Reflection (44 page)

“Didn't you feel any resentment?”

“Not at all. Peter sometimes struggled with the humiliation, but I would encourage him. I made sure he knew that I was content with my role. And I truly was. We stepped into a trap of sorts, I guess. The price of stepping out again was too high for both of us.” She tapped her fingers on her lips and looked out the window. “He felt such guilt, though. In the last few years of his life, he'd occasionally talk about letting the world know the truth, but I couldn't bear the thought of him being an object of scorn and ridicule. When I read the codicil to his will and saw that he wanted Karl Speicer to have the music, I knew he was up to something.

“You knew about the cipher?”

“I guessed. He and Hans were fascinated by ciphers. They'd sit up here for hours trying to work them out. But I vowed Hans would never—”

“Hans?” Rachel asked. Gram had to be confused. “The music was to go to Karl Speicer. Hans was your…friend, wasn't he? The man you—”

“Karl and Hans were one and the same,” Gram said. “I always called him Hans.”

Rachel's mind raced, trying to put together a puzzle when she knew she lacked too many of the pieces. “He was the pianist we saw then? That was Hans, the man you—”

Gram nodded.

“Oh, Gram, that concert must have been so painful for you.”

“Yes,” Gram said. “It was.”

She remembered reading in the biographical article on Karl Speicer that he'd been married for forty years. “I can understand it would be uncomfortable for you to have to contact him,” Rachel said. “But I could do it for—”

“No,” Gram said adamantly.

“I really think it's time you took credit for your work,” Rachel argued.

“No one will know, ever.”

“Forgive me, Gram, but you're being selfish. Maybe Karl—Hans—won't even notice the cipher. Chris had to use his computer to figure it out.”

“Hans could do it.”

“Maybe we could take out the part with the cipher, and—”

“No. I won't allow it.”

“But, Gram, it means so much to Reflection. So many people are going to be hurt if—”

Gram suddenly began to cry, and Rachel leaned forward, alarmed.

“I won't do it, Rachel,” Gram said. “I'm sorry, but I won't. Please just burn the folder. Forget you ever saw it.”

“But Peter wanted Hans to see it.”

“No, he didn't,” Helen argued. “If he had wanted Hans to see it, he would have given it to him himself. This was merely Peter's way of assuaging his guilt. He knew that the land would be valuable to the town someday. If he had truly wanted the world to know the truth, he would have found a surer way than leaving the decision in my hands. Peter knew I would never allow his reputation to be tarnished. He'd lose all his awards. The Peace Prize, for heaven's sake. They'd all be taken from him. How could I allow that?”

Rachel was exasperated. “Why do you still feel such a need to protect him? He's been dead ten years. What does it matter at this point?”

The older woman shook her head, fist pressed to her mouth. Tears ran over the pale curve of her knuckles. She didn't speak for nearly a minute, and Rachel couldn't decide between trying to comfort her or allowing her privacy.

After a minute, Gram straightened her shoulders and drew in a breath. “We've come this far, you and I,” she said quietly. “Maybe if I tell you the rest of it, you'll finally be able to understand.”

THE BOUNDARIES HELEN HAD
set in place when she refused to leave Peter for Hans lasted for ten years. “I learned to take comfort in the structure and safety of those constraints,” she told Rachel. “But the day after my fortieth birthday, everything changed.”

She eyed her granddaughter. Rachel sat in the wing chair, her hands folded in her lap, listening, waiting.

“It was 1950,” Helen continued, “and Peter was in Europe. John—your father—had dropped out of college, where he'd been a music major, to marry your mother. The truth was, John had no feel for music. Peter and I had tried to make it part of his life, but…” She shrugged. “John had one driving interest, and that was Inge, your mother. The two of them were living in a tiny apartment in town, and I worried about them constantly. Inge was already pregnant with you, and John was working as a custodian in an office building in Lancaster, something that just about killed Peter.”

“A custodian?” Rachel looked surprised. “I never knew that.”

