Skeletons at the Feast (10 page)

"But how do you know? How can you be so sure?"

Anna watched the pony, more plump than was probably healthy, snitch at a clump of high grass.

"I guess I don't know. Not for certain. But . . ."

"Tell me."

"Well, it's one thing for them to take back the land we had conquered. It's quite another to take our land from us. Just imagine how fiercely Werner would be fighting if he were defending this country right here."

Theo nodded and seemed to be taking this in. Then: "They might take Father, you know."

For a moment Anna wasn't sure who they were. Did Theo mean the Russians? She must have looked puzzled, because Theo continued, "The army. Maybe the Volkssturm, but maybe the Wehrmacht."

"Father? He's already done his duty--and that was a very long time ago. He's . . . old," she said, and as that last word formed on her lips she couldn't help but smile in bemusement. Their father? In the army? He was strong and disciplined and smart, but these days he was a businessman and farmer. He ran the estate. She couldn't see him enduring the sorts of misery that had seemed to dog Werner. She didn't see why he should have to. "Why would you ever think such a thing?" she added.

"Yesterday I heard Mutti and Basha talking."

"About Father leaving for the army?"

"Yes!"

She felt Balga once more straining beneath her and motioned to Theo that they needed to keep moving. When they reached the drier land on the far side of the marsh they began to trot, and over the sound of the horses' hooves she called back to her brother, "I'm sure if they did take him, it would just be for desk work. Right here, maybe. Or in Kulm. But he wouldn't be fighting like Werner."

"Or Helmut soon," Theo muttered.

"Yes."

"But if Father does leave, there will hardly be any grownup men left here at all. And that means I . . ."

"Go on."

"It means I would have to be the man of the house. And I'm not ready for that. I know I'm not."

"Oh, Theo, sweetie, you don't have to worry about such things!" she told him, working hard to suppress a small smile so he wouldn't think she was laughing at his expense when all she was feeling was affection for him. To her relief, he was still young enough to allow his vulnerabilities and his fears a small voice. All the other males-- even the boys Theo's age--were already growing into blustering strongmen. Powerful Aryans who didn't dare admit to anyone that they just might be scared. "Everyone loves you as you are," she went on. "No one expects you suddenly to be older than ten."

"But I could be if I had to be. Don't you think so?"

"Of course I think so."

"I just don't want to if I don't have to."

"No, I agree. Who would? Besides, there will always be the prisoners," she said, only half-serious, hoping to get a small laugh out of Theo.

Instead, however, her brother told her in a voice that was completely earnest, "No, they're leaving the day after tomorrow. I heard Father on the phone yesterday!"

Instantly she pulled her horse to a stop and turned to face the boy. "What?"

"They're being sent back to their prison camp."

"No, that's not possible--"

"Yes, it is possible," he said, his tone growing defensive because she hadn't believed him. "Even . . ."

"Tell me!"

"Even your boyfriend, Callum! I'm telling you, they're all going to be taken away!"

If she hadn't needed both hands on the leather reins, she thought she might have slapped him for that remark about the Scotsman. She'd never hit her brother before, but there was always a first time. "He's not my boyfriend," she said simply, allowing a little sharpness into her tone.

Theo looked away. He didn't believe her, but clearly he had no plans to argue about this. Whether Callum was her boyfriend was the least of his concerns. "They're almost done with the harvest," he went on, an apparently helpful clarification on his part.

"Who was Father talking to?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"The agriculture minister? The commandant of the prison camp?"

"I said, I don't know."

"Well, just because the harvest is finished doesn't mean Father can run Kaminheim with only you and me and Mutti to help him. He certainly can't. And--"

"And Father will be gone, too!" Theo snapped, turning back toward her. "It will just be the three of us! That's what I mean: I'm going to have to be the man of the house!"

She felt herself growing a little exasperated, and offered a litany of the different men from the village--the farrier, the veterinarian, the logger, the mechanic, the handyman, the chimney sweep--who would appear periodically at the estate.

"Have you seen Mr. Schenck lately? Or Mr. Lutz?" Theo asked, referring to the veterinarian and the mechanic.

"No, of course I haven't. We haven't needed them."

"They're gone!"

"What do you mean they're gone?"

"I heard Father! Mr. Schenck is in the army now and Mr. Lutz has been taken to some factory in Germany. They're taking everybody!"

The contentment--the outright happiness--she had been experiencing at the horse barn had evaporated completely, along with the final vestiges of the morning fog, and she spurred Balga forward. Behind her she heard Theo urging on Bogdana. She realized she would have to slow her own horse when they reached the apple orchard so Theo could catch up to her before they returned to the grounds, and this only annoyed her further.

THE WORKERs FROM ORGANisATION TODT NEVER cAME.

