The Darkening Dream (18 page)

The foyer clock read twenty past six, and although the sun had left the sky, the heavens were still bright. Alex hurried outside to start the car.

He opened the water valve for the acetylene generator mounted on the running board. It took five minutes to build up gas for the headlights. He turned the key, slowed the timing, dragged the throttle down, and checked the hand brake. The Model T had an unpleasant habit of leaping forward when you cranked the starter, ill-advisedly located under the front bumper.

Now the true test. He gave the choke under the radiator a quarter turn, then gripped the starter crank, checking his thumb placement. Sometimes the car backfired, and a careless man could break his arm if the lever spun counter-clockwise. A few vigorous half cranks and the engine coughed to life. He skipped around and jumped into the driver’s seat to adjust the timing before it stalled.

Dmitri materialized to reach over Alex’s shoulder and gentle the beast with a deft touch.

When Alex knocked at the Engelmanns’ a stocky bearded man wearing a black skullcap opened the door.

“Welcome,” he said. “I’m Joseph Engelmann, Sarah’s father.”

“Alexander Palaogos. Sorry we’re late, but my grandfather isn’t as mobile as he used to be.” Alex nodded at the curb, where Dmitri was situating the old man in his chair.

“You’ve got a motorcar?” Sarah’s father lit up. “I’ve been saving to buy one, perhaps a 1914 series. Like having your own personal locomotive!”

“If you’re a thrill seeker, Dmitri can give you a ride after dinner—”

“Constantine Palaogos at your service,” Grandfather said from behind him. “I apologize for our tardiness. My fault, of course.” He gestured at his frail legs. His yellow-toothed smile made him look like an elegantly dressed skeleton.

“Come in, join us,” Joseph said. “
Shabbos
dinner is always tepid at best, it won’t get any colder.”

Alex and Dmitri manhandled Constantine’s chair over the threshold.

Dmitri uttered only his favorite word, “Basil.”

Sarah and a middle-aged woman, obviously her mother, waited in the foyer. Sarah wore a dark skirt and a high-collared white blouse, but her hair was down. She’d been cool when she extended the invitation, but tonight her smile was so warm, it almost hurt to look at her. Some animal part of him wanted to drag her off into a dark room and make her his own.

As the next round of introductions ensued, Grandfather was on his best behavior, for which Alex was grateful. It was a wonder the old man still remembered how to make social conversation since he never left the house.

A place in the dining room had been set for Dmitri, but he wouldn’t take it, choosing instead to stand upright behind Grandfather’s chair. The table was already laden with food, most of it hidden under china covers. A pair of lit silver candlesticks graced the center. Sarah’s mother poured a raspberry-colored wine into Bohemian crystal glasses.

Joseph stood, raising an ornamental silver chalice, to say a couple of sentences in what Alex supposed was Hebrew. Sarah and her mother sipped in response. Grandfather, always partial to wine, downed his glass in one gulp. Alex sipped. The situation felt awkward, the wine peculiar, sweet, on the south side of mediocre.

Sarah’s father took a loaf of shiny brown bread from a plate on the table, broke off a piece, and recited another blessing. He passed the rest of the loaf to Grandfather, dipped his piece in a small plate of salt, and ate it.

“Mr. Palaogos,” he said, “do you have a blessing you’d like to say before beginning the meal?”

“Thank you, no.” Grandfather looked amused. “As a boy I remember whole days caught up in church pomp, but God and I now have a less… formal relationship.”

Joseph nodded. “I myself am less attached to ritual than I was in Europe.”

“Sir?” Sarah asked. “If I might be so bold, how long ago was that, when you were a boy?”

“Sarah!” Her mother looked shocked.

But Grandfather was in excellent humor.

“Leave an old man a few vanities. Let’s just say that I look and feel truly ancient.” He then addressed Mr. Engelmann in German. “I cannot help but notice by your accent that you’re from Vienna.”

Alex had no idea how many languages the old man knew, and he was able to mimic even the most subtle regional accents.

“Sarah told me we were probably in Vienna at the same time,” Joseph said. “Rebecca and I met in Prague, but we lived in the capital between ’90 and ’96, before coming here.”

“Did you also teach in Vienna?” Grandfather asked.

“No, I worked as an aide for a rabbi named Adolf Jellinek, and later his successor. I helped coordinate religious and cultural issues at court.”

“Interesting,” Grandfather said. “I was in the capital searching for pieces of Du Paquier porcelain. I visited the palace a number of times to catalog the imperial collections. Quite splendid… Do you remember that impressive fire in the palace stables?”

“I was at court that day, yes.” Joseph soaked a piece of bread in honey.

“Were you? What a coincidence. They struggled all night to douse the flames, as I recall.”

“An… eventful day,” Joseph said.

They paused while Sarah and her mother uncovered the dinner: beef brisket, stewed with carrots and sweet potatoes, green beans, and a mysterious egg noodle casserole with raisins. Sarah’s mother set two heaping platters of the beef on the table but placed a smaller plate beside Mr. Engelmann, patting her husband’s hand as she did so. When Sarah returned to her seat, Alex asked her about it.

