“Thank you, dear doctor,” she murmured, and smiled through her tears. Then the presence was gone. But she was no longer terrified or distracted. She sat down again, and waited for Karl’s return, positive he would come soon.
The unopened newspaper was still lying where she had dropped it. She picked it up, glanced idly through it, avoiding the larger and more vociferous columns. But there was no avoiding the largest. It leaped at her through the medium of a familiar name. The name of Captain Baldur von Keitsch.
She learned that he had been murdered two nights ago, in his apartment. Evidently he had been expecting feminine company, for he had dismissed his servants. When he had been alone, the murderer, or murderers had come. From the wording of the paragraph, Therese deduced that this was merely a repeating of news previously printed, which she had missed because of her disinterest in the newspapers. The Gestapo now had a clue. The clue shrieked from the paper. It seemed that a certain wealthy half-Jew in Berlin, a former publisher, had been seen entering the apartment building where von Keitsch had lived, at seven o’clock in the evening. This Jew had been importuning von Keitsch, whom he knew slightly, to intercede for him in order that he might continue his business. Von Keitsch’s kindness, the paper averred, was famous. (Oh, that smiling ominous man, thought Therese, with sickness.) The Jew, in his defense, had alleged that he was a convert to Christianity, and several of his “white-Jew” or Gentile friends had been interceding for him, and badgering von Keitsch. Von Keitsch had apparently, in his good-heartedness, invited the Jew to call upon him that evening, for a few moments, to discuss the matter with him. The Jew’s reply had been found among his papers, joyfully accepting the invitation. He had come; he had been seen. But no one in the building had seen him leave. Apparently von Keitsch, as gently as possible, had told the Jew that nothing could be done. Thereafter, there was no doubt that the foul Israelite had murdered him, out of wanton fury.
“But let not Jewry think it can escape the consequences of this dastardly crime!” shrieked the newspaper. “The hunt is on. When Baptist Werner is found, and his guilt confessed, the whole German nation shall take vengeance upon his race. Too long has Germany suffered in silence the crimes and outrages of this degenerate race! Let Jewry beware! The day of judgment has come for it!”
Therese experienced a wave of enormous illness. She sat down abruptly, the paper slipping from her hands. The poor, unfortunate, foolish broken wretch! Why had he done this thing? Did he not know that his whole race would suffer massacre, torture and flagellation for this? What had he done! No doubt he had been driven to despairing madness by the fiend to whom he had come, pleading. But he should have remembered the German people. He should have known what madmen there were abroad in Germany today. But he had lost his head. He had been seized by the pure and primitive reaction of all tormented creatures against their tormentors. One could not blame him. But he should have remembered.
The paper hypocritically implored the German people not to be premature in their revenge-seeking. The world was too often alleging these days that Germany was full of violence and injustice. Let the German people show the world their true dispassionateness and love of fairness. The law must take its course. Baptist Werner must be found. Then, and only then, would the German people take their vengeance on him and his race. “However,” pleaded the lying paper, “let there be order. The German people are no irrational Latins or brutal Englishmen. We are civilized.”
Therese flung the paper from her, add ground her heel in it. She had reached that lofty plane, now, where her own private miseries could be forgotten in the contemplation of universal calamity. She forgot Karl. She forgot her sorrows. She was filled with an active despair and apprehension for half a million Jews. She was glad that von Keitsch was dead. A poisonous serpent would no longer spew his venom. Germany had one enemy the less. But there were still the helpless Jews. If she could have given von Keitsch back his life, no matter what her private detestation and comprehension of him, she would have done so, for the sake of the victims.
While she sat there shivering, staring blindly through the window at the drifting mistlike snow, old Lotte came in.
“Frau Reiner has telephoned, Frau Doctor. She wishes to speak to you.”
“Frau Reiner!” Therese aroused herself. The old woman had never called her before. Therese had heard her frequently express her dislike for the telephone. “Telephones,” she had said, have done more to spread German women’s buttocks than anything else.” She had declared herself unable to use “the things.” But she had called, that was evident. It must be something about Kurt. Kurt was dead.
