Critical Mass (44 page)

I was half listening to the news as I sat in heavy traffic on Lake Shore Drive, but that jolted me so much that I almost lost control of my own car. The announcer moved on to a story about a lost dog returning home after thirteen months. I tried other stations but couldn’t get any more news on Julius’s accident.

An SUV riding my tail honked loudly. I realized I’d committed the sin of allowing a car length to develop in front of me. Instead of closing the gap, I inched over to the right-hand lane and exited at Navy Pier.

I drove out to the end of the pier and sat looking at the water. Julius had been angry when he arrived at the Breen estate last night. In any meeting between Cordell and Julius, Cordell would always have the upper hand because he was the cool, successful guy; Julius was the angry dropout living on Breen family charity.

He’d driven up furious about someone using his name at the library, but maybe that old Metargon sketch played a role in the quarrel as well. However the conversation went, by the time he left, Julius must have been in a blind rage, so angry he drove off the road.

A gull swept down to the water in front of me, screeching over a
piece of garbage. Four other gulls arrived, all of them screaming, pecking each other out of the way until one rose triumphant with a french fry.

Breen was the tough gull. Nice gulls finish last. Julius wasn’t a nice guy, merely one who found life overwhelming.

I left the pier and rejoined the slow crawl northward. The hospital where they’d taken Julius was only half a mile from Max’s home. I stopped there on my way.

Julius was in critical condition, they told me at the front desk.

“I’m a niece,” I said. “He doesn’t have any children or family of his own. Is it possible for me to see him?”

They sent me to the sixth floor, where I repeated my tale of being a niece. The ward head told me my uncle had suffered fractures to both arms, his pelvis, and he had a crushed cervical vertebra. He’d been unconscious when he was removed from his car, but scans didn’t show damage to the brain.

“He’s heavily sedated so he may not wake up, but he will hear you talking to him, so talk about things that are positive, that will soothe him and reassure him—happy family memories, or a favorite pet of his.”

I nodded guiltily, since my real hope was that Julius would be in a frame of mind to unburden himself of his own guilty secret. However, talking about it might soothe him more than chatter about a dead cat. I followed the ward head’s directions through a set of pneumatic doors.

Julius Dzornen looked like a knight in white armor, so completely was he casted. His breath came in short, heavy rasps. IV lines were inserted through the plaster. The only visible flesh was his face, which looked waxen and unreal. In repose, free of the bitterness that consumed him when awake, he looked younger.

I pulled up a chair next to his head and leaned over. “Julius, it’s V. I. Warshawski. Vic. I’m sorry you were injured. The ward head said to talk to you about your pets. Your birds are all eating well, Julius;
I was just at the coach house and they looked pretty darned happy. I’ll get the Basier kids to keep the bird feeders full while you’re on the disabled list, Julius.”

I kept repeating his name, hoping it would rouse him. He seemed to stir a little, but maybe it was my imagination.

“Cordell is an angry and arrogant guy, isn’t he, Julius?” I said. “You must have really pissed him off, taking that BREENIAC sketch away.”

He mumbled something, but I couldn’t make out any words.

“Julius, it was Martin Binder, not Cordell, who went into the library using your name. He found Ada Byron’s letter to your father. Julius, did you know Ada Byron? Was she another of your father’s lovers?”

His eyelids started fluttering and his pulse increased.

I was sweating, scared about whether I was doing him harm. I’d make one more effort and then leave him alone.

“Gertrud Memler. Is that who she really was, Julius?”

“Mem,” he mumbled. “Mem-ler.”

A trace of spittle fell out of his mouth. I took a tissue and wiped it.

“Memler, Julius? Where is Memler?”

“Root.” His lips were cracked and the word came out in a guttural; I wasn’t sure I was hearing it correctly. “Root. Sell.”

“What are you doing here?”

I jumped at the unexpected voice. Herta Dzornen Colonna had come into the room and was furious at seeing me bent over her brother. “They told me one of Julius’s nieces was here. I thought it was my daughter Abigail, but it’s you. Get out of here at once.”

