Muffled Drum (12 page)

Mathias’s face was hard, and his words dripped with venom. Rudolph realized it was all too late—there was nothing he could say, because despite breaking up with Ernst a long while ago, he couldn’t deny that he’d fallen into bed with the man the very day they’d returned to Berlin. He could blame his memory, but how could he make an excuse like that to Mathias? It sounded weak and pitiful, even to his own mind.

Mathias paused just for a moment, as if expecting Rudolph to say something, even in apology, but Rudolph couldn’t. He knew now what he should have done, for his mind was clearer than it had been on the road. He should have acted on that attraction for Mathias and trusted his instincts. Now it was too late. Far too late, from the expression on Mathias’s face. Without another word, Mathias turned smartly on his heel and left the room.

The sound of the front door was like the tolling of some kind of bell, terrible and presaging. Rudolph clenched his fists for a moment, then turned to the drinks cabinet, determined to befuddle his mind all over again.
And stay so, if I can.

He was more than half-drunk when Goertz knocked on the door. At first he tried to ignore it, but Goertz was obviously concerned and would not be put off. His voice sounded through the thick wood. “Sir? Herr von Ratzlaff, sir? Are you all right? Can I come in, sir? Sir?”

He took another large mouthful of cognac and considered not replying, but then Goertz would get insistent and had been known to break down doors when he became concerned. “Let ’im,” he muttered. Then thought better of it. He staggered to his feet, pulled open the door and returned to his chair. “Well,” he said. “What’s so urgent? Problem with the horses?”

“The commission you sent me on, sir. Come for debriefing.”

Rudolph had to force himself to concentrate. Commission? Oh, damn it all. Ernst. “Sent you to do that days ago, didn’t I? Wondered why you hadn’t reported.” He hadn’t, in fact. With the anticipation of seeing Mathias, Ernst had almost entirely gone from his mind.

“Sorry ’bout that, sir. But you said he was staying with Herr Genz. So I went there first, and, well. Herr Genz might look like a bloody macaroni, but he’s a bit tougher than he looks. Didn’t want to tell me anything about Ernst at first, even when I said I came from you.”

“Very laudable of him,” Rudolph said, dryly, reaching for the bottle again.

“Took me a couple of days to track the bugg—the fellow down, I’m afraid. But I found him. Oh, I found him in the end. Oh yes. I can say for certain that Ernst Fetter has burned his boats in Berlin, for good. You’ll want the details, sir?”

“No.” Rudolph waved at Goertz in dismissal. “No. You did your duty, that’ll be all.”

“Sir. Can I be…?”

“That will be
all
, sergeant!” The door closed behind Goertz and Rudolph sank forward in the chair, his elbows on his knees.
Damn my weakness. Mathias, Augusta, and now Ernst. I think that if that little whore were here right now, I’d…I’d…

His head felt like it was splitting open, and there was a cure for that ill, at least. He reached for the bottle again.

The city of Danzig had never felt as cold as it did that spring, and Mathias felt the chill in his bones as if he were seventy-five years old rather than five and twenty. The winter’s snow still hung around the roofs of the city, and each day brought a chill wind as cold as the steppes from which it had come.

Through sheer determination, and not a few lies—he never told anyone he was in the army—he’d obtained work. Entirely unskilled for anything other than managing men and killing an enemy, he had few choices. He talked himself into a job in a bookshop, but his employer was suspicious of everything he did, leaning over his shoulder every moment of the day, as if hoping to see money disappearing from the customers’ hands into Mathias’s pockets. He was also obsessed with subversives and would see plots and plans that would bring down the country behind every new face that entered the shop. This attitude put off any possible new regular customers and soon had Mathias so jumpy he could hardly bear to be in the shop at all.

Eventually he left without giving notice, despite knowing his next job would be that much harder to find. Leaving behind the semi-respectability of shop work, he asked around the docks for employment and was taken on as a stevedore. It was mindless and backbreaking, but he didn’t hate it or like it any more or less than he had working in the shop.

The gang boss, Zobel, was loud, aggressive and threw his weight around as if he were something special. He reminded Mathias of Goertz in a way that didn’t do any favors to either Zobel or to Goertz’s memory. Mathias was surprised to learn that Zobel had never been in uniform—he seemed a perfect candidate for a master sergeant.

Backbreaking and mundane it might be, but he liked the honesty of the toil and welcomed the monotony of his life. He threw his back into the work and did what came naturally to a leutnant in an army, becoming part of a machine—a machine made of men and men’s muscles, loading and unloading, unloading and loading. Ships arrived, ships left, but the work was always the same. After a month or two, he felt so at home on the docks, looking the same as the others, eating the same food, telling the same jokes, singing the same filthy songs, it would have been impossible to pick him out from the line of working men as anything other than what he appeared, and the class he seemed to be.

