The Second Winter (22 page)

“Mama,” Ludvig cut in at last, “I’m sure Oskar doesn’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

Fru Gregersen gave her son a stern look, then returned her attention to Oskar. “Well,” she said, dabbing the edges of her mouth with a perfumed handkerchief, “sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants. And I do suppose that Ludvig is correct. There is no reason to visit the sins of the father upon a blameless child. Of course you can spend the night here. Of
course — there is no question.” She looked around the room. “Where is Ralf?” She raised her voice. “Ralf?”

“Yes, Farmor,” Ralf said, addressing his grandmother in the traditional manner. He took a step forward, distinguished himself from the rest of the guests. His complexion was so clean, Oskar noticed, that it reflected the light. “I’m right here.”

“Ralf is your age,” Fru Gregersen said.

Oskar read Ralf’s unease. At twenty-two, he was a full four years older than his cousin from the country. The last thing Ralf wanted was to be tossed into the same box with him.

“I am sure that the two of you will have much to talk about. You used to play outside here together, you know.”

“I remember.”

“But that was a long time ago. When you were little children. Anyway, I am glad that you can be here. Why don’t you take a glass of wine, hmmm?” She twisted, stiffly, to look up at her eldest son again. “We can still afford to offer someone an extra glass of wine, can’t we, Ludvig?” she asked him, as if continuing a conversation they had been having before. “You will allow me to lavish this extravagance on the boy, won’t you?”

“Mama, please,” Ludvig protested. “I never said — I only meant —”

“You know how thrifty you’ve become, Ludvig. Anyone would think we’re destitute. What happened to all the provisions your father made for me?”

The room had grown even more quiet. Ludvig straightened his vest over his ample stomach with a couple of sharp tugs. “Now might not be the best time for this discussion, don’t you think so, too, Mama?”

Fru Gregersen continued to gaze at him, then turned, abruptly, to face Oskar one more time. “Why don’t you join the party and meet your cousins?” she said. “And make sure
someone does find you a glass of wine. Now where is the music? What happened to the music? I was enjoying the piano.”

The violinist slipped his instrument beneath his chin. The woman at the piano flipped a page in her folio. The music started. Then, slowly, one by one, the guests began to whisper to one another, then to speak, and once again the room was filled with voices and the sounds of a family celebrating Christmas behind windows sealed with velvet.

“My name is Lise,” a tiny voice said.

Walking next to his uncle back into the front hall, Oskar slowed to greet the fine-boned girl who had approached him. Before he could speak, though, Ludvig barked at her. “You leave your cousin be, darling. There’ll be time for an introduction later. Right now, I’m taking him upstairs.”

“I can show him, Papa,” Lise said. She placed herself in front of her father, forcing him to stop.

“That won’t be necessary,” Ludvig responded, too quickly. “You can say hello when he’s had a chance to clean up.”

Oskar smiled at his young cousin. “It’s good to see you again. I remember you from when you were a baby.”

“I don’t remember you at all,” Lise said.

Dismissing his daughter with a frown, Ludvig grabbed Oskar by the biceps, hustled him out of the room as if he might be contagious. The front hall was lit by an oversize chandelier suspended from the double-height ceiling. “It weighs over a ton,” Ludvig said, noticing Oskar glance up at it. “It’s more than two hundred years old, from a palace in Holland, I’m told. Your father went to the same school I did. Krebs School, perhaps you have heard of it? Our father attended the school, and now Ralf has graduated from Krebs as well. We all of us received the very same education. But can you believe that when your father was a boy he used to
place a chair underneath that chandelier in the middle of the night, stretch up onto his toes, and steal the crystals? Not to sell them — though he might well have tried that first — just to skip them into the sea.” As Oskar followed his uncle onto the wide marble staircase, his feet remembered this same Oriental runner from years before, plush through the soles of his shoes. “He was pretty good at it, too.” Ludvig allowed himself to chuckle. “The pieces of glass were perfectly flat, you see? They leaped across the water like sparks. Myself, I was never brave — or wanton — enough to try.”