She went to the telephone, and answered it in a shaking voice. “Therese?” the old woman’s voice, sharp and hard, came clearly to her ears. “You must come at once. We need you. Something has happened.”
“Kurt?” asked Therese, faintly.
“Kurt? Nonsense. Not Kurt. He is dying, and taking a long time about it. But it is not Kurt.”
Pure terror clutched Therese’s heart. “Karl? You have found Karl? He left the house this morning …”
Now the old woman’s voice was loud and furious. “Karl? You have not watched him? You have left him out of your sight? Where is he, you careless, silly woman? Where is my Karl?”
Relief flooded Therese. She sank down into a chair, her dry lips quivering. Then it was not Karl. She forced her voice to be calm. “Do not be so excited, dear Frau Reiner. Nothing is wrong. He went out for a walk; his strength seems to be returning. I—I thought for a moment he had had an accident, and they had somehow notified you.…”
There was a little humming silence. Then Frau Reiner said in a lower and fainter tone: “I am glad there is nothing wrong with Karl. Forgive me, Therese. Will you please come at once?” Now the tone was commanding again.
“Yes, certainly. I shall come immediately.”
But when she mounted the stairs to her room, her limbs failed her. She was forced to sit down on the steps. Sweat poured down her face. The sickness was thick in her vitals. Prostration paralyzed her whole body. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. One cannot go on this way, she thought, in the throes of reaction. Behind her closed lids the face of Gilu appeared, huge, fire-rimmed, grinning, filling all the darkness of the universe with a wide evil smile. His empty sockets were gutted with flame.
Finally she was able to gather some strength. She went to her room and put on her hat and coat, picked up her muff. Under her hat, and between the soft pale waves of her hair, her face was dwindled and small, as though she had been through a prolonged illness.
33
The snow pervaded the world with a spectral light. Therese dimly remembered her grandmother’s house, where long dripping bead fringes had filled every doorway. She had delighted to run through them, feeling them whip against her face and run over her body. She thought of them now. The snow was like that: long skeins touching her face, blowing about her. The snowy wind blocked her breath; fingers of ice darted down her furry collar. The streets were almost deserted. Mechanically, she peered at every one she met, hoping it was Karl. But he was nowhere. The air grew colder and sharper; pellets of ice mingled with the snowflakes, stinging her forehead and cheeks. She put up her muff to shelter herself, bending against the wind. The physical exertion made her blood flow more strongly, blew away her almost constant headache. She was quite calm, really invigorated, by the time she reached Kurt’s ornamental but gloomy house. She thought, with a sort of pale wonder, that during that walk she had thought of nothing, nothing at all. In not thinking was peace and strength.
The servant who opened the door had a white excited face. Servants always gloated over misfortune, the vulgar creatures! They derived a sadistic, if, at times, sympathetic pleasure, from the miseries of their employers. Was it a hidden desire for revenge for injustices and harshness? Or just the plebeian reaction to all sorrow and calamity? Therese asked for Frau Reiner, and was led upstairs.
The unusual shrouded qui
et of the house frightened her. It was as though death were already here. She expected to see a bier through every open doorway. Where was Maria? Thick curtains were half-drawn against the half-light and the relentless snow. Occasionally there was a faint hollow echo, undetermined. She passed a mirror, and saw the silent shadow of herself in its somber depths. The air was chill. It was a deserted house.
There was another unusual fact: Frau Reiner’s door was shut. Therese knocked. The old woman’s voice peremptorily bade her enter. She opened the door. A dull red fire burned on the black-marble hearth. The old beldame was in her usual place by the window. But Therese saw, even in that uncertain light, that the old woman’s face, though still indomitable, had subtly altered, had lost color even under its thick crimson rouge.
“Come in, Therese,” she said, in a changed voice. “And close the door tightly after you. Thank you. Sit close to me.”
Therese sat down. Her nostrils tightened instinctively against the mingled odors of ancient flesh and heavy exotic scent. The firelight danced on Frau Reiner’s multitudinous rings and bracelets, showed the artificial tint of her elaborately curled hair.
