreadful moment when he’d learned who I was.
I said lightly, “I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I was to have your help. If you hadn’t come along just then, I’d never have managed.”
“You would have.” He smiled, but his eyes were serious. “Do you know, I was very tempted to invite you to have coffee with me or something, and catch a later plane. Would you have accepted, Gail?”
“Perhaps,” I said, and my heart was pounding. “I expect so.”
I
knew so.
But what were we doing, discussing might-have-beens? I coughed away the huskiness in my throat and added quickly, “Until yesterday, all I knew about you was that you were Frau Kreuder’s stepson. It wasn’t until last night, when I was out with Raimund, that he told me about Valencienne and my father.”
“I realise that.” He gave me a long, steady, measuring look. “Do you like Raimund?”
“Yes, of course, he’s very pleasant.” Flustered by the candour of his gaze, I added teasingly, “I think he’s half afraid of you.”
“With good reason.”
“So it’s true, you do bully him.”
“Is that what he told you?”
“No, he didn’t. I just put two and two together.”
Anton said, after a moment’s careful thought, “Raimund missed having a father’s guiding hand during his late teens, and his mother spoiled him. It’s meant that he has developed the instincts of a playboy, and he has some strange ideas when it comes to ethical values.”
“He’s been very good to me,” I objected. “Very land.”
A look I couldn’t interpret flashed swiftly across Anton’s face.
“Raimund has the trick of winning sympathy, especially from beautiful girls.”
“You don’t seem to like your brother very much.”
“On the contrary, I’m very fond of him. That is why I am prepared to go to such lengths to save him from himself.”
There was a gravity in his tone that I found puzzling. “You make it sound as if Raimund has done something dreadful.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” Anton’s lips curved into a smile; but it was a forced smile, strained and unnatural. “Forget what I said, Gail.”
The seconds pulsed by in awkward silence. I was intensely aware of the barrier that stood between us, making it impossible for Anton Kreuder and me to be frank with one another. And yet, despite this, I felt strangely in sympathy with him. I could understand so much that he hadn’t put into words. Considering his youth at the time of his father’s death, it was forgivable that he should be a little overserious in carrying out the responsibilities entrusted to him. He’d had to bear the entire burden of running the family business, and at the same time watch over the upbringing of a young half-brother, whose crippled mother had been too ready to indulge him. As for the tragedy that linked our two lives, I felt a deep sense of compassion for Anton. He was trying desperately to be fair to my father, who, no matter what muddled reasons he might have had for what he did, no matter how little he could be held to blame, had brought down an avalanche of scandal and misery upon the Kreuder family. And especially upon Anton himself.
I found myself wondering about Anton’s relationship with Valencienne. I didn’t doubt that Anton Kreuder was a proud man, and I could guess how deeply his pride must have been wounded by the knowledge that his wife was unfaithful to him. Was it because he no longer loved Valencienne that he could so easily appear to accept her liaisons with other men? What sort of loyalty had bound him to Valencienne, when their marriage had failed in everything that counted? There were no children, and I wondered if this was her decision or his, her fault or his. And would children perhaps have cemented the marriage more securely?
Questions. Questions without answers.
Anton said, “What is that you’ve been clutching so tightly all this while?”
In surprise I stared down at my hands and found I was gripping the piece of wood that Willi had carved. Anton reached out to take it from me.
“What is it supposed to be?”
“A boat, I suppose. I found it here today, left lying on the bed. I think the boy Willi must have made it. He’s very clever at wood-carving.”
Anton turned the boat over, studying its shape from several angles. He said absently, not looking at me, “Does this mean you have met Willi?”
“I’ve seen him here twice, but not to talk with. He ran away both times.”
“You couldn’t talk to Willi,” Anton said. “Did you not realise that he’s deaf and dumb?”
Pity caught at my throat. It seemed such a horribly cruel fate.
“Is that really true?”
“I’m afraid it is. From birth.”
“The poor boy. I tried speaking to him in German, using the few words I know, but he didn’t respond at all. I thought it was because he was too scared. I wonder why Frau Kreuder didn’t mention to me that he was deaf and dumb.”
Anton darted me a curious look. “Should she have done?”
“Well, I mentioned that I’d seen a boy here at the chalet, and she told me that he’s called Willi, and is a bit simple-minded. But she didn’t say anything about this other disability.”
“I suppose she didn’t think it was relevant. I’ll have a padlock fitted on the door to keep him out.”
“Oh no, let him come. I believe he finds a sort of comfort here, a feeling of being close to my father. Have you noticed how immaculately tidy the chalet is? That could only have been Willi.”
Anton glanced around him. “He’s an odd lad. It’s impossible to know what goes on in Willi’s head.”