Helen nodded. There was a great deal Rachel didn't know about her father. “And your mother was working as a waitress. I have to admit they were good together, though, your parents, and I really couldn't fault John for putting his family ahead of any career he might have had.

“Anyway, it was very late on the day after my birthday, and I was building a fire right here in the library when I heard a footstep on the porch. I went to the door, and there was Hans. His face was white as the snow on the ground, and he was very upset. He told me to call the rescue squad, that there'd been an accident at the bottom of Winter Hill between a buggy and a truck. Then he left to go back down there.”

She remembered standing numbly at the door for a moment, trying to determine whether Hans had been an apparition. Then she'd dialed the operator to connect her to the police, grabbed a flashlight, and ran out to her car. It had been so dark that night that the snow layering the ground had looked like a blanket of ashes.

“The road was as icy and slick as I've ever seen it,” she said, and I knew just what had happened. It wasn't the first time. You know where Fisher Lane crosses Farmhouse Road at the bottom of the hill?”

Rachel nodded.

“Well, the buggies used Fisher Lane a great deal in those days, and crossing Farmhouse Road was not ordinarily dangerous, because that section of the road was rarely used. But if an automobile happened to be coming down the hill at the same time a buggy was trying to cross…well. A collision was inevitable.”

“I can imagine,” Rachel said.

The night had been so horribly, thickly black that Helen had been nearly on top of the accident before she saw it. “The buggy was overturned in the snow at the side of the road,” she said, “and a small truck was parked on the shoulder, twenty or so yards away. I found Hans on the other side of the buggy. He was taking off his coat and draping it over a young girl lying in the snow.” She could still see the images vividly. “The girl's leg was broken, and someone lay next to her, covered by a shawl of some sort. I remember reaching for the corner of the shawl, and Hans catching my hand. He whispered, ‘It's her mother' to me, and I knew that the woman was dead and he didn't want the girl to know.” Hans had treated that young girl so tenderly, calling her ‘dear,' smoothing her hair from her face, trying to keep her warm.

“The girl told us her father had been in the buggy with her, and Hans went looking for him. He found the father, and I went over to see if I could help, but the man was dead. Hans was kneeling over him, crying.” She remembered Hans's frantic search for a pulse, his fingers probing the man's neck. She had knelt next to him and touched his arm, telling him there was nothing more he could do.

“The rescue-squad people thought Hans was one of the victims, he was so distraught,” Helen continued. “I was afraid to let him drive back to the house, but he insisted he was all right. I kept my eyes on his headlights in my rearview mirror all the way up the hill.”

Helen felt lost in the memory, and she was grateful to Rachel for not pushing her to hurry.

“Back at the house,” Helen continued, “I put on a pot of coffee, and then my knees gave out. I guess the reality of what had happened finally caught up with me, and I had to sit down. When Hans walked into the room, though, I stood up again and put my arms around him.” For a moment Helen thought she was going to cry at the memory of that embrace, but the threat of tears passed quickly. “He held on to me for a long time,” she said. “Then he said, ‘Life is too damn short. We waste time as if we're going to live forever. We pass up opportunities. We neglect what's truly important to us.'

“I knew exactly what he was talking about,” she said to Rachel. “And I took his hand and led him in here to the library, and we lay down right here on this rug”—she pointed to the plush oriental carpet in front of the hearth—”and we stayed there all night long.”

She and Hans spent the night in a quiet embrace, talking little, communicating in a way that required neither words nor action. And sometime close to dawn, their friendship shifted, slowly and naturally, to something more.

Helen leaned toward her too-quiet granddaughter, suddenly self-conscious. “I told you about the accident so you could understand that we were weakened. I doubt very much we ever would have become lovers if that accident hadn't happened.”

Rachel nodded. “I understand,” she said.

“Those next two days, though, were the best of my life,” Helen said, sitting back again. “Two days that will live in my heart forever. I felt no regret whatsoever, but as the hours passed and I knew that soon Hans would leave and Peter would be coming home, I began to feel a terrible sadness. I couldn't bear the thought of going back to my life with Peter. I loved him dearly, but suddenly I realized that I could have much more than that. And then, out of the blue, Hans told me that he'd met a woman. Winona.”