“Papa doesn’t like prunes,” she said, “so she makes his brisket without them.”

Alex took a bite of his own. The beef was a little sweet but good. He wondered if his mother had cooked anything special just for father.

Grandfather, who had the appetite of a pheasant, toyed with his food, all the while looking at Sarah, a peculiar expression on his face. It wasn’t one Alex had seen before, and he considered himself adept at reading the old man.

Sarah also seemed to notice. “Mr. Palaogos, what happened to your wife, Alex’s grandmother?”

Grandfather steepled his fingers. “In my youth, my brother arranged two marriages for me, but both women died in childbirth. I was not blessed in these regards, and neither infant lived. Years later, on a diplomatic mission to Venice, I met the love of my life. We married in secret, as her family didn’t approve, and she bore me a son, from which Alexandros is descended. She, too, died tragically, so I believed myself cursed, and I never again sought the love of a woman.”

“That’s so sad,” Sarah’s mother said.

“He must like you,” Alex whispered to Sarah. “He doesn’t talk about my grandmother.”

“What was her name?” She leaned in close to him.

Alex could smell her clean linen and roses scent, had to resist the powerful urge to bury his face in the curly halo enveloping her neck.

“What are you two whispering?” Sarah’s mother asked. “You know it’s not polite.”

“I was just explaining what a
kugel
is,” Sarah said.

Her mother looked concerned. “Oh, did you like it?”

For an instant Alex panicked — he had no idea what she was referring to. But then he noticed Sarah’s hand in her lap, pointing at the egg noodle dish.

“Yes, very much,” he said. “I’m just not used to starch with fruit in it.”

Mrs. Engelmann smiled. “This one isn’t my best. My dairy
kugels
are better. Cheese and butter are tastier than
schmatltz
.”

When she turned away he whispered to Sarah, “What’s
schmatltz?
”

“Chicken fat,” she said.

As bad as the sweet wine was, Alex kept drinking. Before he knew it, they were caught up in a flurry of polite leave-taking at the door. He was going to have to make himself some strong Turkish coffee when he got home. The four teenagers had a clandestine rendezvous at midnight.

The image of Dmitri piloting the Model T would’ve been comical if Alex hadn’t been terrified. As the giant plunged at breakneck speeds down the dark and bumpy dirt roads he seemingly sought out rather than avoided every pothole and ditch. The man was so large he barely fit into the driver’s seat. The steering wheel mashed up against his chest and his elbows jutted out.

“What was that business about the fire at the palace in Vienna?” he asked Grandfather.

“It wasn’t the fire that was important, but who started it.”

“You don’t think Mr. Engelmann did?”

The old man shook his head. “I doubt it. I had followed someone to Vienna. He was looking for something but he left disappointed.”

“Followed him the same way you followed the Caliph here?”

“Those two serve the same master,” the old man said in a voice that could have frozen the Aegean on a July afternoon. “Like roaches, they bring rot and disease to whatever they touch.”

“What does Mr. Engelmann have to do with them?” Alex asked.

“For his sake, hopefully nothing. Did you notice the silver metal box on the door to his house?”

“No.”

“Most Jewish houses have them, they contain prayers. But this one was unusual. It had extra symbols on it, allowing it to form part of a powerful warding spell.”

“Who put it there?” Alex asked.

“Mr. Engelmann, I would assume,” Grandfather said. “I think he’s more than he appears.”

If Sarah’s father really was some sort of
magi
— a notion Alex viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism — what did that make her?

After they got home, Alex told Grandfather he was going out. Subterfuge wasn’t necessary. As if in compensation for his own secrecy, the old man never asked after Alex’s comings and goings. He felt guilty about bending his promise mere hours after making it, but if Grandfather stopped speaking in riddles, they could work together and be stronger for it. Maybe things would change after he tossed the Caliph’s sun-roasted skull at Grandfather’s purple slippered feet. But tonight, anyway, was just a reconnaissance mission to investigate the house the girls had located.

Alex arrived early at the west side of Salem Common and leaned against one of the cast-iron gateposts to wait. Sarah approached from the southeast wearing the same brown pants and dark jacket she’d worn the night they destroyed the Charles-creature. Alex was pleased with himself — he hadn’t done half bad tonight. Just the other day they’d barely been talking, and at dinner they’d gotten along swimmingly.

“No trouble sneaking out?” he asked.

“I did much better jumping out my window, though I’m tired and tipsy from dinner.”

Alex smiled. “Rooftop escapes — a useful skill for the modern woman. Did your family say anything about us?”

“Mama did happen to mention the importance of marrying a Jewish man. About sixteen times.”

“Really?”

She laughed as she gave him a whack on the arm. “Consider it a back-handed compliment. They also thought your grandfather was smart and charming. A little strange, but we Engelmanns have a high tolerance for eccentricity.”

Her proximity — she stood perhaps eighteen inches from him — and the echo of her touch on his arm were distracting.

“I’m glad to hear it. Grandfather was in good spirits. At home he can be a bit of a curmudgeon.”