“I have.” I do not admit that I’ve not opened today’s letter, instead focusing on things that Stefan wrote last week. “They’ve apparently got a good deal of snow in Berlin, much more so than here.”
He nods. “Uncle Walter said the same. I’m sure you are eager to return to him. Stefan that is, not Uncle Walter.” I smile at this. My mother’s brother has never been a favorite of mine. “How is he?” Papa asks, an unmistakable note of fondness to his voice. Papa always liked Stefan—their gentle personalities were well suited to each other. Stefan did not share Papa’s razor-sharp intellect, but he always listened with rapt attention to Papa talk about the latest article he was writing.
“He’s working very hard at rehabilitation. He’s even managed to stand up a few times.”
“That’s remarkable. He wasn’t expected to live, so to get out of a chair is really something. Perhaps he’ll even get around with a walker someday. What an extraordinary young man.”
A pang of jealousy shoots through me. In some ways, Stefan is the son Papa never had. Not that Stefan could follow Papa into academia. The Osters were a once well-to-do banking family that had fallen on hard times. Stefan, as the oldest of four children and the only son, has been expected to somehow restore the family to a better station. We had hoped that he might join Uncle Walter and run one of the plants. But imagining him trying to navigate around the heavy machinery of the factory floor with a walker seems quite impossible now.
“He is doing really well,” I say, but something nags at me. “Do you think he is damaged, beyond his legs, I mean? His letters just feel a little off.” Papa wrinkles his brow, as if asking me to say more. But I can’t quite articulate my concern.
“It’s the war, darling. Give him time.” I nod. Stefan is such a good man. My heart breaks for the things he has seen and suffered. I cannot help but wonder, though, whether he will ever be whole again.
“Hopefully the conference will move quickly and we can return to Berlin soon so you can see him.”
I swallow over the lump that has formed in my throat. “Hopefully.”
“Good night, dear.” He walks to the desk and reaches for a stack of papers. Despite his slight size and quiet demeanor, Papa has always been the strongest man I’ve known. Not just strong: brave. Once when I was about six we’d been walking our German shepherd, Gunther, through the Tiergarten when a large stray confronted us, blocking the path ahead. My first instinct had been to leap back in fear. But Papa moved forward placing himself between gentle Gunther and the snarling beast. In that moment, I understood what it took to be a parent, in a way I might never quite be able to manage myself.
He has given up so much to raise me. After Mother died, it would have been logical for him to leave my upbringing to Tante Celia or governesses. But instead he had cut short his schedule at the university, declining to teach in the late afternoon and evening, and taking his work home so he could read alongside me. He had made me a part of his journeys and declined the opportunities where he could not because the destinations were too far-flung or the travel unsafe or good schools not available. There were times, I could tell, that conversation was too much and he was eager to escape into his work from the harshness of everyday life and the pain that he carried. He made sure, though, that I was never alone.
But now, hunched over the desk, he appears vulnerable. I am seized with the urge to reach down and hug him. Instead, I place a hand on his shoulder. He looks up, startled by my unexpected touch. We have never been very physically affectionate. “Good night, Papa.”
I return the dinner tray to the hall, then carry the lamp to my room so that Papa can work in the sitting room uninterrupted. I pull out the volume of Goethe I’d purchased from the bookseller and run my hand over the cover. Stefan would love it—or would have, once upon a time. We had always shared a deep passion for books and our families were frequently amused to find us sitting together under a tree in the garden or in the parlor, reading silently side by side, each lost in our own world. But is he even reading now? And would the book, with its references to death and suffering, just make things worse for him? I set it down on the table.
Stefan’s letter sits on the dresser. Reluctantly I open it.
Dearest Margot—
I can tell from the almost illegible script that he has tried to write himself this time instead of having the nurse do it.
I hope that this letter finds you well. Exciting news:
Father is modifying the cottage and building an extension for us so we can live there after the wedding.
I cringe. Stefan is immobilized in a wheelchair—of course he cannot return to the Berlin town house with its many narrow stairs. I recall the Osters’ vacation cottage, a two-room house on the edge of a maudlin lake, more than an hour from the city. Are we really to live in the middle of nowhere? How will he earn a living?
I finger the ring that Stefan gave me before leaving for the front. I should have gone to be with him, a voice inside me nags for the hundredth time. I had good reasons for not going—first the war and later the railway lines and now Papa being summoned to Paris. There were ways I might have gone, though, if I pushed hard enough. But I hadn’t, instead embracing the excuses like a mantle, shielding myself from the truth that inevitably awaits. I slip the ring from my finger and put it in my pocket.
I fold the letter and put it back into the envelope without reading further.
A scrap of paper falls from the envelope and flutters to the floor. A photograph. I pick it up, wishing he had not sent it. He meant it as a good thing, sitting up in the wheelchair and smiling as if to say, Look how far I’ve come. In some ways it is better than the man I see in my nightmares, but his face is a stranger’s to me, the hollow eyes confirming everything I fear about our future together.
Perhaps being in Paris is not the worst thing, after all.
Copyright © 2012 by Pam Jenoff
ISBN-13: 9781460325346
THE WINTER GUEST
Copyright © 2014 by Pam Jenoff
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Pam Jenoff, The Winter Guest
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