The Silver Castle (6 page)

“How very sad. When did this happen?”

“About nine years ago, and my father died eighteen months later. He had a heart attack, which wasn’t altogether surprising because he drove himself too hard.” Raimund gave an ironic laugh. “That seems to be a Kreuder family tradition. My grandfather died of a heart attack when he was still in his prime, and it looks as if my brother is heading for the same fate. Anton makes the silk mill his god.”

“You and he are partners, I suppose?”

“That is the general idea, but it is a fact I have to remind him of from time to time. He treats me more like a junior manager. When he left for America the other day, he had the nerve to leave me a list of the tasks to be done while he was away.”

For some reason I was amused by this, and said teasingly, “I hope you’re getting on with them, then. I wouldn’t want Anton to discover you’d been wasting your time showing me around.”

“Is that what you call it?” he countered. “A waste of time?”

“Well, from what you’ve told me about him, your brother believes that business comes before pleasure.”

Raimund grinned. “Don’t worry, you can leave me to deal with Anton. Anyway, you will be gone before he returns, Gail.”

You
will be gone before Anton returns.
It was getting to sound like a refrain, sung by mother and son alternately.

* * * *

It had rained again while we were in the concert hall listening to Chopin preludes and Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words.” Now Zurich sparkled, head lamps and street lights and advertising signs all mirrored in the wet black tarmac like oil colours splashed from an artist’s brush.

For dinner, Raimund took me to a restaurant in a narrow stepped street of the city’s Old Quarter. On every wall hung reproductions of those modern artists my father would never have appreciated, Picasso in his cubist period, Braque at his most provocative, and Switzerland’s own Paul Klee. We ate baby pork cutlets and a salad flavoured with unfamiliar herbs, a soufflé as airy and insubstantial as the bales of silk floss I had seen at the mill that morning. And to accompany our meal, a bottle of a dry German Riesling.

Responding to the wine, Raimund and I became lighthearted. We derived great amusement from watching a gross middle-aged couple at a table beyond an archway, who were tucking into heaped platters of food. Laughingly, Raimund found my hand and held it, caressing my fingers lightly. He was undoubtedly the best-looking man in the room, and I was aware of envious glances from other women.

Presently, a man and a girl came into the restaurant. He was tall and blond, she was petite and dark and vivacious. Gazing around for a suitable table, they spotted us and came over. The man used English, with that uncanny instinct so many Continentals possess.

“Hello, Raimund. I didn’t know you ever came here.”

Raimund’s good humour had vanished. He answered sullenly, “Well, you know now.”

The couple glanced at each other, ruefully amused. The man said, “So that’s how it is. Don’t worry, my friend, we have no intention of latching ourselves onto you for the rest of the evening. We wish to be alone ourselves.” He flicked enquiring eyes at me. “Come on, Raimund, aren’t you going to introduce us?”

With remarkable lack of grace, he muttered, “This is Gail. Gail, meet Niklaus and Heidi.”

“Are you here on holiday?” the girl asked with a smile.

“That’s right,” Raimund answered hurriedly, before I could open my mouth. “She’s staying with us at the Schloss for a couple of weeks, and I’m showing her around.”

So he didn’t want them to know the real reason for my visit. I said deliberately, “As a matter of fact it’s not so much a holiday as a quest. My father lived in Switzerland for years, and he died recently. Unfortunately I never had any contact with him, so I’ve come now to try to get to know him in retrospect, as it were.”

“It sounds intriguing,” Niklaus observed. “Like a detective story. Have you discovered anything interesting yet?”

“Oh, for God’s sake leave the poor girl alone,” Raimund snapped. “We’re supposed to be out enjoying ourselves.”

“But I don’t mind, Raimund.” I glanced back at the other two. “It’s quite possible that you knew my father. Benedict Sherbrooke, the artist....”

Their deeply ingrained Swiss courtesy almost, but not quite, concealed their consternation. Their eyes asked Raimund questions that I couldn’t begin to understand.

“How amazing,” Niklaus exclaimed. “Heidi,
Liebes,
I fear we are not going to find a decent table here, after all, so we’d better try somewhere else.
Wie schade!
It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Gail.
Wiedersehen,
Raimund....”

