Blood Ties (5 page)

"But I would rather persuade you." The Baron felt
his son's eyes, Helga's, probing, exploring his face.

"You can order me."

"And if I did? Would you obey?"

Again Albert turned away. The Baron felt the beginning of
exhaustion. The brief confrontation had tired him again. Surely he is not like
my father, the old man thought, another bad seed. Had the von Kassel strength
and purpose skipped another generation?

"I'm not sure, Father."

"Not sure?" It was Karla who responded now,
looking at her nephew as if he were a stranger. Albert turned to his aunt.

"Somewhere in this business there is a line beyond
which even the devil himself wouldn't go." He appeared to be trying to
inject a lighter note.

"What is this talk of the devil?" the Baron
asked.

"We'll talk of it tomorrow with the others."

The Baron's strength left him. Was he ready to dismiss his
favorite son, the von Kassel hope? There were still matters to resolve—the
future of the family to assure, to preserve, as he had done. Out of his will
had come the recreation of the von Kassels. He. shivered, feeling the icy
current of death pass through his failing body.

"So we will all be together tonight," Albert said
pleasantly, the words the beginning of his departure. He reached out for his
father's hand. The Baron grasped Albert's again, husbanding its warmth.

"Cocktails precisely at seven. Dinner at eight,"
Karla said.

"Lovely," Albert said, bending to acknowledge the
old hand's pressure. Then he straightened and turned to his aunt, bowing his
head.

The Baron watched him go, studying the straight back moving
gracefully, so unlike Rudi's. Then, he was staring at the closed door, feeling
his helplessness. Was it merely another aberration of a diminishing life? He
sighed and shook his head.

"Perhaps he will change his mind," Karla said.
There could never be freedom from her watchful eye. Actually, he knew, he did
not want her to see this gesture of doubt. Now he had to respond. There could
be no dissimulation between them.

"I'm not sure," he said, tapping lightly on the
blanket she had wrapped around his legs. He looked at his sister, the aged face
burnished now, reminding him of their grandfather, an image which came back to
him now. The face had been severe, the eyes also deep set, capable of glowing
with anger and hatred. He had never seen love there. Only duty! Although the
bitterest wrath had always been reserved for his own father. The family is
everything. Über Alles! The words had been speared into their minds.

"How would he have judged him?" Charles asked. In
his mind the real Baron had always been his grandfather, his father's father.
Once he had seen him kill a perceived enemy with his bare hands, gnarled fists
crushing the man's skull. He had been a boy of ten, but he helped throw the man
into a pit of lime. He would never have dared to ask why. Nor had there been
the barest tremor of remorse. It was then that he learned that the von Kassels
were a law unto themselves.

"Beyond the von Kassels there is nothing," his
grandfather had intoned. It was the gauntlet thrown down, the spike embedded in
his own brain.

They sat in silence for a long time, the unanswered
question between them. The light changed as the sun grew higher and the Baron's
head tipped onto his chest.

Siegfried von Kassel sipped the imperfect martini, taking
comfort only in the observation of the rectory's vaulted ceiling with the
delicate ribbing that plumed from the pillars.

"Like music set in stone," he said aloud,
although the words were meant for himself alone. Heather stood beside him, her
British face fixed in that aloof horsey way, which he detested.

"Quite interesting," she agreed. He looked at her
with a flash of annoyance, as if she had intruded on some sacred moment of
inner reflection. The reunion made them both edgy.

The rectory, once the chapel of the Old Order, was now the
dining room. A portion had been set aside for the cocktail gathering, divided
by a gold flecked rope on silver stanchions, separating the T-shaped table
around which the von Kassels would dine, as always, in the ritual way. Waiters
passed drinks on silver trays while a string trio played.

Because he was outside the family business, neither he nor
Heather was in social demand by the family.

As the eldest, he might have held center stage in such a
setting. But he had already made peace with his rejection and had passed the
Rubicon from rebellion to tolerance.

It was all an absurdity, he had decided long ago. All this
mumbo jumbo about blood ties, the pseudomystique of carrying all this feudal
nonsense into the twentieth century. Not to mention the moral monstrosity of
being in the business of brokering weapons. He had, of course, relegated the
moral issue to some sanitized Siberia, rarely alluding to the matter. It was,
he knew, his Achilles' Heel to enjoy all the fruits of this activity while
despising its source.

He was pushing forty now and his anger at his own hypocrisy
was subject to occasional acute attacks assuaged sometimes by either witty
sarcasm's or cruel barbs directed at others. He hoped the indisposition would
be dormant during this reunion, although he knew that was unlikely. The Baron
was definitely dying and it would be impolitic to be nasty at this precarious
time. In his father's eyes, he was more eccentric than a traitor.

Downing the martini, he left the olive and put the empty
glass on the passed tray, replacing it with a full one. Heather looked at him
sternly.

"You won't get soused?" she said, hissing the
words through a fixed smile aimed at cousin Adolph, who was waddling toward
them.

"How then to endure," he answered, forcing his
teeth to show.

