When he let go of Fred, it felt as if he were saying farewell.
The air in the entry hall smelled of iodine. To Albert it felt brighter inside, as though the glass walls strengthened the daylight. His footsteps echoed. No one was staffing the reception desk. At a kiosk a pair of old folks in bright blue anoraks were examining a sodden trail map.
Alfonsa waited by a white column. She wasn’t smirking now. Albert went over to her, and before he could say anything she lifted her arms and removed the black veil. He didn’t move. Her hair was done up in a French braid; it was graying already at the temples, but otherwise the color was still strong. It glowed a fiery red.
PART VIII. Mina’s and Anni’s and Arkadiusz’s and Markus’s and Ludwig’s and Fred’s and Alfonsa’s and Julius’s Stories, 1930–1983
Grease, Dried Flowers, and Bitterness
Nathaniel Wickenhäuser, whose love for me was greater than my own for him, had folded up his mother’s bridal gown for me — presumably with his eyes shut, so that its whiteness wouldn’t blind him. It had smelled as Else would have, were she still alive: of grease, dried flowers, and bitterness. I can’t burn you, he must have thought. I can’t throw you out. But I can’t keep you, either. So you’re going to be a gift.
The next morning, in the bus, the bundle lay on the empty seat beside me. During the whole course of the trip, I didn’t touch it, but stared out the window: the mountains grew bigger, the forests thicker, while the road dwindled. When the bus reached my stop, I left the bundle where it was. Gifts from liars I could do without.
“Wait!” a woman shouted, holding the package aloft. “You’ve forgotten something!”
I struggled to smile, and thanked her.
“Somebody sure is lucky today,” she said.
“The question is, who?” I answered, stuffing the bundle into my travel bag.
That’s where it stayed for the moment, sharing the space with my provisions. It first saw the dull light of Segendorf when the innkeeper emptied the bag onto the floor of the barn on the moor, pulled it over her head, and announced, “Now you can do what you like with me!”
Which is exactly what I did, though the innkeeper had presumably had something else in mind: I chased her out of the barn. “I want nothing more to do with you!” I shouted, bringing the wench to tears, something that no one had managed to do for a good long time.
The very same night I had secretly watched my sister dancing for Arkadiusz, I set out once more for their house. The innkeeper had confirmed that it was she who lived there. This time I had Wickenhäuser’s present with me. Anni’s wedding was set to take place the next day, the innkeeper had told me, and if the bundle contained what it smelled like, then it was meant for her. I knocked, and Anni opened the door and shook her head, and I couldn’t say a single word. All of a sudden I saw our old house looming before me. Behind a second-story window Jasfe and Josfer lay atop and within each other. Anni, little Anni, stood in front of the house with the torch in her hand. She stretched out her arm and painted a streak of fire across the front door. Flames leapt up across the wooden walls and wrapped the structure in a gleaming coat of burning colors. The wall of flame built higher and higher, till it reached the window behind which Josfer and Jasfe screamed. Our parents pressed themselves against the pane. Howling. Out of lust, or despair, or who knew what.
“You’re alive!” Anni threw her arms around me, tearing me from my thoughts. Else’s scent rose into my nostrils, and Anni’s warmth to my head, and both at once were almost too much.
“You’re alive!” Anni repeated.
“Not for long, if you keep squeezing that hard.”
Anni let go of me and looked into my eyes and said almost voicelessly, “You’re alive.”
I handed her the bundle. “For your wedding.”
She smiled at me, moved, and tore it open.
“Do you like it?”
“… yes.”
“Are you going to wear it?”
“Julius, I already have a dress.”
“It can’t be as beautiful as this one.”
“I believe it is.”
“What you decide to believe is always the truth.”
“Then I believe that my dress is more beautiful.”
“At least try it on.”
“No can do.”
“Why not?”
“Because … it … it stinks.”
“It has a bit of an odor!”
“Julius. It stinks. And I don’t want to quarrel with you over a dress right now. You’re here! You’re alive!” Once again she clung to my throat, and she kissed my cheek and gave back Else’s dress. “Today is truly the most beautiful day of my life,” she whispered in my ear, and I kept to myself that I hoped life wouldn’t go downhill for her from here.
“Is that Julius?” someone asked, in an accent I’d never heard before. A lanky man appeared beside Anni, slipped an arm around her waist, and offered me his hand. “I am Arkadiusz. It is a pleasure to meet you. Anni has told me about you so often. You must be a terribly special person.”
I gave him a firm shake. That’s right, I thought, and: so much friendliness can’t possibly be genuine.
“You will stay with us, of course,” said Arkadiusz.
I knew I should have refused, and let the two of them insist, and then act as if I were pondering the situation, and let the two of them insist even more, and then manifest a little interest with some polite formulation, à la “If it really isn’t too much of a bother for you …” and then, hewing to the rule of third-time’s-a-charm, allow them to insist once more, in order to give in at last with an ironic “Well, if that’s the way it has to be.”
Instead of which I flashed my teeth in a Segendorfish smile, and said, “Gladly.”
Now my future brother-in-law threw an arm around me, too. “Welcome!”
That was too much of a good thing for my taste. I asked Anni if I could speak to her alone, and she turned to Arkadiusz and looked at him imploringly. He nodded immediately. And though that was just what I’d wanted, I would’ve preferred him to be a little less understanding. This man seemed flawless.
A little later, Anni and I were racing the way we used to, up to the top of Wolf Hill. I let her win. We stretched ourselves out in the shadow of the oak, and she told me about how she’d met Arkadiusz. Over the next few weeks we’d go back there again and again to talk about the past six years.
“You actually want to do it,” I said.
“What do you mean?”