I got meekly to my feet, but didn’t apologize. “I saw your brother arriving at Cordell Breen’s house late last night, Ms. Colonna. He was very angry.”

“Julius?” She was so surprised she briefly forgot her own rage. “He hates Cordell.” Her face tightened again. “How do you know? Were you following him?”

“No, ma’am. Cordell had summoned me to Lake Forest to chew me
out. Julius arrived as I was leaving. He accused Cordell of impersonating him to gain access to your father’s papers at the University of Chicago Library.”

“That’s unbelievable.”

“Which part?” I asked.

Julius moved restlessly within his carapace and said again, “Root . . . Sell.”

Herta moved to the bed and put her fingers against her brother’s neck. “Don’t worry about it, Jules. Just rest and feel better.”

She looked at me. “I don’t know why Cordell would want to see Father’s papers, unless he thought there was an expired patent he could exploit. He and Julius never got on, but after the launch of the BREENIAC, they couldn’t be in the same room. Our families stopped having Thanksgivings together. It wasn’t long after that Edward Breen moved up to Lake Forest. But if Jules was really angry, I suppose he might have gotten drunk for courage and driven up to confront Cordell.”

She sighed and patted the part of her brother’s head that lay exposed. “I suppose that’s how he lost control of his car.”

“If he hated Cordell so much, how come he’s living in the Breen’s old coach house?”

Herta’s nostrils flared with annoyance. “He moved there when Mother died. Bettina and I were beside ourselves! Julius was forty and until Mother’s death, he still lived in his old bedroom. He wanted to stay right where he was, but Bettina and I insisted on selling. Julius didn’t work, he couldn’t even have paid the taxes, let alone upkeep.

“Then Cordell invited Julius to live in the Breen family’s old coach house down in Hyde Park. Bettina and I both told him it was a terrible mistake, but all Julius would say is that Cordell wasn’t charging him any rent to look after the place. Cordell, and Edward before him, treated the coach house like it was a sacred place—because it’s where Edward perfected his first computer. After Edward died, Cordell hung on to the coach house, too! Bettina and I kept telling Julius he’d never
get out of his depression if he didn’t find an apartment of his own and learn to work for a living, but you might as well talk to a block of wood.”

Julius stirred again next to her and she absently patted his head again.

“He keeps saying, ‘Root, Sell,’” I said. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”

Herta seemed to regret talking to me so frankly. “Whatever it is, it’s his business, not yours. I’m not calling the nurse to tell her
you
were impersonating my daughter, but that’s only because you could make some sense out of why Julius was on North Sheridan Road. You’ve still been invasive and even dangerous and I want you to leave.”

I mustered what dignity I could and left.

43

TEDDY BEAR, TEDDY BEAR, TOUCH THE GROUND

I
T HAD STARTED
to drizzle again while I was with Herta. As I trudged along the dark streets back to the Subaru, a squad car rushed toward me, its lights flashing. I leapt out of the way but my legs still got soaked. The car was tan, not one of the Evanston force’s white-and-purple. Perhaps the hospital’s security service, trying to look important.

When I got to the Subaru, I was wet all the way through. I turned on the heater and got a blast of cold moldy air. Better to shiver.

Lotty had arrived at Max’s almost an hour before I got there. She was curled up in a large armchair in front of Max’s fireplace, looking more like a street urchin than a surgeon with an international reputation. I squatted in front of the fire, warming my hands.

“You’re wet,” Lotty said. “Take off your shoes and socks; Max can find you some slippers.”

My teeth were starting to chatter. Max hurried into a back room and returned with a blanket and a pair of wool socks. Lotty went into the kitchen and brought me back a cup of hot lemon water.

“What happened, Victoria?”

“Julius Dzornen.” I explained how I’d happened to know he was in Lake Forest last night.

“Julius drove up there last night, loaded for bear, but as always happens in a confrontation between him and Cordell Breen, Breen won.”

“That makes it sound as though you think Breen caused Dzornen’s accident,” Max said. “I find that impossible to accept.”