The long, meticulous lines the naval officers had scratched into the eastern edges of Kaminheim slowly disappeared beneath wind and sleet and the winter grasses that sprung up even as the days grew despairingly short and the temperature in the evenings fell below freezing. There would be no deep crevasses gouged from the clay, no strategically placed gun emplacements, no firing pits from which anyone--boys closer in age to Theo than Helmut--might discharge their panzerfausts in desperation at stalled Russian armor.

No one from Todt called or wrote to tell the Emmerichs why, but as October faded along with the sunlight into November, they all presumed there simply weren't enough men. Apparently, there weren't even enough prisoners. The dike that was the Greater Reich was collapsing in so many spots, there were so many breaches on so many fronts, that the need to construct an antitank trench in their corner of the district was all but forgotten. Anna told Theo that the reason the trench wasn't being built was that it was no longer necessary: Their armies were stemming the Russian advance far to the east, and he needn't be afraid. It wasn't true, of course, but it made them both happy when she verbalized the notion, especially now that news of the slaughter in the recaptured village of Nemmersdorf had reached them.

And that news had reached them in every conceivable way the Ministry of Propaganda could imagine. Though Mutti had tried to shield her children from the stories, the tales of rape and mutilation were on the radio, in the newsreels, and in the press. There were leaflets about the slaughter distributed along with ration cards; there were posters on the walls of the villages and nailed to the trees along the roads. The underlying message always was clear: This--this unspeakable brutality, this unparalleled violence--is what awaits our women and children if we don't fight to the death to preserve our precious Fatherland. For weeks, Nemmersdorf was all anyone could talk about.

Meanwhile, the men from the village continued to leave as the weather grew cold. When Father needed the logger to help clear land for firewood because coal was growing more rare than gold, he was told that the fellow was gone, taken away at gunpoint in a truck along with his brothers and son. There was no sweep to prepare the manor house's many chimneys for the winter, and so Werner, home from Budapest in October for three days of leave, found the chains and brushes and spent his few days at Kaminheim climbing over the slate on the peaks and the eaves to clean the chimneys himself. No one in the town had any idea where the chimney sweep had been taken.

Soon after the naval officers left, most of the prisoners and their aged guard were taken away, too, returned to the stalag where they had spent the summer. The one exception? Callum Finella. Certainly there were martinets in the district, such as Helmut's schoolteacher, who questioned Rolf Emmerich's patriotism or wondered if he was a party member only because it made it easier to run the business that was Kaminheim; but his farm also produced a great deal of food and he was part of a distinguished Aryan family. He had just enough clout that the authorities heard his plea for slave labor--just as, before that, Rolf had heard the pleas of his only daughter for Callum. She insisted that the two of them were friends and nothing more, and he acted as if he believed her. Mutti did, too. And since the needs of his estate matched the wants of his daughter--since, in his experience, there had to be another man on the farm capable of the heavy lifting that was demanded daily on an estate the size of Kaminheim, even in winter--he had argued convincingly that one of the prisoners should remain in his possession. The presence of the individual was going to be especially critical, Rolf realized, once he was pressed into service.

And that date came in the middle of November. Precisely as Basha, their cook, had speculated, Rolf Emmerich, though forty-nine years old, returned to the Wehrmacht. Not the Volkssturm. The army. Initially, his uniform had made his younger son Helmut envious, since Helmut would have to be satisfied with a mere Volkssturm armband until he turned eighteen in December and would graduate into the army, as well.

No one seemed to care that this meant a POW was left alone with two women, a boy, and a part-time cook on the estate outside of Kulm. No one worried for the two women because, after all, this Callum Finella was British--not Russian. And the Emmerichs (and their friends and relatives on the neighboring estates) had no idea why they were even at war with the British.

Might he try to leave the grounds of Kaminheim and escape? It was possible. But why would he? they asked themselves. If he went west he would only be going deeper into Germany and the likelihood that he would be shot as an escaped POW. And if he went east? Dear God, no one went east. All that was east were the Russians.

callum had just wedged the hay bale against the barn wall and was starting down the stairs from the loft when he heard the boy singing. Theo's voice hadn't begun to change yet, and so it was still a lovely soprano. He was singing a folk song, something about a horse and some clouds, as he was mucking the stalls. For a long moment Callum stood perfectly still on the wooden stairs, listening to the child. He had studied French and German in school and had learned a fair amount more since he'd been taken prisoner--most in the last few months under Anna's tutelage--but he was still not completely sure what the song was about. When he finally moved, the step groaned loudly and Theo heard him and went quiet.

"Don't stop because of me," Callum reassured him, jumping down the last few steps onto the barn floor. Theo wouldn't meet his eyes, and he realized the boy was embarrassed. "You have a wonderful voice."

Now Theo looked up at him, but he was wary. He was in his pony's stall, shoveling methodically.

"You ever sing in a choir?" Callum asked, when the boy remained silent.

At this he shook his head.

"Well, you should. A church choir, maybe."

