“It may not be so easy to pick him up.”
“He will surrender, half-frozen, a pathetic sight. He can plead he knew nothing about Johann—no connection with anything, just a guest at the inn who didn’t know what was really going on.” Zauner’s eyes glanced in the direction of the lake shore as they reached the meadow. “Six hours and he will start thinking that out for himself.”
Surrender? Mathison wasn’t so sure, somehow. But Zauner knew his mountains—and his Nazis. “Looks damned cold along there. I can feel the lake even from here.” That was one thing on which he did agree with Zauner.
They quickened their pace across the frozen grass. Two men with rifles were guarding the ambulance and cars. One of them reported, “A man started coming out of the trees over there. He saw us, ran back, keeping close to the shore. Do we start searching?”
Zauner shook his head. “Wait here and watch. Until it’s daylight. I’ll send everyone available to join you then. We’ll make sure of him.”
“One thing is sure,” the man said with a laugh. “He has no place to go.”
Zauner turned to Mathison as the man left for his car, a cup of hot coffee, an extra cape. “Karl will take you down to the Seidl house. So good-bye. And thank you, Mathison. I’m glad you stayed. On several counts.” He almost offered his hand, seemed to hesitate about that.
“What about you?” Mathison spoke casually, but he eyed Zauner uncertainly.
“Oh, I’ll be at the inn. There is a lot to clear up.”
Mathison just kept looking at him.
“Grell’s equipment to be examined, a final report to be made, my full statement to be written,” Zauner said evenly. “Not that that is necessary, once they open the Finstersee box. What action do you think they’ll take? Is that what is worrying you? But the box is supposed to have been destroyed. So, to keep that myth strong for another year or two, I would imagine my punishment may not be publicised and my record kept quiet.”
“The Communists may not be so obliging.”
“I don’t suppose they will be. They feel virtuous about exposing ex-collaborators with the Nazis—when it suits them.”
Well, thought Mathison, he knows what he is facing and he seems ready to accept it. I wouldn’t have bet on that half an hour ago.
Zauner, watching him closely, seemed to sense something of his thoughts. “Is this what has been bothering you, all along?” Zauner drew out Grell’s small white capsule from his pocket. He broke it open with his thumb-nail, scattered the powder wide over the grass. “A symbolic refusal,” he said with his light, mocking laugh. “Oh, that never was the answer—not in my case, not with my record. You agree?”
“I agree.” Mathison put out his hand. Zauner took it, shook it firmly. “Good luck,” said Mathison. He walked over to the waiting car and eased himself into the one small space that was left. They jolted off with Karl’s heavy touch at the wheel. Ahead of them, the ambulance was moving slowly, its rear lights rising and falling sharply with each bump on the rough hard ground.
Mathison watched them, flinched at one particularly heavy drop. The ambulance slowed, went on.
“It’s all right,” Karl told him, “they’ve got the stretcher suspended. It will just be swinging around.”
“Hey, Karl,” called someone from the back seat as the car bounced savagely over the same rut, “you could use some stretchers in here. Just about lost my teeth down the back of my throat.” There was brief laughter, some more simple banter, a feeling of general relaxation. Weapons had vanished; pipes were being lit. The woods closed around the narrow road, wrapping a dark blanket of silence over them all. Behind them, the meadow had vanished and the mountains of Finstersee were lost in the night.
Perhaps midnight had been the natural curfew hour for Unterwald, even on a Saturday like this one. The inn was the only place lit. The rest of the village slept. The sparse lights along the main street had been shut off. Windows were shuttered; smoke from the chimneys had died to invisible wisps. A dog barked, and that was all. Unterwald was back into its own world.
And so am I, thought Mathison as the car swept down toward the Seidl house. For the first time in two full hours, he let himself think of Lynn again. Had she waited for him? Or had she left with the others? He kept hoping. He kept trying to guard himself against disappointment: the sensible comfortable thing was for her to go to Bad Aussee, have a long hot bath, a long deep sleep in one of those cumulus clouds that the Austrians called beds. Yes, that was the sensible thing. But he kept hoping.