"Siegfried, dear Siegfried," Adolph fawned,
kissing Heather on both cheeks.

"And how is Asia?" Siegfried asked, noting that
Adolph's face had dissolved into a soft puddle of flesh. You've become a
pudding, he wanted to say.

"Blood hot." He grabbed Siegfried's upper arm and
brought his scented face close to Siegfried's ear.

"They are fucking themselves to death," he
chuckled. "But it is good for business. Soon all governments will
encourage riots just to eliminate the population growth." He laughed, a
silly revolting high-pitched sing-song which hinted at his sexual preferences.
When he had recovered, he moved away to greet Rudi and his wife Mimi.

"She looks like a painted witch," Heather
whispered watching her sister-in-law. Siegfried nodded. Despite her German
antecedents, Mimi had become thoroughly Latinized, her eyes heavily mascara'd
in the fashion of Latin women. She wore diamond earrings and a ruby and emerald
necklace that stretched over her ample bosom. The twins in crisp crinoline
dresses played tag along the golden rope. They had already overturned a
stanchion, which had made a loud noise falling on the stone floor, startling
them all. Rudi had scolded them.

"When the Baron comes down you are not to make a
sound, not a sound."

After the rebuke, Rudi turned and the twins stuck out their
tongues and made faces at his broad soft back.

The drive from Amsterdam had been devised more as a
punishment for Heather, merely to string out the time, so that she would have
to miss the annual meet at Bath. Ordinarily, she would have put teeth behind
her protest by refusing to accompany him. But she dared not so close to a
reunion. She had, at least, a fair portion of good practical British common
sense. If he became too riled, he would be truly awful at the reunion, which
could be dangerous to their security, her horses, the country house, the
stables and their ample staff of servants.

The alcohol was already beginning to blunt the edge of his
tension, sharpening, he imagined, his powers of observation. Always, after the
second martini he could feel the wings of his intellect flap. His mind, he
imagined, became a camera, the lens capturing details that, sober, might have
escaped his view.

He could, for example, feel tremors of expectation as each
new participant arrived at the high arched entrance, captured in a kind of
medieval time warp, since beside the entrance were two standing
"Knights" in full regalia, their shields emblazoned with the
ubiquitous Teutonic symbols. Eyes would shift swiftly. The drone of
conversation would diminish perceptibly. Then the assemblage, having satisfied
the brief curiosity, would return to its original pursuits.

The most telling detail, observed when Siegfried reached
this state, was the sense of time. Reunions normally were held at three-year
intervals, and this reunion held six months early was an aberration, providing
the gathering with an unusual sense of tension. But the aging process was still
visible and the perceptible changes in others made him wonder why he did not
see these changes in himself.

His brother Rudi was running to fat, the red glow in the
face deepening, the hairline receding despite his efforts at covering the
patches with a new hairdo. His wife, Mimi, was expanding, balloonlike, into the
conventional matriarchal posture of a Latin oligarch, gluttonous and arrogant.
And the other von Kassels fawning and scraping. Each tried to outdo the other
in ingratiation. One could see the transparency of their approach in little
things. Cousin Frederick would click his heels and bow in the old manner when
greeting the brothers. With Albert, who had not yet arrived, as if the protocol
demanded a later entrance for the favorite son, he would bend deeper; the click
would be louder. And greeting the Baron and his aunt would engender an
explosive snap and bow as if his spine were cracking.

Cousin Wilhelm, who lived in Zurich, seemed to have
redesigned his body and that of his wife to fit the gnomic description of his
calling. He was a master of currency manipulation, an essential aspect of the
family business. Cousin Klaus provided further amusements. Although he had
thick European features, he affected the mannerisms of the enigmatic Indian,
perhaps a guru, a logical oddment since he had lived in India for more than forty years. A broad smile, enigmatic he hoped, never left his face,
even in anger, an emotion he had reason to express since his present wife was
given to adulterous meanderings. Siegfried, winking at her, had firsthand
knowledge of such activities and she had amused him during past reunions.

The silver tray passed again and he reached for another
martini, replacing the empty glass.

"Must you?" Heather asked, her lips curled in
annoyance.

"I must," he responded with exaggerated ceremony,
a sure sign, even to himself, that the alcohol was being absorbed too swiftly.
He made a mental note to slow down.

There was a brief ripple in the conversation. Eyes shifted
to the arched entrance. Albert stood there briefly with Dawn, the latter
gracefully posed in an off-one-shoulder white Galanos, her tanned skin
glistening in the chandeliered lights.

"Smashing," Siegfried whistled, watching Albert
accept the admiration of the assembled guests. Frederick's heel click echoed in
the vaulted ceilings, and the others crowded about him. The Golden Knight,
Siegfried thought, not without a tinge of jealousy, although he adored his
younger brother. He had always been grateful for having been spared spending
his early years with Albert. Jealousy might have consumed him. He watched as
Albert guided Dawn through the admiring family circle to where he and Heather
were standing, deliberate nonparticipants in the family small talk.