"We don't go to church anymore," he said evenly. Then he unhooked the stall door and emerged with the cart and his shovel, walking right past Callum as if he were invisible and into the stall for one of the draft horses.

"I rarely sing, but only because I can't," he confessed to Theo. "I wish I could."

The child threw him a bone and nodded, but Callum could tell he was only being polite. And so he was about to leave and get on with his other chores, when Theo surprised him. "I like the old songs," he said. "Not the new ones they make us sing at school or they teach at the Jungvolk meetings. Helmut sings them much better than I do."

"I doubt that."

"He does. Werner, too. They have much bigger voices and can really sing the marching songs. I don't . . ."

"You don't what?"

He shrugged.

"Go ahead, Theo. You can tell me."

"I don't like the marching songs."

"I don't blame you. Seems to me they're just drinking songs anyway. You always want to sing them with a stein in your hand."

"But everyone else likes them."

"I just told you: I don't."

The boy looked at him, but said nothing.

"You know, Theo, you don't need to apologize to the world that you're not Helmut or Werner."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, realizing that he had just initiated a conversation he hadn't anticipated a moment ago, "that you seem to talk a lot about what you're not. Who you're not." He leaned over the wooden half-wall of the stall, noticed the pyramidal clumps of manure in the straw.

"So?"

"So? Well, you're a good boy in your own right. Take your singing. Maybe your voice isn't as loud as your brothers'. I have no idea. But there isn't a boys' choir in Scotland that couldn't find a use for a voice like yours. You'd be a soloist."

Theo sighed and blew on his hands. "I don't seem to like the things everyone else does."

"I don't either."

"No?"

"No. And it seems to me, no one thinks they like the right things at your age," Callum said, though he guessed he was lying. But he also knew that ten-year-old boys always had the potential to bully the odd duck, and that tendency was undoubtedly exacerbated in this corner of the globe. He had a feeling the master race didn't have a lot of patience for a kid like Theo.

"Werner and Helmut were always popular. Somehow, they always knew their duty and did things correctly. People liked them. Students, teachers."

"Is that what you've been told?"

"It's what I know."

"I'll bet if you asked them, they'd tell you they never felt like they did everything right. Anyone who thinks he does--and this is one of my favorite words of yours--is a dummkopf. But that really doesn't matter. You're Theo. That's all that counts. And you don't ever have to apologize for who you are."

The boy seemed to contemplate this. Ran his free hand along the well-muscled shoulder of the enormous horse.

"Besides," he added. "Think of all the things you do better than anyone."

"There isn't anything I do better than anyone," Theo said.

"You are a very fast runner."

"I guess."

"And you ride very well."

"Just ponies."

"Someday it will be horses."

"I hope so."

Outside the barn he heard the wind, and high above them the weather vane swiveled with a shriek. The wind was coming from the north.

"I know so," he told the boy, though he really knew nothing of the sort. "In the meantime, you sing. And don't worry that you're not Helmut or Werner. You're Theo, and that should be good enough for anyone."

He felt a twinge of self-satisfaction after he'd spoken. Perhaps he had buoyed the boy's spirits after all. But then, his head down and his small shoulders hunched in his coat, Theo went to the rear of the stall and silently cleaned up the animal's droppings.

she closed her eyes, her mouth against the side of his neck. His skin was warm against her lips, and the collar from his shirt tickled her just beneath her chin if she moved. And so she didn't move. She remained there, perfectly still, aware only of the metronomic rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, and the sound of the logs that were being consumed by the flames in the fireplace. She was afraid to open her eyes, because the moment--the feel of his hand on her waist, his fingers firm against the flesh of her hip because her blouse had come untucked--was exquisite. She had never before felt a man's hands on the skin near her waist, and she could feel her whole body starting to flush. It was as if she had a high fever, except there was no pain. There was only eagerness (though precisely for what, she could admit to no one, not even to herself) and her sense that this was the start of something wondrous and new.

They were standing now in the bay window in the ballroom that overlooked the edges of the hunting park. Mutti and Theo and Basha were shopping in the village, and the two of them had Kaminheim to themselves. Anna had seen Callum carting the furniture from their terrace into the shed beside the house, and beckoned him inside when the sleet and hail had started falling in earnest. There were many chores that had to be completed regardless of the weather, but bringing the outdoor tables and chairs in for the winter wasn't among them in Anna's opinion. Especially with everyone else away for the afternoon.

Finally she felt him pulling her even closer into him, dancing her body so that they were facing each other. She opened her eyes and looked up, her breasts against his chest, and--without even thinking about what she was doing--she moved her legs so that they were surrounding one of his thighs, pressing her groin through her skirt against the hard muscle there. She thought he was about to kiss her, but instead he brought his lips to her ear and whispered simply, "You know, I dream of you."

She did not know this, but she nodded, savoring the way his breath had given her goose bumps along her arms, and he continued, "I haven't dreamed of Scotland. Not lately. I've dreamed only of you."