The Seidl house was as deeply asleep as any in Unterwald. He stared at the dark windows, felt expectation and excitement
drain out of him. And suddenly he was tired, just damned tired, completely devoid of energy, nothing but a slow-moving collection of tightening muscles and chilled bones. He got stiffly out of the car. He almost asked Karl to drive him as far as Bad Aussee, but the faces giving him a friendly farewell were as exhausted as his. At the inn, they’d have four hours for sleep, little more, before they started bundling themselves up again for their return to the lake with the dawn. “Gute Nacht,” he added to his thanks, and started slowly up the short path.
“Gute Nacht, schlafen Sie wohl!” Karl called to him as he angled the short wheel base of the car to turn back uphill.
He gave them a last wave and opened the door.
The room was dark except for a small pool of light on the table where a lamp stood with its wick trimmed low. From the hearth came the faint glow of a dying fire, reflected weakly on the ceiling of the room. He couldn’t see the fire itself, not with the table blocking his view, but he was too tired to take the extra steps to check it. It must be safe enough, or Trudi wouldn’t have left it. Everything else was in order—table neat and chairs in place. It seemed in this quiet, warm room as if nothing at all had happened tonight. Nothing at all. He slipped off his heavy jacket as he made for the staircase. His feet were as heavy as lead. Better take off his shoes and keep Mother Seidl deep in sleep, avoid a flood of questions. This was one night he did not want to search for tactful answers.
There was a quick movement from the top of the stairs, a lamp held high to catch him on the second step, where he had sat down to draw off his shoes. He glanced around; but it was only Trudi. She came down to meet him as he climbed slowly up the next few stairs. She was barefooted, a shawl over her
thick nightgown. “I heard two cars,” she whispered. “One went to Bad Aussee.”
“That was the ambulance with Johann,” Mathison whispered back.
“He was hurt?”
Mathison nodded.
“How bad?”
“He will recover. Don’t worry, Trudi.”
She raised the lamp, looked into his face. She tried to say something, could not.
“He asked for you.”
Again she tried to speak. Then she bent down, gave him a quick embarrassed kiss on his cheek, turned and ran, her bare feet pattering on the wooden stairs, the need for silence quite forgotten. He heard her door close. The staircase was in darkness again. Better get that lamp from the table to light my way upstairs, he thought wearily. He envied Johann for a moment, broken bones and all. He turned to retrace his steps.
“Bill—Bill?”
He looked down across the room. He saw her struggling free from a blanket in front of the fire’s warm embers. He reached her as she rose to her feet, her arms outstretched. He caught her in his, crushed her against him, held her, held her. He looked down into her eyes. Their lips met slowly, truly. He kissed her with all his heart.
Their arms dropped away from the desperate embrace. They stood staring at each other. He put out one hand slowly, gently touched her cheek. “Lynn...” I frightened her, he thought. I frightened myself. I love this girl.
She shivered a little, pulled the dressing gown more tightly
around her, dropped to her knees in front of the hearth and reached for a small log. He knelt beside her to help.
“What’s this?” He looked down in amazement at the mattress under his legs. “Camping out for the night?”
That made her laugh. She smothered it quickly, looked at the back wall of the kitchen.
“Don’t worry about Mother Seidl. Too much excitement. She’s out for the count.” I hope so, he added to that. I don’t give one damn anyway. But he kept his voice to a low murmur. “You weren’t planning to sleep here, were you?”
“I couldn’t sleep upstairs.”
“Not in one of those beautiful white beds?”
“A beautiful white iceberg. And in a room at the back of the house where I couldn’t even see the road.”
So it was a matter of warmth, he thought, and felt the chill of disappointment. “I’d like to have seen you wrestling this mattress downstairs.”
“It isn’t so big. Trudi helped me. I—I thought I would hear you better—when you got back. But I didn’t. Funny, isn’t it? I couldn’t sleep in a bed, and I fell asleep on the floor. Trudi says she often sleeps down here when winter comes. She—”
“Trudi’s fine. Let’s leave her alone. What about you?” Her face was too drawn, too tense, yet strangely beautiful. The small flickering flames shadowed her cheeks, made her large eyes seem larger.
“A little—shaken. And you?”
He watched her as she looked at him anxiously. “Recovering rapidly.” He dropped on one elbow, stretched his legs gratefully.
“You are exhausted.” Her concern grew. “You didn’t get hurt?”
“I’d be complaining my head off if I were.”
Not you, she thought, not you. She said gently, “You’re tired and you’re cold. Let me get you some soup; it’s waiting over on the—”
“No.”
