She couldn’t figure it out. I know everything about you. Anna doubted that was true but wasn’t going to ask for specifics. As if he would have given them to her. That’s how he always handled the boys. You know what you did. Now go to your room. The wondering was part of the punishment. How much did Bruno actually know? Anna was going to have to live without that answer.
Bruno was the only father Polly Jean had ever known. And she’s the only daughter he’s ever had. People parented children who were not their genetic offspring all the time. He loved her. Adored her. Was that so unusual? He would do anything for her. Would maintain every appearance for her. Would swallow his pain for her. For Victor and Charles.
For Anna.
Whom he loved. Truly, deeply loved.
Bruno helped her stand and then wrapped her in a towel and dried her off. She felt like a child. Bruno was neither tender nor rough. He toweled her down noncommittally. He’d brought a nightgown—Anna’s favorite, she noted—into the bathroom with him and instructed her to lift her arms as he dressed her. He pointed past the bathroom’s open door into the bedroom. “Can you walk by yourself? Lie down. I’ll be in soon.” Anna did as Bruno instructed her. She was the queen of compliance.
A few minutes later Anna heard the thin, airy siffle of the teakettle. I was making tea and then … She let the thought wander off. Another minute passed and Bruno was at Anna’s bedside delivering the cup of tea she might have prepared two hours earlier. Bruno set it on the nightstand. Anna sat up weakly. “Here.” Bruno offered an open palm. In it were three small pills.
“Three?” They were the pills Doktor Messerli had most recently prescribed. Anna had only taken a few, and no more than one at a time. But she took the pills from Bruno’s hand, put them in her mouth, and washed them back with a sip of tea. “Bruno,” Anna started.
He shook his head. “We’re not going to talk about this tonight.” And then he left the room and shut the door. Anna set the cup on the nightstand and let her body become the bed. Help me, help me, help me, she cried into her pillow. Her eyelids were swollen and sore. She repeated her plea until the pills began to soften her resolve to remain vigilant and her consciousness retreated into a lonely place inside that didn’t have a name.
Then she fell asleep.
23
THE COLOR OF A FLAME WILL TELL YOU ITS TEMPERATURE. Yellow flames are coolest. The hottest flames are white. They are called dazzling flames. Red fire is not as hot as blue. The record for the hottest on-earth temperature is 3.6 billion degrees. It was reached in a lab. How is that possible? That’s hotter than the center of the sun. Each year, two and a half million Americans report burn injuries. Suttee is the religious suicide of a Hindu widow. Self-immolation is a frequent form of protest. Every ancient culture had a fire god: Pele, Hephaestus, Vulcan, Hestia, Lucifer, Brigid, the Mesopotamian god Gibil, the Aboriginal goddess Bila, Prometheus. Domestic control of fire began 125,000 years ago. No modern country allows execution by burning. Smoldering is the slow, low, flameless form of combustion. God appeared to Moses in a bramble of fire. An intumescent substance swells when it’s exposed to heat. Gretel pushed the witch into the oven where she died. Ash is the solid remains of fire. Incineration is the act of making the ash, and fire, if you’d care to be poetic about it, is ash’s mother. Under rare conditions, fire will make a tornado of itself, a whirling vortex of flame. When struck against steel, a flint edge will produce sparks. The flame that tortures also purifies. Not all fires can be fought.
24
ANNA SNAPPED OUT OF SLEEP. THE TRIO OF PILLS SHE’D TAKEN the night before had all three worn off at once, and in the manner of slices of bread when a toaster’s timer has run down, both eyes blinked open at the same time and Anna was awake.
The house was in a still and somber mood. The floorboards did not speak. The walls didn’t breathe. The house on Rosenweg was made of quiet. This was unusual. Even with the windows closed, mornings were typically noisy with birdsong and cars and people walking up and down the street. But Anna heard nothing that day. The silence was sobering. She figured it for an aftereffect of the pills.