“That's his wife's name, isn't it?” Rachel asked.

“Yes, but you're jumping ahead.”

“Sorry.” Rachel clamped her lips shut again.

“We were sitting up in the tree house, and he told me what a fine person Winona was. A teacher, I remember. He said he didn't love her, but he cared about her, and he was going to marry her…unless I would reconsider leaving Peter and marrying him. I felt like he'd socked me in the stomach, telling me about Winona, and so I said yes, I'd marry him.”

“You
did
?”

“Yes, I did. I'd been blinded by those wonderful few days together, I guess, and I thought Peter would accept my decision.” She cocked her head at her granddaughter. “It's a bit difficult to explain our marriage to you,” she said. “Peter had many affairs, Rachel, but he was open about them all, and I recognized his need and tolerated it.”

Rachel shook her head. “I just don't get why—”

“You will,” Helen interrupted her. “Be patient.” She shifted in her seat. “So, anyhow, I knew we'd have a lot of details to work out because of the”—she smiled—”strange working arrangement we had, but I felt certain Peter would understand about Hans. And he did. It's just that understanding sometimes isn't enough.”

Rachel was frowning, and Helen wondered if her story was making any sense at all to her.

“I couldn't tell Peter right away when he got back,” she said. “That seemed too blunt. But after a couple of days I told him that Hans and I had been in love for many, many years, and that we had finally become lovers, and that I wanted to be free to marry him.”

Rachel looked pale. “What did he say?”

“He was shocked but very calm. He said he loved me enough to want me to be happy, and that if I needed a divorce to be happy, he would grant it. Later that night, though, I found him hiding in his study—the room that's now your room—weeping, and I realized he was devastated. He didn't want to let me see it, because he truly didn't want to stand in my way. But once I knew how hurt he was, I couldn't—”

“But he'd had affairs!” Rachel challenged.”He'd hurt you.”

“And that's just what he said. He suddenly realized what it had been like for me all those years. He couldn't bear the thought of me being with someone else, and he knew I must have felt the same way and had simply never let on about it.

“I couldn't cause him pain, Rachel.” She knew she sounded almost apologetic. “I couldn't. And so when he asked me for another chance to be a better husband, when he promised to give up his affairs and commit himself to me totally, I couldn't turn him down. And he never did have another affair. Never.”

“What did you tell Hans?”

“I told him I couldn't marry him, and that he must never come to visit us again. They were the hardest words I've ever had to get out of my mouth, but I knew he couldn't come here any longer. The temptation would have been too great, and the pain of having him that close to me would have been unbearable.” She knotted her hands together in her lap. “I became very depressed once I'd cut Hans out of my life, though. Melancholia, they said I had. And of course I couldn't write any music.”

Rachel gasped. “Peter Huber's dark period,” she said, citing the phrase that was commonly used to describe those dry years.

“That's right,” Helen said. “Peter Huber's dark period, when he was caring for his sick wife. You were born during that time. I don't think I was able to be a very attentive grandma back then.”

“You've made up for it since, Gram,” Rachel assured her. “And so, Hans let you go?” she asked. “Just like that?”

“After I told him what I'm about to tell you, he did.”

Rachel's frown deepened. “There's more?” she asked.

“Yes, there's more.” Helen plowed ahead before she could stop herself. “I told you about all the things Peter did for me. How he helped my family and paid for me to go to school. How he got my father the best specialists.”

Rachel nodded.

“Peter was generous to a fault, and this…damned cipher is his generosity run amok.” She shook her head. “Do you remember I said I had a wild streak when I was young?”

“Yes.”

“And remember I told you that Peter and I were never soul mates?”

“Uh-huh.”

“We were friends, that's all. He was a kind and attractive and interesting man who thought I had talent, and he tried to do everything in his power to give me the opportunity to develop it. But we never actually dated. Never.”