“Get out!” Georg says to Erich before he himself leaves, through the front door, swinging it back on its hinges to slam against the wall, the force of which causes the clock to fall and smash on the stone. The mood in the room is solemn, and that brief time that they had forgotten the past has vanished with Georg.
“It is probably time to end the night,” says Rosalind apologetically, not to Erich but to Stefano, in her usual disagreeably abrupt tone, her brightness fading quickly. “I will go and find him. I keep thinking that he will return to . . .” She doesn’t have to say the word. It is pretty obvious he will never return to normal.
“No,” says Stefano. “Not you. I will go.”
And Erich wonders why he should care. Tomorrow he’ll be gone, and there will be no one to protect her then.
Stefano leaves the house, and it is just Erich and Rosalind and the child in the room.
Michal has hidden under the table, and Rosalind bends down to speak to him.
“It is safe, Michal. Georg won’t hurt you. He is a gentle giant, and he loves children.”
Erich watches Rosalind, who has no idea of children and their fears and can’t see that the child is not afraid of Georg but frightened of being in the room with them, especially now that Stefano is away.
Rosalind gives up on the boy and stands nervously in the kitchen to wait for Stefano. She avoids looking at Erich.
The last time they were alone, he told her to stay away. He wants to remind her of that, and query her change of heart toward Stefano.
Erich walks to the front window. Near the entrance to the wood, Stefano is whispering to Georg, who is listening, seemingly intently. And then Georg is saying something that Erich can’t hear.
He turns to Rosalind. “Do you trust him, the Italian?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Have you told him anything?”
“You should not question me,” she says coldly.
“Georg should not be left alone with anyone,” says Erich. “He says things, meaningless things. But sometimes he tells the truth also.”
“I’ve already told Stefano that Georg makes no sense. There is nothing he can learn. I’m curious, though, why you have taken such an interest.”
Erich dismisses the remark and turns back to the window to see that Georg is now gone and Stefano is returning to the house.
“Thank you for your goose,” Erich says to Rosalind, who ignores the contaminated gratitude.
“It is a pity the night has ended this way,” says Stefano, meeting him just outside the door. “Poor Georg and his demons.”
And Stefano watches the other man carefully, waiting for some comment from Erich. There is nothing he cares to add. He will be free of Georg tomorrow also, if he has his way.
“I will see you in the early morning then,” says Erich, “and drive you as promised.”
“Erich,” he says, the accentuation of the name fluid and lyrical. Erich has never heard it spoken that way. Stefano puts out his hand, and Erich takes it, the hold firm, unending. “I look forward to it. To my last night in Germany! Thank you for allowing me to stay, for taking me to the train.”
And then he leans forward, holds Erich’s shoulders, and kisses him on the cheek. Erich has seen Italians be demonstrative with one another, with old friends, but he is unprepared for such intimacy. He feels unsettled, his heart racing as he feels the lips of the Italian graze the other cheek also: the kiss, the words are strangely full of truths and messages he cannot decipher. Does he know? Does he suspect what I want from him? It is Erich who breaks the hold, who turns away to hide any feelings and avoid further intimacy that might weaken him.
It was on this night that Erich was going to tell Stefano the truth about the trains and suggest they travel together. But he can’t bring himself to speak. Not now. For some reason Erich senses that he is no longer the one in control.
He walks back toward the town and wonders if his mother noticed the rain clouds from her bay window in the town. He can picture her shutting all the windows years ago in their two-story country villa and ordering Claudine to bring in the washing. The smell of the air, the wind gusts, the brief moments of stillness before the storms that have become more meaningful; small things that remind him of the better times before the war. And perhaps tonight the signs of the approaching storm spell also better things to come.
CHAPTER 20
STEFANO
Stefano is dreaming. It is one continuous war inside his head when he goes to sleep each night. Fire features the most, and he wakes breathless to the reality of his memories: faces in the fire, bullets whizzing past him, running in terror, and living on air, on little else for several nights. The adrenaline was high, and he was luckier than some, completing his missions before madness set in. But his dreams now are perhaps the delayed and resultant madness: nightmares that are disturbed with faces of people he loves, people dead, people still living, and all driving him forward for different reasons.
He had helped Rosalind clean up and carried Michal, who had fallen asleep on the floor beneath the table, back to the bedroom at Erich’s. He’d tucked the boy into bed once again. Stefano had bent over him, whispered good night, and touched his soft cheek. He smelled like pine, not the mixture of soil, smoke, and ash where the boy once slept. Then Stefano had waited there, watched him fall back asleep returning once more to the bedroom at the front to get some hours of rest.
Sometime in the night he wakes to a grumbling sky and the boy, beside him again, curled into his back and sleeping deeply. Stefano sits up at the edge of the bed to grip the sides, willing the images from his dreams to disappear. Thunder sounds nearby, distracting him suddenly, and the house shudders in anticipation of another storm. A squall sends the curtain flying wildly up to the ceiling.
He steps near the window, where spots of rain cool his bare chest and bursts of light capture the coiling silver river. As he begins to draw the window closed, movement in the woods to his right gives him pause. He waits several moments to catch the movement again, but when the woods are once more scattered with light, the trees appear alone.
Though Stefano is certain he didn’t imagine something there. He is used to watching for people. He checks that the boy is still sleeping soundly, and he waits for the noise of thunder before stepping out onto the creaking stairs, then onto the ground floor. He can see Erich’s bed at the back of the room and sees that there is something there: a lump, the shape of a person. He holds his breath and waits for the next flash of lightning to confirm that it is nothing but bundles of linen and cushions.
Stefano walks to the front door, a black space in front of him, his arm outstretched until he touches the door. He runs his hand down the wood and feels cautiously for the handle. Impatience will get you killed, Fedor had told him. He turns the handle slowly, one small twist at a time, then steps into the night and shuts the door the same way he opened it. Once it was skill; now it is habit.
Another wind gust and a burst of rain announce that worse is to come. The thunder steps noisily downriver toward him as he reaches the entrance to the wood, and he treads carefully along the slippery path.
He can smell the water, smell the dankness of the soaked roots that fester in the murky shallows as he emerges from the wood to stand at the edge of the embankment. There is movement of something shapeless and white below him as the rain begins its tirade against the world.
A lightning strike across the river exposes someone shirtless, standing in the shallows. Stefano switches on his torch, and Georg turns toward it, eyes wild, staring and unfocused. He releases a bundle of cloth into the water and puts his arms across his face to block the light.
“Moni in the water!” he shouts.