But every now and then, after his landlady had retired and the house was dark, Mathias would open his storage chest, take out his best suit and shirt, put on his polished shoes and slip out of the house. He saved every spare
thaler
he earned, never going drinking with the men nor dallying with the whores around the port. It might not have made him many friends in the team, but it certainly impressed his landlady. He saved the money for rare nights like this, when he would walk out of the tenements, find a cab and be driven to the best restaurant in Danzig. It was a restaurant that glittered with the rich and the nouveau-riche of the Empire, and it wasn’t cheap.

Mathias didn’t eat there, but he loved to hang around the bar and watch a world he knew he’d never join. It wasn’t that he even wanted to, but to see the busy waiters, the impeccably dressed diners, the men resplendent and beautiful in their uniforms gave him pleasure. It wasn’t Rudolph’s circle but, somewhere, Rudolph lived in a world just like this one. Perhaps dancing with his wife at some function or ball, perhaps surrounded by his friends, with a dark-haired man beside him. It made Rudolph seem closer. Somehow Mathias clung to that comfort and would do for as long as it lasted.

One day the pain would stop, but it wasn’t today. The pain kept Rudolph near and the memories sharp. He hated the idea that Rudolph would fade from his mind, a little every day, until he’d have difficulty even remembering his face, his smile, his body. He wished, if anything, he could be as fortunate as Rudolph, that one day a crate would drop, knocking all memories of the man entirely from his mind—gone in one brief second, and he’d never know the loss of him, for there would be no one around to remind him of their connection.

A man along the bar gave Mathias the briefest of smiles, and the very brevity of it told Mathias all he needed to know.
All I need to do is smile back.
The man wasn’t unpleasant to look at, but nothing drew Mathias’s eye, so he turned away as if he’d not seen the sign of encouragement.
One day. Not today.

To his right were two uniformed officers, well into their cups, loud and effusively noticeable. Mathias was sure that after one or two more toasts, they would break into song, and he drained his glass and ordered another, just to keep them company, in spirit. But instead of singing, they continued on their round of toasts. Their commander, their horses, their fallen comrades, and finally their wives, answering a question Mathias had been asking himself about the pair.

“And let’s not forget that most gracious of ladies, whose quiet charm and ever-welcoming house will never be forgotten by me,” the taller of the two said. Mathias quirked an eyebrow as he listened. It was a little indiscreet to go toasting one’s mistress in public. “She was too young and too lovely to die. I for one will miss her, even if her husband doesn’t.”

“That’s ruddy unfair, Johann,” his companion said. “I never doubted von Ratzlaff loved the woman.”

Mathias’s heart constricted. Not only for the mention of von Ratzlaff—surely it
had
to be Rudolph—but for the thought that Frau von Ratzlaff had died. He wanted to interject, to interrogate his neighbors, but he held his tongue and continued to listen.

“Really? Good Lord. You do surprise me, what with…What makes you think that?”

“Oh, well, in his way, you know. No one knew of her fragility until after the children were born. I heard that her heart was so delicate, the slightest thing, even standing up too fast, might have taken her. Poor woman. And I feel sorry for the man. He stayed away for her health, as much as anything else, but it didn’t do much good, in the end. Ah, our table’s ready.”

The two men passed by, and Mathias turned his face away as the shock of what he’d heard registered with him. His first thoughts had not been for Rudolph, which surprised him enormously, but for the one meeting he’d had with his wife, remembering her aristocratic poise, which had put him so entirely at his ease. The hints she gave that she knew of Rudolph’s entanglement with Ernst, and the subtle encouragement she’d given him to stay with Rudolph and to try and loosen Ernst’s hold.

She knew about him and me, and she trusted me in a task which I failed to do. I had as much chance of shifting that leech as I could scrape a barnacle from a hull with the palm of my hand
. He was immensely saddened to hear the news, even though he’d only met her once. His thoughts went to Rudolph, and the last conversation he had with the man.

I shouldn’t have left angry, I know that. I told myself I’d stick with him. I told her I would. I dishonored her. And myself.

He threw money on the bar and left, jumped into the first cab on the rank and slouched in a corner of the carriage. Anger swirled through him, making him hot and cold in turns, but it was anger at his own impatience with Rudolph’s affliction, the way he’d left, showing his jealousy over something Rudolph didn’t even understand.

But running away had done nothing, cured nothing. He still loved Rudolph—and he should have stayed, should have risked telling him that.
He’d have fought for you, if the boot was on the other foot.
If there had been some way of transporting himself to Berlin in that moment, he would have done it, dealt with the barnacle Ernst, and told Rudolph the truth. Force him to make a choice.

I should have given him the chance to choose, at least. And I will.

Back in his rooms, he took paper and a pen and began to write.

