Blood Ties (29 page)

Mornings after always brought contrition and Siegfried
waited for the expected response. In fact, he longed for it, and was frightened
that it had not arrived by now. Thankfully, Heather had ignored him as she
busied herself with the ritual of her morning ablutions, always quick and to
the point. The real grooming was reserved for her horses.

When she had gone into the bathroom, he pushed himself from
the pit of his bed and poured himself a half glass of whiskey with a shaking
hand, slopping some liquid on his chin as he forced it down, feeling the
burning sensation in his queasy gut, enduring the discomfort, certain of the
impending medicinal effect.

Standing by the window, he waited for it to arrive, squinting
into the light. When his eyes focused, he saw the line of shiny cars below.

But the desired effects did not come soon enough, and he
had to reach for the bottle and repeat the dose.

"Damned fool," Heather said, emerging from the
bathroom in her robe, drying her hair. He ignored her, turning again to the
window, unlatching it, letting the cool mountain air fill his lungs, steadying
him. But contrition would not come.

"You had better get dressed," Heather said, but
the words did not make him stir. Even a sojourn in the void of his drunkenness
had not been able to kill the beast of his anger. He felt it claw at his gut.
Somewhere in the center of him the equilibrium faltered. He knew that the beast
would have to kill, to draw blood, if he was ever to live in peace with it.

In the car, he watched the parade of familiar landscape,
unmoved even by the nostalgia of a remembered boyhood. He had detested his
visits back home. And the unending display of symbols and pomposity. The death
cult of the von Kassels! He had always known that those dead ancestors, bones
rotting in that hallowed real estate in Estonia, were strangers. Damn them all.

Disembarking, he felt the bite of the still chill morning.
Siegfried stood and watched Garth put the chairs on the grassy knoll while the
Baron and Karla moved slowly to the spot. Once they were seated, Garth had
wrapped them tenderly in blankets and there they sat, the King and Queen,
surveying the von Kassel domain. As always ... the people and the land. Enjoy
this last glimpse, Father, he screamed within himself.

In his mind he felt the clock's hand move toward midnight.
The hour struck. The ground rumbled beneath his feet. The time is now, he heard
himself say, moving upward toward the thrones of the von Kassels, drawing the
deadly sword of his anger.

Karla's eyes caught him as he moved and he saw her rise and
the brief movement of his father's hand reaching out to stop her. Her actions
were surprisingly quick, belying her age. For her, there could be no mistaking
his intention.

"No," she said when he had reached her.

"You can't stop me. Not now. Or ever again." He
tried to move past her, but she blocked his way.

"It is futile," he said, feeling the full fury of
his anger, his figurative fist around the sword's handle.

"I know you have killed her." Yet it was not his
mother he was avenging. "And that devil is going to know it ... he's going
to know everything. Everything!"

"He is blameless..." she began, holding his arm.
He tried to shake her loose, but the grip was as strong as a beast's claw.

"Blameless?" The word came rumbling from the
center of himself, as if the ground's heat poured upward through his legs. He
could hear the word shout into the stillness of the valley.

"Please Siegfried," she begged.

He tried to shake her away, but the claw held. He saw the
Baron's face, hoping to find in it the hint of Armageddon. It is the devil's
face, he told himself, letting the anger engulf him now. Confused, the Baron
struggled to his feet.

"He is mad, Charles," Karla shouted.

She still clung to him, the claw was a vise.

"Karla..." It was his father's voice, abruptly
silenced by some inner blow, as the old man clutched his chest and toppled.

"Not yet!" he shouted, dragging her forward.
Still she held him, the strength of her grip like a stone anchor. The Baron's
face was chalk white and he could hear the lungs' agony. The others started to
move toward them.

"His medicine!" The realization goaded him. It
was she holding herself back. The seconds delay took its toll.

They reached him in time to hear death rattle in his
throat. It was only then that she released his arm.

The others came running. He saw Albert bending over the
prostrate form, holding the thin wrist, looking into the open unseeing eyes.

"Let me," Karla whispered. Albert looked up at
her, his face calm. He raised an arm, palm vertical, the familiar gesture of
"halt."

"Enough," he said. "It is all over now. I'll
attend to it."

Siegfried watched as she stiffened, a figure as implacable
as the stone boulders strewn on the high plateau. Were her eyes laughing? He
could not tell whether the churning in his gut was a hemorrhage or a sob.

Albert had instructed the undertaker to bring the body in
its coffin to the rectory of the castle, where it lay now on a raised pedestal
of low tables, draped in the banner of the Old Order. Hans had brought down the
colors from its place over the turret and it rested forlornly, breezeless, on
the wooden mound.

The King is dead. Long live the King. He felt the sense of
it in himself. He had already steeled himself for the ceremonial
justifications, the ritualization of the passage, and decided now that however
hypocritical, he would not deprive them of some measure of the old symbols.