Speedily they eased themselves away from us, shook off the headwaiter, who protested volubly that there were several excellent tables free, and vanished through the swinging doors to the vestibule.

Raimund gave me an apologetic little smile. “Don’t mind them, Gail, they were just embarrassed.”

“They were shocked,” I corrected. “I wonder why.”

“You’re imagining things! Now, what shall we do after this? Would you like to dance? There’s a new club opened on Limmatquai that’s supposed to be very good.”

“The point being,” I suggested sceptically, “that we’re unlikely to run into any more of your friends there. Am I right?”

“Gail, please. §I wish only for you to enjoy yourself. Must you be so difficult? Just relax, and let us have a good time together.”

I could have argued with him, but what good would that have done? So taking Raimund’s advice, I tried to recapture our earlier, happier mood.

* * * *

A stiff breeze was blowing inshore from the lake as I set out from the Schloss Rietswil, and I turned up the collar of my sheepskin jacket more snugly against my chin. I felt a curious sense of elation, as though I’d achieved a victory. I was out of doors, and I was alone.

We had spent the entire morning on a leisurely drive around Zurichsee, Sigrid ordering Karl to pause at every landmark—a fortified castle, an ancient monastery, the site of a famous battle five centuries ago. I collected a mass of irrelevant information ... irrelevant because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear and which, consequently, I found irritating. Was it not interesting, my hostess asked, that the renowned educator Pestalozzi had been born in Zurich, and that James Joyce was buried there? Did I know that Thomas Mann had retreated here from the Nazis, and that Wagner had been an exile of an earlier age? When Sigrid launched into a story about Thornton Wilder and
Our Town,
I stopped listening. Tell me instead, I pleaded silently, about Benedict Sherbrooke ... that unrenowned painter who had lived and worked and died here.

Back at the Schloss for lunch there had been a discussion of plans for the afternoon.

“As we are having guests for dinner,” Sigrid said, “I suggest that we do not go out again, Gail.”

“I think I should like to go for a walk,” I said decidedly.

Her brow creased into a frown. “I should stay indoors if I were you. It is blowing up rather cold.”

“A walk would do me good,” I insisted, adding, “Perhaps I’ll stroll up to the chalet and have another look around.”

Sigrid accepted her defeat. “Perhaps you would make a
note of anything of your father’s that you wish to keep,” she said, “and we will arrange to have the rest disposed of. I expect my stepson will attend to finding another tenant sooner or later, and he’ll want the chalet cleared out.”

Some need in me, an urge to fly the flag of independence, made me say, “Did my father owe you any rent when he died? If so, I’d like to settle up with you.”

“Do not be foolish, my dear. Benedict never ... I mean, there is no question of your paying anything.”

So he had lived at their chalet rent free. It had been the one form of charity that he’d been willing to accept.

When, after we’d had coffee in the salon, Sigrid announced that she was going upstairs to rest, I seized my chance to escape.

Reaching the main highway, I crossed it and started up the steep stony track that led to the chalet. In the budding thornbushes on either side of me small birds were chattering, busy with nest building. High above, somewhere out of sight, a skylark sang. Reaching a gap in the bushes, I paused and looked back the way I’d come. Zurichsee was ruffled by the keen wind, its blue waters patchworked with dark chasing shadows, mirroring the cloud-swept sky. Standing here, I looked down on the silver silhouette of the Schloss Rietswil and I imagined I could see a face at the high turret window. Karl or his wife, Ursula, or one of the local girls who came in daily to do the cleaning? Or just a trick of the ever-changing light?

At length I came to the clearing where the chalet stood. I could hear the wind sighing through the conifers, their pointed tips whipped into a frenzied dance. I shivered, shrugging deeper into my jacket.

In one movement I opened the door and walked straight in. It was a shock to find someone there before me. We both gave a start of surprise, and I found myself confronting the boy I’d seen here that other time, the boy who had run away into the woods. Sigrid had called him Willi and explained to me that he was weak in the head.

He had been crouched down on the floor by the stone hearth, carving a piece of driftwood with a knife. Now he rose slowly to his feet, his pale blue eyes staring. Sigrid had said that he was harmless, yet I couldn’t help feeling a little afraid. He was holding the knife like a dagger, its pointed blade gleaming. If he was simple-minded, who could tell how he might react to this unexpected intrusion by a stranger?