“Ah,” said the harridan, “it is good to see the impeccable gnädige frau. Such fortitude and quietness.” Her tone was cynical and jeering as usual, but Therese saw immediately that it was forced.
“What can I do? What has happened?” she asked.
Frau Reiner bent towards her, and whispered, her eyes probing Therese’s pale face. “My grandson, Wilhelm, is dying.”
Therese choked back a sudden hard cry. She clenched her hands. Her face became rigid. But she said nothing, merely staring at the old woman.
Frau Reiner nodded somberly. “Yes. Last night he took a large dose of sleeping tablets. He must have stolen them from his father’s room. The doctor and Maria are with him now, and his brother, that red-cheeked idiot!”
Therese cried: “But why? Oh, why?”
The old woman said nothing. Her shrivelled, Gilu-like face darkened, shrank. “You will hear, yourself. First, I want you to hear.”
Tears rolled down Therese’s face. “Poor Maria,” she whispered. But she told herself that she was the guilty one. Poor Wilhelm, she thought. Poor, wretched, bewildered, agonized boy. She said: “Perhaps they can save him.”
Frau Reiner clicked her false teeth grimly. “No! They can do nothing. He wants to die. So, they cannot save him. Besides, it is well if he dies.”
The old woman tapped her black silk bosom, laden with its lockets and chains. “He left a note. I have it here. They think it disappeared. They have searched frantically for it. They have turned the whole house out. I have helped them look. It is here. You shall read it, later.”
There was a prolonged silence in the dusky, red-lit room. Therese wiped away the stream of tears she could not halt. The blackness of grief filled her heart. The grief seemed to float out of her body and encompass the whole suffering world. Through her tears she gazed at Frau Reiner, and all at once her dislike of the old woman was washed away. She saw that there was something heroic, something strong and powerful and steadfast about the harridan, something immutable. She felt that she had in her hands something terrible and momentous, and that nothing would shake her. Therese realized that the old were not really defeated by life, but that in some strange way they had mastered it, and could control it.
The house stood transfixed in horror, as though it had an enormous mouth open on a great gasp. Beyond this room lay the dying Kurt, and beyond him, the dying Wilhelm. The whole house was dying. And in the midst of this awful dissolution sat this indomitable grave old woman, aware of everything, in control of everything. She was not frightened. She was the human spirit, fully comprehending, stern and inexorable, which calamity could not overpower, could not turn aside.
Therese listened to the silence of the house. Apparently, nothing was stirring in it. The snow whispered at the windows, and the light steadily darkened. Suddenly, Therese thought to herself: I am sick of living. If only I could die!
Frau Reiner watched her. The gibing, cynical look was no longer on her mummified painted face. Rather, it was full of gravity. They were two women who understood each other. “I have called you for a specific reason, Therese,” she said in a low voice. She fumbled for her gold-headed cane, and painfully rose to her feet, her black silk rustling about her, her chains and bracelets jingling. “Come with me.”
Therese felt that she could not rise, so weak were her limbs. But Frau Reiner stood above her, seeming to tower, for all her shrunken smallness, seeming to command. So Therese got to her feet. Frau Reiner leaned on her arm and shoulder. “Come with me,” she repeated.
They left the room together, slowly, feebly. The hall outside was deserted. Again, Therese heard the faint hollow echoing from the depths of the house. She heard the wind sobbing at the windows and the eaves.
They passed Kurt’s door. There was only silence behind it. They approached Wilhelm’s door. Frau Reiner opened it noiselessly, without knocking. Therese saw the room, where only a dim light burned near the white motionless bed. Wilhelm lay there, his young emaciated face already fixed in the mask of approaching death, his eyes sunken in purple pits. On one side of the bed sat Maria, a frozen statue of grief, with bent head, tearless. On the other side stood Alfred in his uniform, the black swastika on his arm. The doctor was listening to Wilhelm’s pulse, and gazing fixedly at the dying boy’s face.
Alfred was the only one who looked up as his grandmother and aunt entered. He inclined his head courteously to Therese, and then shook it, as though warning her not to make a sound. Therese came to the foot of the bed, still supporting Frau Reiner. She stared heavily at Wilhelm. Her only thought was: He is at peace. At last, he is at peace.