“In a strange sort of way, I think I do know. I get a strong impression that he really worshipped my father. Perhaps he was the only person who encouraged Willi with his wood-carving, and made him think he had talent.”
Anton looked dubiously at the crude boat in his hand. “And is he talented?”
“I’m sure of it. There’s a curiously vital quality about that carving that’s vaguely reminiscent of some African fetish masks I saw at an exhibition in London last year. It’s more than just a primitive representation of a boat. There’s something ... something tragic about it. I expect you’ll think I’m being fanciful again, but it’s as if the boy is trying to convey his feelings about my father’s death in the only way he can.”
Anton let a few moments of silence go by. Then, with a shrug, he turned and briskly laid the carving down on the table.
“I’ll take your word for it, Gail. But I shouldn’t give Willi any encouragement, if I were you. Otherwise, he’ll become a nuisance.”
“I won’t be
here
to encourage him,” I pointed out. But the thought was chilling now. My determination to leave right away seemed to lack point. The Kreuders
wanted
me to stay, or at least they wanted not to drive me away. So did I really have to go?
Yes, because I’d said I was going. I couldn’t backtrack now, couldn’t weakly announce that I’d changed my mind ... unless Anton asked me to, once again. I waited, my breath coming fast, and left the outcome to him.
His eyes, under the strongly marked brows, were strangely clouded as he looked at me.
“I was hoping, Gail, that what’s been said between us now would alter things for you. I’m asking you to stay on here for a while for my stepmother’s sake. I know she seems a person very much in control of herself, but Benedict’s death, and the circumstances of it, left her badly shaken. She likes you, I know she does, and it would be such a help to her if you didn’t rush away.”
It wasn’t enough that he should ask me to stay for Sigrid’s sake. I was greedy, I wanted more than that.
I looked back at him, a question in my eyes. But I dared not voice it, and said instead, “If you’re honest, you must wish in your heart that I’d clear off back to England and not trouble any of you again. Isn’t that so?”
Why did he take so long to answer? Why did he look past me into the shadowy corners of the room?
He said at last, “Gail, I’d like you to stay. Please say you will.”
My heart lurched oddly and I caught my breath. With a pretension of calm, I said, “I won’t go today, then. I’ll stay on for a while ... a few more days. Then we’ll have to see.”
Something fell to the floor with a thud. The boat, ill balanced where he’d hastily laid it, had fallen off the table. I bent and retrieved it, carrying it to the bed where Willi had left it for me to see. I took a small note pad from my handbag and ripped off a page. With a ballpoint pen I drew a rough sketch of a hand, fingers clenched and the thumb sticking up. This, surely, was a
symbol of approval he would understand? I propped it inside the boat.
Anton, waiting by the door, made way for me to pass.
“I’ll drive you back to the Schloss,” he said. “Sigrid will be delighted when we tell her that you are staying.”
I had been gazing too fixedly at the woman in the black Persian lamb coat. She murmured something to her companion and quietly withdrew her hand from his. He turned in his seat, recognised me, nodded and smiled. Confused at being caught staring, I gave my close attention to the guidebook about Zurich’s art galleries.
I couldn’t help wondering what Ernst Schiller was doing here with this strikingly elegant woman at eleven o’clock on a weekday morning. I myself had come to the Odeon to drink a cup of coffee and take a look at this most arty of the Zurich cafes. I liked its rather splendid ambience, still peopled as it were by the ghosts of literati long departed.
Presently, my eyes kept firmly down, I observed Ernst and the woman stand up to leave. He didn’t glance my way again as he guided her to the door with one hand held lightly under her elbow, and I watched them pass out into the street. A couple of minutes later, to my surprise, Ernst re-entered the cafe alone and came straight across to my table.
“Hello, Gail.
Wie geht’s?
May I join you?”
“Please do,” I said. “I thought you’d gone.”
“I just went outside to find a taxi for the lady,” he explained smoothly. “In a law practice like mine, it’s necessary to entertain one’s clients and pay them these little attentions.”
I let my eyebrows quirk sceptically. “I quite understand.”
“How kind of you.” His smile held a tentative question. ‘It isn’t everyone who would understand.”
“But then not everyone would
know,
would they?” I had no intention of carrying tales to Helga about her husband.
Ernst relaxed visibly. Signalling to a waiter, he drew out a chair and sat down.
“How fortunate that I have a little time before my next appointment. Now I am able to spend it in the company of another beautiful woman, one who happens to be a guest of my mother-in-law and therefore beyond suspicion.” He gave me a look of curiosity. “I gather there was something of an upset when Anton returned unexpectedly. Has he calmed down yet?”