The suddenness of death spared him the brunt of the ordeal,
and relief mingled with his pose of sorrow. Or was it a pose? Actually,
considering his knowledge, he could still define the outlines of loss within
himself.

On the plateau, Rudi had told him of the visit with his
father and had tried to explain what Mimi had done. A doctor from the nearby
town had come to sedate her and he had left her in the castle in the care of a
nurse.

"The shock..." he began, telescoping the message.
"She is not a killer."

He saw in the man the terror of the boy, the hurts and slights
of a lifetime. He could understand that, and he put an arm around his brother's
broad back.

"It's all right, Rudi," he said, surprised at the
fidelity of his affection, and the burden of his compassion. The biological
bond held its own mysterious compulsion. Perhaps he could absorb his brother's
pain.

"I'll make it right, Brother," Rudi pleaded,
sensing the bond.

"I know."

It was Rudi who helped him carry the lifeless body of the
Baron and place it gently in the back seat of the limousine. Garth, his face
tearstained and gray, helped them ease the body onto the soft cushions.

In the act of assuming the responsibility for the details
of the funeral, Albert knew he had made the symbolic gesture of command. Adolph
met him at the castle's entrance on his return.

"It is settled then with Rudi?" he asked. The
Baron's death had left him unmoved. Only affirmation was essential.

"Yes."

His puddled chin quivered as he allowed himself the luxury
of a broad but brief smile.

"So he was not as clever as he suspected," Adolph
said. "A fool to the end."

"Yes," Albert agreed. "A fool to the
end."

"He will cooperate in every way?"

"Of course."

"Well then," Adolph sighed. "Then perhaps it
will be business as usual again."

"Yes, Adolph. Business as usual." Albert paused,
observing the ravages of gluttony and greed, turning his face away in disgust.
"We will discuss it after the service."

"Of course." Adolph said, stepping aside in
deference.

Only when he thought of Olga did his courage falter. Their
eyes had met as they boarded the cars. He had deliberately chosen to go with
Wilhelm and his wife to avoid any confrontation that would mar the day, and he
had brooded in impolite silence on the journey to the plateau. Mimi's act of
madness had demonstrated a danger to Aleksandr that, in the full light of
morning, could tip the scales of her decision. And the drama of the Baron's
death had again postponed his receiving it. Only that frightened him.

But what he had decided for the future of the von Kassels
was irrevocable. He knew what he had to do.

In the things that he could control he was decisive. He had
made his arrangements for a proper but swift service to be held in the rectory,
and he had secured the services of a local minister. To preside at the funeral
of so distinguished a personage took little persuasion. Then he had gone to his
room, spending the better part of the afternoon making phone calls.

Everything had gone smoothly, including the activation of
arrangements for shipment of the coffin for burial in Estonia. That, he knew,
would be the final irony. Other details followed in sequence. His New York
office was alert. There was the matter of the plutonium, the delicate
maneuvering that would provide Rudi with the last act of his penance. Then
there were the legal formalities. And, above all, they must leave this place
before the great eye of the press cyclops opened.

The knock on the door had surprised him. He had given Hans
strict orders that he not be disturbed and had set the hour of the funeral
service precisely so that the family could prepare in mood and dress. Olga?
Despite his concentration, she lingered on the surface of his mind. Not yet, he
hoped, thankful that it was Siegfried instead. His brother was abject, pale,
his eyes bloodshot and swarmy. The smell of liquor preceded his entrance.
Thoughts of Siegfried had not been among his priorities.

"I am sorry, Brother," Siegfried said, his voice
hoarse as he moved unsteadily into the room. His hands shook, and his eyes
looked furtively toward the liquor bottles.

"Help yourself," Albert said.

"I can't carry it alone, Albert," he pleaded. He
gulped a glass of whiskey and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He
started to speak, then collapsed in a nearby chair. In the sad figure, Albert
could glimpse the burden of truth and what had nagged at him concerning Dawn's
knowledge resurfaced again in his mind. Of course! The revelation stirred his
feeling.

"Dawn told me," Albert said, sparing his brother
the pain of telling. Siegfried nodded, exploring his brother's face, thankful
for the calm.

"But I saw her," he said weakly.

"So did I, Brother," Albert replied gently, the
ashen face of the dead woman recalling the horror. Did he know? Even in his
drunkenness Siegfried read his thoughts.

"I could have saved her," Siegfried sobbed.
"I could have stopped it."

Moved, Albert came toward him and they embraced.

"It was inevitable," he said, sharing the pain
now.

"Mama..." The word gurgled up from Siegfried's
throat, memory's slumber disturbed.

"I know," Albert said, feeling for the first time
the terrible loss of that pure love.

He could feel too the pulse of the shared womb as the
brothers clung together, consoling each other. Albert stirred first, raising
himself.

"But we are still family," he said.

Siegfried nodded as Albert helped him to his feet.