On the second floor, Ludvig directed him down a long, spacious hallway to a bedroom facing the street. The room hadn’t been made up yet, and it was cold inside. His uncle flipped the light switch, double-checked that the curtains were drawn tight, then showed Oskar to the washroom. “I’ll send someone up to light the fire. In the meantime, I think you’ll find everything you need. I would offer you a change of clothes from Ralf or Wilhelm or one of the other cousins. But I don’t think there’s anyone else as tall as you. Not by ten centimeters. And I’m too fat.”

Oskar shrugged.

“Anyway, make yourself at home. Wash your face, perhaps, then come downstairs and get something to eat.” Ludvig was letting himself out of the room, when he decided that he had more to say. “Right now, we only have family downstairs. But we’re planning to have some guests stop by after dinner, beginning at ten. At that point, children will be asked to go upstairs. Adults only.”

“I understand,” Oskar said.

Ludvig forced a smile. “Well, then. I’ll see you downstairs shortly.”

Oskar waited for his uncle to leave. Then he walked to the center of the room and turned slowly around, all the way in a full circle.

At nine thirty, the men detached themselves from the party and followed Ludvig into the library. The doors were left open, and masculine voices rumbled through the house, indistinct by the time they reached the dining room. Fru Gregersen remained at the table, lingering over dessert. She hadn’t touched the cake or rice pudding, but she had a taste for bitter coffee and sweet wine. So the rest of the women stayed with her, sipping from smudged glasses. Oskar knew enough not to follow Ralf into the library. His cousin would fit in with the men well enough. Oskar didn’t look as if he belonged in this house at all, not even as a servant. Instead, he let Lise drag him away from the table, back into the main salon.

The musicians, who had been joined by a singer, were gathered in a corner, waiting to be summoned. Wilhelm was directing a group of the other children in a tame game of hide-and-seek. The piano was standing free, beckoning, and that is where Lise led her cousin, yanking him by his dirty sleeve, unaware of how foolish he felt in his grungy, mismatched outfit and his worn, ugly shoes. “Sit down,” she told him, positioning him on the bench on the bass end of the keyboard.

Her coloring was unusual for the family. Not only was her hair copper, her skin was pigmented softly orange as well — or maybe it was the freckles that gave that impression, Oskar thought, because the skin itself was milky and translucent. Her long, unruly tresses had been gathered back into a band, but wisps of hair had come free at her temples. The freckles
started on her scalp and stained her face like gold dust. “Do you play?” he asked her.

“I take lessons,” Lise said. “Mother insists that I do. But I don’t
play
.”

“Then why should I sit down? I don’t know how to play either.” Over the raised top of the piano, Oskar caught sight of Wilhelm, who, from across the salon, had fastened him with an accusatory stare.

“Because I want to teach you something,” Lise said. “Here.” She sat down next to him in front of the treble keys, scooted him over a few inches to give herself more room. “Let me show you. All you have to do is this.” She aligned her fingers on the ivory keys and tapped out a simple, repetitive tune.

“How can I do that,” Oskar asked, “if you’re sitting there?”

Lise laughed. “Haven’t you ever sat at a piano before? You don’t have to do it here. You can do the same thing down there. Don’t you see how similar these keys are? These are called octaves. Just put your hands there — no, not like that.
There
.” She grabbed hold of Oskar’s long, battered fingers. “Oh — you’re cut.”

“It’s nothing,” Oskar said. “It’s just from working on the farm.”

“It doesn’t hurt?” Lise waited for him to reply. When he didn’t, she grabbed his hands again, more carefully, then positioned his fingers on the correct keys. “Now — watch me, and do as I do.” She repeated the same simple melody. Next to her, Oskar felt more foolish and clumsy than ever. He couldn’t seem to strike one key without banging another, and even when he did hit the right notes, he couldn’t find Lise’s rhythm. Lise giggled. “No, Oskar — not like that — watch.” She played the tune more slowly for him. “See? You don’t press the keys with both your hands at once — you do it one at a time, like this.”