“Brandy? Chuck left you some in the—”
“No. Just stay where you are, the way you are. Let me watch you looking so worried. Is it for me?”
“Yes.”
“Was that really why you waited down here?”
She nodded slowly. “And it didn’t go as planned. I didn’t hear you come in. You didn’t even see me.”
“I didn’t dare hope,” he said very quietly. He reached out a hand to touch her hair. “Yes, you have the prettiest hair. Chuck may have said that first, but I saw it first. In Zürich—you sat at a window, and the sun on the trees outside matched you. Gleam for gleam.” His hand dropped away from the silken strands. His elbow lowered; he stretched back on the mattress. The warmth from the fire began to soak through his body. “It feels good...” His eyes closed.
They opened again as she lifted his head gently and slipped the pillow underneath.
“A mattress on the floor. Crazy. You really are a crazy girl. That’s why I love you, I guess.” He smiled. “One of the reasons.”
“Yes, I’m crazy.” She was smiling, too. “I must be crazy to fall in love with a man I have only known for two days.” She bent over and kissed him, her hair falling softly over his face.
Sunshine across his eyes; the sound of faraway bells; subdued voices near him. Bill Mathison came slowly out of his long deep sleep, sat up with a start. He looked around the bright kitchen incredulously, pulled himself free from a tangle of grey blankets, rose from the mattress. Near the window, Lynn and Trudi stopped talking. He glanced at his watch and shook his head.
Lynn came over to him. She was dressed in her beige tweed suit and white sweater, her long slender legs immaculate in lace-wool stockings, her buckled shoes polished. Her hair was smoothly brushed, her skin as fresh and clear as the sky outside.
“You’re a miracle,” he told her, tried to forget his crumpled clothes and wild hair, and gave her a good-morning hug.
She laughed, reached up and kissed him.
“No, no,” he said quickly, feeling the stubble of his beard catch against her soft cheek. “I need a shave, a—” But he broke off and kissed her right back.
Trudi was saying, “I have to leave, Herr Mathison. I wanted to say good-bye. And thank you. If you hadn’t—”
He cut that short with a quick, “Where are you bound for? Bad Aussee?”
She nodded happily. “But first I’ll show you where you can wash. Your bag is upstairs, all safe.”
“I’ll be domestic and get breakfast,” Lynn said. In English, she added, “I better warn you it will be a slice of bread, a dab of jam, and a cup of coffee.”
“I’ll settle for two cups and spare the rest. Can you stretch it to that?”
“I don’t know. House rules, seemingly. But I’ll try. Oh, and our car has been returned. And Frau Seidl is at church. She ought to be back in half an hour or so, unless her friends keep
her talking. I said good-bye for both of us. She is expecting a lot of company here this afternoon, so we’ll never be missed.”
“Thanks for the tip. I’ll be quick.” He paused half-way up the stairs. “What about the rooms overnight?” His smile was wide. “How do we settle tactfully?”
“I’ve already been through that argument. She won’t take a penny.”
“Better make that one cup of coffee.”
“Herr Mathison!” Trudi was calling worriedly from the upper hallway. As he came running up the rest of the stairs, she burst into new apologies for her haste. “Karl will be here very soon,” she explained. “He promised to give me a lift to Bad Aussee. In his sidecar.”
“Was he here this morning?”
“Yes, he came to see you.”
Mathison looked at her sharply. Her voice had been grave. “Anything wrong?”
She shook his hand, repeated her good-byes, wished him everything wonderful in this world. Only as she turned away to run downstairs did she answer his question. “It was all about Herr Zauner,” she said unhappily over her shoulder.
So the news was out, thought Mathison as he shaved and washed in the closet that had been turned into a simple imitation of a bathroom, no doubt for the summer trade. Karl, as a policeman, would have been told that Zauner had been taken away from the inn. But what about Karl’s own discretion? Trudi should never have been told. Of course, neither Karl nor she would ever know the real reason for Zauner’s quiet removal. But still—he frowned, dressed quickly, putting on a fresh shirt and the spare pair of grey flannels. Bruno really moved swiftly,
he was thinking as he carried his bag downstairs, just about as swiftly as old friend Chuck.
“Something wrong?” Lynn asked as he drank the cup of coffee.