"Now pull yourself together. There is still a life to
be lived. After all, what's in a name?" Albert said. He was surprised to
see his own smile mirrored in his brother's face. The alcohol fog seemed to
lift and Siegfried wiped his eyes. They embraced again and Albert led him to
the door.

"I was going to tell him," Siegfried said.
"I wanted him to turn in his grave."

"Perhaps he will just the same."

"She protected him to the end. She allowed him to
die," Siegfried said. "Perhaps that, too, was inevitable."

They embraced again and Albert shut the door behind him.

Albert had waited until the minister finished the brief
service and the coffin was carried out of the rectory. The family did not stir.
With the exception of Mimi, everyone was present, including the children.
During the service, he had stolen a glance at the assemblage, the appropriately
somber faces, awed in the presence of death. The women, all except Olga, were
heavily veiled. There they were. The von Kassels, wallowing in the cult of
death.

When the coffin had disappeared and the door to the rectory
was closed, he stood up. He could feel the stir as his voice pervaded the room.

"We have stayed together as a family for more than
eight hundred years," he began. It was as if the spirit of the old man had
refused to leave with his remains. The room seemed to pulse with a communal
heartbeat. Olga's face shined out at him, mysterious and lovely. "And we
will remain as a family. But the mutuality and self-interest that hold us together
will be somewhat different." He paused, determined to provide the full
impact of his meaning. "Henceforth, as of this moment, we will never again
deal in armaments or any other weapons of destruction." The tension eased
in a low mumble, like the cresting of a wave. He let it happen. "As of
now, the liquidation of all von Kassel stocks of weapons will begin."

His sense of authority was a decree and he knew that the
others would bend to it, as they had bent to the Baron's will and to that of
other von Kassels before him. Olga's face reached him, penetrating the
subsiding stir, as the wave broke, washed over them. Was love as powerful as
hate, he wondered? As blood? He left the rectory and walked out into the
sunlight of the waning day, wrestling with his doubts.

Knowing that it would be the last time for him in this
place, Albert picked his way through the trail to the lake, his mother's watery
grave. He was calm now. The inner pain and terror had disappeared. Yet the one
thing he coveted eluded him, even now, contemplating his mother's destroyed
life. He could imagine her suffering abstractly, suspecting that there was
comfort to her only in her sense of martyrdom.

He watched the shadows darken across the lake. Where had
her soul gone? He lost track of time and it was only the last fleeting ray of
the sun crossing his vision that recalled his sense of place, and he started
moving toward the castle. He wondered how many of the others had left already,
gone back to a new life, cleansed at last of the need to deal in death. The von
Kassels would celebrate life now, pursuits and enterprises that enriched,
embellished. He looked at his watch. It was nearly time.

The man was waiting near the old castle entrance, his car
parked at the point where the bridge spanned what once was the castle moat.
Albert took it and nodded.

"So small?" he said.

The man said nothing in response, walking quickly to his
car. Albert felt its cold smoothness. It seemed light, almost weightless.

He had asked Karla to meet him at the bridge at seven,
expecting her to be precise. Von Kassels respected time. Without turning, he
heard her soft step behind him.

When he turned he saw her gray haggard face, drained now,
the age fully revealed in each etched line.

"I have come," she said, as if it were necessary
for her to assure herself that she had been the one to command the meeting. He
could see in her face all the traits before which he had cowered all his life,
disdain, contempt, arrogance.

"It is the one special joy I have," he said.
"I no longer have to call you Aunt."

She said nothing, suddenly discovering what he held in his
hand. Her eyes flickered understanding.

"He won't be going back to Estonia," he said,
holding up the urn. She shrugged. He had wanted to see her daunted, but she
gave him no satisfaction. She was obdurate, hard as flint. He could find not a
shred of remorse.

"Damn you," he said.

They had been standing at the bridge's edge. He overturned
the urn and spread the ashes in his palm, closing his fist over them.

"A handful of dust. That's all he was. That's all we
are." He raised his fist, then flung the remains into the gully that had
once been a moat.

"Von Kassel. That's what he was," she said,
watching the ashes dissipate in the air.

"A state of mind," he said, searching suddenly
for arguments.

"A family," she hissed. "It can only be held
together by blood or hate."

He shivered, watching her receding back. Again he marveled
at her strength, the defeated age. The darkness was coming quicker now and he
let her put distance between them, then he proceeded up the path to the
castle's entrance.

Olga must have been watching. She came quickly, blocking
his way.

"I searched for you," she said. "I looked
everywhere."

"Did you think I had gotten lost?" he said.

"For a moment." She put her arms around him. He
felt her love in the strength of the embrace. "Now let us give the power
of love a chance," he murmured.

"What's that, my darling?"

"I was just thinking, perhaps a bit too loud."

It was then that he heard the boy's voice.

"Mama, Mama," it cried from the darkness.

Touching her, he wondered if the ashes would dirty her
dress.