I looked at Max and smiled ruefully. “Nothing would surprise me about any of these people, but Breen is so clever that if he wanted to get rid of Dzornen, he’d use a method that was dead-certain to work, not rely on tampering with Julius’s car, or putting Ambien in his brandy. And as it turns out, Julius did survive. He’s in rotten shape, but he’s alive.”

Max nodded. “When you called, you said you wanted me—us—to look at some documents?”

“Oh.” I’d been so upset by Julius’s accident that I’d forgotten why I’d been on my way to Evanston in the first place. “I went down to Hyde Park this morning to look at Benjamin Dzornen’s papers. I found three letters that may be from Martina Saginor, and one from the address I remember Lotty saying she shared with them. Even if I could make out the script, I can’t understand German.”

I took the folded copies from the folder and handed them to Lotty. She looked at them and looked away, her face contorted in pain.

“Lotty!” I dropped to my knees next to her.

“Victoria! I—that letter—where did it come from!”

She broke off and Max forced her to drink a little wine.

“I’m so sorry,” I said helplessly. “If I’d known they would distress you this much, I would never have brought them to you.”

“It’s not that.” Lotty blinked back tears. “It’s—this—my
Opa
—”

She swallowed another mouthful of wine. “It’s from my
Opa
, my grandfather, Felix Herschel. It’s as if the ghosts in my head suddenly came to life.”

She tried reading the letter, but finally handed it to Max, who was standing at her other side. He translated it out loud, stumbling over some words where the photocopy was too faded to read easily.

My dear Professor Dzornen,

I hope you and Frau Dzornen are well. As winter approaches, the damp in Vienna becomes raw and bitter, especially here near the canal. Food is hard to find as well.

We miss your beloved student, Fräulein Martina, who has been forced to do work far from Vienna. Her mother and aunts have also left us, as have our own daughter and her husband. A letter came for Fräulein Martina that probably is of no importance, but in these unsettled times, I thought I would let you know so that you can notify her when you next speak to her. We placed it in a familiar family setting, the spot where her own little daughter, Käthe, put our Charlotte’s teddy bear.

With all good wishes for your health, my esteemed Professor, yours truly,

(Dr.) Felix Herschel

Lotty’s hands shook as she took the letter from Max. “My
Opa
, his own handwriting.” She traced his signature with her forefinger. “After the invasion of Poland I never heard from him again, not even Red Cross letters. I kept writing to him from London, to my mother, my grandmother, and never hearing back.”

Her voice turned bitter. “Now at least I know the order of their dying: first my parents, then my grandparents.”

She added after another silent moment, “My
Opa
loved his books, but he had to start burning them to keep us warm. He held back his favorite titles, but he must have run out of writing paper and used this. I was too little to understand literature, but he often showed me
Radetzkymarsch
, telling me it was one of the greatest novels ever written. That he tore out the title page—I must go to the library, I must see the original.”

We all sat quietly for a time. Finally I said, “Can you tell me about your teddy bear? Where did Käthe—Kitty—put it?”

Lotty tried to put her personal distress out of her mind. Her forehead furrowed as she tried to summon memories she had left buried for most of her life.

“I certainly remember my Teddy. When we were thrown out of my grandmother’s beautiful flat on the Renngasse, we had only a short time to pack. They let us take one small suitcase each. They ransacked the rooms, they stole my
Oma
’s silver, her jewelry, even my
Opa
’s World War One military medals.
Opa
took some of his books; the Nazis didn’t care about books.

“My
Opa
told me to choose quickly among my toys, that I could take one, and I chose Teddy. He was a beautiful golden brown, and he was my comfort for many years. He traveled to London with me, and cheered me in my cousin Minna’s soulless house. In the end, when I learned I’d earned an obstetrics fellowship at Northwestern here in Chicago I had him cleaned and repaired for the children’s ward at the Royal Free.”

“But where did Kitty put him?” I asked. “Why would your grandfather think that so important to mention?”

“The letter that came to Fräulein Martina must have been important, or your grandfather wouldn’t have written Dzornen about it, right?” Max added. “They didn’t really know each other, did they?”