Opening condolence letters had become as much of a habit as dressing and shaving, and the latest batch of black-edged letters were placed by his elbow with his morning coffee. The writing on one of the envelopes seemed to call to him, and Rudolph pulled it from the small pile of correspondence and slit it open. The sending address was Danzig, forwarded from Berlin. He tore the envelope open, his heart leaping to discover—
wonderful and unexpected
—the letter was from Mathias.

My dear Rudolph,

The news of your loss has just reached me here in Danzig, and I would not be your friend if I did not write and tell you of the sorrow I feel, and my deepest sympathy at the loss of your wife.

I never told you, but I met your wife, just once…

The Devil! Rudolph stared at the paper.
Why did he keep that—and so much else from me?

I went to see her, because I wanted to tell her about your memory. I discussed it with the medic, and I knew she would not have much detail—the army never excels in that, do they? Your wife made me welcome. She knew of me from letters you’d written, and gave me the honor of treating me like an old acquaintance. I was touched that you felt you could tell her of our friendship.

A chill ran down his spine. He’d spoken of Mathias to Augusta? That was something he’d never done before.

He hadn’t seen his wife, for he’d stayed in Berlin, nursing the strange loss of a relationship he didn’t remember, and the shock of breaking with a man he’d apparently broken with once before. When the telegram came, stating in cold, sharp words that Augusta had died in her sleep after suffering a bad cold, he’d fled to Grunewald, far too late. There, he’d buried his wife and attempted to bury his heart and feelings in estate work and the kindness of neighbors. It had hardly worked. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to read the rest of the letter.

I feel that by leaving you in Berlin, I let her down, every bit as much as I did you. I should not have said those things, and should not have judged you for an acquaintance I knew nothing about.

Forgive me, and let us remain friends. Permit me to call on you one day when you are alone. Direct me as to when, so I can share my condolences in person.

Respectfully,

Mathias Hofmann

Oh, Mathias,
he thought, reading and re-reading the words to sear them into his mind.
You dear man.
The inference was clear—he still thought Ernst had been between them all those years and was still between them. Rudolph knew there was little he could do to make matters better—but he could try and convince Mathias of his error in that regard. Pulling paper and a pen from the desk drawer, he wrote
My dear Hofmann,

How to word it so it was clear but not so clear that it would throw them both into fresh trouble? He started and restarted the letter a dozen times, each one more formal and impossible than the last. He reached into the desk for more paper and noticed the telegraph forms tucked tidily into a separate compartment. Yes…much better.

Hofmann. Come in haste. I am alone. Von Ratzlaff.

Hardly a love letter, but it was all he could do in the circumstances. He gave the telegram to the butler and went to his room, leaving the pile of correspondence on his desk, other than one letter that he put carefully into his inside pocket.

I am alone.

Mathias had been obsessing over those three words since the telegram had been delivered to him, sent on from his lodgings by his landlady. He carried and fetched and pulled and lifted, but his mind was not centered on the cold or the loads he had to bear. It was with Rudolph, the urgency that had spurred him to send a telegram rather than a longer and more detailed letter, and the inference of those three words.
I am alone.
Was it just to state his loneliness now his wife was dead? Or was it, as Mathias almost dared not to hope, the only way Rudolph could say
My wife is gone. Ernst is gone. Come quickly for I need you.

He held the telegram, crushed it into his fist, unshed tears stinging his eyes.
No
. Was he being stupid? Was he seeing things that weren’t there? Or was Rudolph—once again—using him as a handy second fiddle? Was it merely easier to recall a discarded love, than to cultivate a new one?

Should he even open that door again, when he had taken the first steps to close it? Or should he give Rudolph a chance to explain? If his memory had returned…perhaps it had…

His thoughts churned around and around until he could bear it no longer. At midday he knew he had to get away from the docks, so during the lunch break he slipped away without a word and walked back to his apartment, still deep in thought.

If there was one chance in a hundred—a thousand—that Rudolph and he could mend their fences, or even return to the camaraderie they had on the ride from Gitschin, then Mathias wanted to take that chance. He was a gambler—and there were some bets well worth taking. One didn’t ride into battle considering whether this cannon or that one was the one to avoid. You just rode, screaming defiance in the face of the enemy, and you took what life gave you, while the drums deafened the ears and heated the blood.

Once everything he wanted in life had been so close to his reach. It felt a hundred years since that morning before the battle of Gitschin, when Rudolph had held him in his arms and they’d known—so sure of their futures—that only death would stand in the way of their fate.
How arrogant we were to think that life was that simple.

But nothing was worth having without risk.

He packed, as hurriedly as he could, paid off the landlady, who tried to get some answers from him. “Where will you be? What should I tell anyone who asks?” He had nothing to tell her, and no one would be asking, of that he was certain. At the livery stable he had more of a problem, for the owner had the contracted rights to hire Danzig for a further three weeks, and at first he was prepared to be sticky about it.

“I’ll lose money if I let him go early,” the man said.