Guilty pain divided her heart, and she told herself that she had had a part in this. But after a moment she was not sorry. Such as Wilhelm could not live in this frightful world. They were better out of it. One might almost rejoice at their release.
She turned to Maria and whispered her name. After a long moment the distracted mother lifted her head and regarded Therese blindly. Her face was white putty. Anguish had sharpened her blunt features. In her eyes was a tortured question. And something else. Therese saw that this was a terrible and frenzied fear. The poor woman did not see Therese fully. She seemed engrossed in some awful preoccupation, in which her spirit wrestled frantically behind her dry broken face. But she did not appear to breathe.
The doctor lifted his hand warningly. “He is becoming conscious again,” he whispered.
A change had come over the poor boy’s sunken face. The purple lids were fluttering, the gray lips moving. His hands trembled, fumbled, on the white counterpane. A pulse leapt to life in his temple. His struggle to awaken was horrible to contemplate. Strange sounds came from his throat, as his will wrestled with death for the privilege of a last word, a last cry.
Therese could not bear it. Faintness seized her. She caught the post of the bed. She covered her eyes with her hand. The floor seemed to sink under her. She lost consciousness of where she was.
Finally, she dropped her hand. Wilhelm was gazing steadfastly at her. He knew her. He was aware of her. From his pillow his gray sunken eyes regarded her sternly, inexorably, not with accusation, but as though he was willing for her to hear him, as though once again he was trusting her.
She understood. Her whole soul cried out soundlessly to him, knowing mysteriously that he heard: “Wilhelm! I shall not fail you again. Forgive me for failing you before, but I did not understand. I understand now. Only trust me!”
A strange, sweet, peaceful smile lifted the boy’s gray swollen lips. He had heard. Therese, through her tears, returned his smile, leaned towards him.
He tried to speak. The doctor shook his head. “No, no,” he said, gently. With a deep dry sob, Maria took her son’s hand, cold and already dead, and kissed it frenziedly, rubbing her cheek against it, turning it over and pressing her mouth passionately to the palm. Bu
t Wilhelm did not look at her, or at any one else but Therese.
There was a faint sound in the room, like the rustling of a withered leaf. It was Wilhelm, whispering.
“Aunt Therese.” The sound could hardly be heard.
“Yes, Wilhelm,” she said, forcing herself to stop her weeping. “Oh, yes, my darling.”
He struggled to lift himself towards her, as though what he had to say must be heard and completely understood. The doctor pressed him back. The secret terror that had Maria sprang into the open, like a flame. She glared at Therese. “Go away!” she cried, loudly savagely. “Leave us alone! Leave me alone with my child. We do not want you here!” She half-flung herself across Wilhelm’s thin body, as though to protect him from some most dreadful danger with which Therese threatened him.
Then Frau Reiner spoke, coldly, clearly: “I have brought Therese here. I have brought her here to listen to Wilhelm.”
Then Maria, crimson of face, insane of eye, made mad by her fear and hatred and agony, turned to her mother, and called her a foul and unspeakable name. The name rang through the death chamber like the cry of some unclean beast. The two women, mother and daughter, regarded each other in the sickening silence after that one cry. Maria, fat and bloated and broken, panted from her position half across the bed. She had flung her arms about her son, and one of her hands was on his lips. Her panting filled the silence with a tearing, bubbling sound.
But Frau Reiner, leaning on her cane, was an inexorable figure of doom at the foot of the bed. She was no longer ridiculous and obscene in her outmoded finery and ornaments and dye and rouge. She was judgment, which would not be turned aside, which was immovable, dignified, filled with splendor. Her old wrinkled face was grave, even noble, and not without pity.
Alfred, no longer red cheeked, no longer composed, but also seemingly filled with Maria’s own mysterious terror, turned to Therese and his grandmother.
“You can see that you must leave at once,” he said, coldly, fixing them with his pitiless eye. He made a motion towards them, his hand outstretched. Frau Reiner turned to him, sternly, with a calm fierceness. She lifted her cane like a weapon.