Oskar wanted to get this right. It was suddenly important to him that he didn’t look too incompetent in front of his young cousin. He placed his left thumb on the single key Lise had shown him, then lined up the fingers of his right hand.

“Good,” Lise encouraged him. “Now count it out in your head. Like this.” She played the tune again, and this time he accompanied her. After a minute, they were playing it in sync, almost perfectly. “Good! That’s it!” Lise squealed. “Now, you keep going, just like that, okay?”

Oskar kept the tune playing.

“Yes — perfect. That’s right. Now, up here, I’ll play something else.”

After a few bars, Lise joined in with a simple, high-pitched melody on the treble keys. The ivory was cool and smooth beneath his fingers. The notes cascaded across the large room. And before Oskar could understand what was moving him, his eyes were glassy with hot tears. It must have been the most beautiful music, he thought, that he had ever heard.

“There,” Lise said, continuing to play. “Do you like it?”

“What is it?” Oskar asked.

Lise treated him to another giggle. “It’s from America,” she told him. “I just learned it last week. It’s called ‘Heart and Soul.’ ”

“I don’t think Farmor would like you to be playing on this piano.” Wilhelm’s voice was directed at his sister, but his eyes were fixed on Oskar.

A collection of thin silver and gold bracelets on Lise’s wrist tinkled when she stopped playing. Oskar’s half of the duet continued for a few notes, abruptly awkward without the cover of Lise’s melody, then he stopped as well. “Why don’t you leave us alone, Willie,” Lise said. “I’m just teaching him a little song — I’m sure that Grandma wouldn’t mind at all.”

“This is a concert piano,” Wilhelm said. “He’ll knock it out of tune. I wouldn’t even play it myself. And look, he’s leaving blood on the keys.”

Oskar felt his cheeks burn. His cousin wouldn’t have lasted a day on the farm, but he knew that Wilhelm was right. He was out of his element here.

“I’ve been taking lessons since I was seven,” Wilhelm announced. “I practice an hour a day.”

“Why don’t you play us something then?” Oskar asked him.

Wilhelm shook his head. “I wouldn’t,” he said. “Not without Farmor’s permission. I told you, this is a special concert piano. Do you even know what that means?”

“What’s going on in here?” Ludvig’s voice boomed across the large room.

Lise twisted on the ebony bench. “Papa! I’m trying to teach Oskar a song, and Wilhelm’s telling us not to.”

Oskar stood from the keyboard, still confused by his own emotions. When he pushed past Wilhelm, he almost toppled him over. He hadn’t meant to, but the shorter boy was thin and weak, his muscles were soft.

“Never mind that,” Ludvig said. He was holding a fat cigar, and he brought it to his lips, took a deep, satisfied puff, exhaled through his nostrils. “It’s almost ten. Time for you children to head upstairs for the night.”

“What about Ralf?” Lise asked. “It isn’t fair —”

“Tish.” Ludvig took another drag on his cigar, patted himself on the stomach, straightened his vest, then his tie. Oskar noticed how rich the tie’s silk was. The blue-and-black-checked fabric looked stiff, but it collapsed under his uncle’s fingers with a hiss, without any resistance at all. “Our guests will be arriving soon. I want you upstairs.” He faced the other children, who were gathered in a loose group on the far side of
the salon. “All of you,” he said, raising his voice. “And it’s bedtime. Understand? I don’t want you staying awake, and I don’t want you talking.”

Lise scowled. “Papa, please —” She wasn’t tired yet, and she wasn’t ready to let Oskar go.

“Come along, then,” Wilhelm said to Oskar, unable to suppress an arch smile. “You heard Papa, it’s time for us to sleep.”

Lise grabbed Oskar’s sleeve and without another word led him from the room. Ludvig watched them disappear. “All of you,” he repeated, shouting after them. “To bed! Sleep! Now!” Then, after he was certain the children were all upstairs, he crossed the foyer to the front door, let himself outside, and made his way down the long, crushed-granite driveway to unlock the gates in preparation for the arrival of their guests. His footsteps echoed through the unlit night.