I smiled quickly, to assure him that I was no threat.

“My name is Gail Sherbrooke. Benedict Sherbrooke was my father ... you know, the man who used to live here.”

His wild, threatening look remained unchanged and I realised it was stupid of me to expect the boy to understand English. I attempted to say the same thing in German.

“Ich heiss Gail Sherbrooke. Benedict Sherbrooke war mein Vater ... weisst du, der Mann ... der Mann wer
...” I gave up the struggle. No glimmer of understanding showed in his eyes. He had retreated against the wall now and, slight though he was, he seemed menacing as he stood watching me warily, the knife still gripped tightly in his hand.

With sinking confidence, I gestured at the piece of carved wood lying abandoned on the floor.
“Gut ...
es ist sehr gut!”
But my compliment had no effect.

With a sudden idea I stepped across to the easel and, taking up a brush from the jar, began to act out a mime ... mixing colours on the palette and applying them to a canvas. Then I pointed at myself, trying to convey to him that I was an artist like my father. I was hoping that this would evoke a sympathetic response, but instead, he seized his chance to get past me and escape. With three strides he was across the room.

I could only feel thankful that he’d gone. Then, with a stab of surprise, I realised that the boy must have been just as frightened as I was, perhaps even more so. He’d been trespassing, and he was no doubt afraid of the consequences. I ran to the door, in time to see him plunging into the shadows of the forest.

A feeling of pity took hold of me. Stooping, I picked up the carved wood and let my fingers run over the crude surfaces. The grotesque face still suggested the same feeling of primitive power, but it was a little more finished now. It seemed to me that the boy must have been drawn to the chalet by some need to feel close to my father. The meticulous tidying of the place—it could only have been Willi’s doing—seemed to prove a kind of reverence. With the death of Benedict Sherbrooke the boy had lost a friend, possibly his only friend.

Was I being fanciful?

I wished that I could call him back, that I could make it clear that I’d meant him no harm. Sighing to myself, I moved idly around the sparsely furnished room, touching things and once again trying to feel some echo of my father’s presence. But there was nothing, just a sensation of emptiness. I remembered that Sigrid had asked me to note the things I wanted to take back to England with me. I must keep a few items as mementoes ... his brushes and palette, perhaps a few of the books on the shelf ... mostly poetry and art books.

There was the large collection of my father’s paintings at the Schloss, too. What was to become of them? Would they eventually put money in my pocket? How could I avoid the thought? Yet money had not been my motive, not for a single second, when I’d come hurrying out to Switzerland. I was kidding myself, though, if I expected anyone else to believe that.

Or was there someone, after all—a simple, retarded boy who had loved my father? A boy who, now that his hero was dead, had made almost a shrine of his humble home. No, I wasn’t being fanciful, I was pierced through with certainty. Suddenly it seemed vitally important to make Willi my friend. For me to be
his
friend.

But that wasn’t to be achieved, I decided, by seeking him out at home and involving the aunt and uncle who’d brought him up after his mother’s death. Instinctively, I knew that this would be the wrong way. Whatever might grow between us must be private, a secret that only the two of us shared.

I thought I knew the way to make a beginning. The other day, I’d noticed a sketch pad in the corner cupboard. I fetched it out now and found a stick of artist’s charcoal. At art school I’d made something of a gimmick of turning out lightning-quick sketches of people, and I did one now of myself and Willi. We were shaking hands and smiling at each other. Surely the message was clear? I propped the drawing on the easel. I felt certain that the boy would return to the chalet when he thought it was safe. And perhaps, when he’d seen the drawing and understood its meaning, he wouldn’t attempt to flee from me the next time we met.

* * * *

Leaping firelight and the flames of a dozen candles illumined the pine-panelled room as we dined.

Upstairs in my bedroom as I’d put on my simple lime-green jersey dress and a loop of gold beads, I’d expected to be far outshone in elegance by my hostess and her daughter. But Helga turned out to be no competition at all. About the same height as I, she had angular shoulders with a thick waist and hips. She wore a tight silk gown of giant peonies splashed against dark green foliage which looked as if it had been created for a woman who bulged in altogether different places.