"So good seeing you again, Siegfried," Dawn said,
offering her cheek, obviously grateful for a familiar face. They had met in New York during one of Siegfried's frequent visits. He felt the skin's softness, breathing
the lovely delicate scent of her. Property of the Golden Knight, he thought,
sensing warning signals as his body responded with spontaneity. Albert kissed
Heather and Siegfried introduced her to Dawn.

The amenities over, Siegfried turned to his younger
brother, watching him survey the people in the room.

"Same old freaks," he observed.

"I understand we have an addition to the cast,"
Albert said.

Siegfried brightened.

"Yes. A new face. Uncle Wolfgang's woman and the issue
thereof. I felt bad about his dying. It was comforting always to have a sheep
blacker than myself."

"Why do you suppose she's come?" Albert asked
idly.

"That's academic. The question is why have they let
her come." He sighed. "Enigmas within enigmas."

"Mustn't jump to conclusions," Albert said.

"The obvious is the obvious." Siegfried
hesitated. "Like you and Dawn."

"A perfect example of faulty interpretations."

"Well then, you aren't playing fair."

"I know," Albert replied. Siegfried caught the
implication. So the Dawn episode is ending, he observed. Albert seemed
harassed, his mind elsewhere.

"You've seen the old man?" Siegfried asked,
changing the subject.

"Yes."

"Messy business. Dying. I thought he would live
forever. He's taking it like some kind of insult. Von Kassels do not expire
easily. Even this reunion. Six months off schedule. Everything must be
disrupted for the passage. I'd prefer a simple hail and farewell myself."

"I'll remember that."

"And for God sakes don't send me back to Estonia. Not to that cemetery. Just burn me and sprinkle me over horseshit."

He had raised his voice. At the sound of "horse,"
Heather had turned.

"From one of your horses, darling," he said. She
looked puzzled.

Rudi was approaching, ambling clumsily. A thin film of
moisture lent a shine to his red face. Albert grimaced briefly, then forced a
smile at his approaching brother.

Rudi tucked a hand under Albert's arm, as if the touching
might symbolize a bond to the eyes of the family observers.

"A dramatic change for the worse, don't you
think?" Rudi said shaking his head. Albert looked at him. Siegfried noted
a brief flash of anger. A tiny nerve palpitated in Albert's jaw.

"Since you saw him last?" Albert asked. Rudi
flushed, the blood filling his face. He removed his arm.

"So he told you," Rudi said.

"Of course."

"It had to be said." Rudi seemed unusually cocky.
"We have a basic conflict. The matter must be resolved."

"It will be," Albert said. "One way or
another."

Siegfried watched the brief encounter, puzzled. He searched
for common ground.

"Odd that she should show up after all these
years," Siegfried said, returning to the subject of the Russian woman.
"But the son is an authentic von Kassel. In the end old Uncle Wolfgang did
his duty. Blood is blood." He looked at Heather, who turned away in
embarrassment. When they had married, she had no knowledge of what he had done
to himself. She had never forgiven him for that.

"And money is money," Rudi snapped. "I can't
see how the old man could be taken in. Her motives are obvious. Uncle Wolfgang
had been content to disown us. All those years of being a good comrade while
the Baron sweated to rebuild the family interests. Where was he when he was
needed? Now she thinks that all she has to do is present herself. It is
insulting to the rest of the family."

His voice sputtered to a halt. Adolph waddled toward them.

"It's so wonderful, all of us together again," he
said. Siegfried watched his eyes wash over the body of the young waiter who
passed drinks. Siegfried reached for another martini, hesitated, then with a
glance at Heather replaced it on the tray. Adolph's chubby fingers plucked a
glass of champagne off the tray.

"How wonderful. Positively marvelous champagne. I'd
say '66. Am I correct about that, waiter?" He winked. The young waiter's
eyelids fluttered. "Yes, I believe it is." Adolph lifted a ringed
forefinger, waving it in front of him. "You see. It is one of my
specialities." He paused, holding his eyes steady, peering into those of
the waiter, "...among others."

"Really, Adolph," Siegfried said, chuckling.

"A darling boy. Don't you think?"

"Smashing," said Siegfried.

The others had ignored the interchange. Albert looked at
his wristwatch, turning anxiously toward the entrance. Siegfried moved a few
steps from his brothers, as if the physical separation was somehow symbolic. He
reveled in such inference. Thankfully, Heather went off to the ladies' room.
Anything to avoid the others.

When she had gone, he felt free to take another martini
from one of the passed trays. Another hand reached out beside his.

"May I?" The voice was soft, the flesh fragrant.
Dawn lifted the glass from the tray, stirring the toothpicked olive, then
darting it between full pink lips.

"It's a martini night," she whispered. He was the
only von Kassel that she had met on another occasion. That night in New York, she had held hands with Albert all evening, as if any space between them was
unbearable. He noted the difference now, a subtlety to be sure, but he did have
this benefit of comparison. He smiled at her, more than a simple social mask of
ingratiation.

"One must survive it somehow," Siegfried said,
lifting his chin to expel the smoke from his cigarette. "For me it's
obligatory. One assumes you had a choice." He was searching her face for
signs. Her eyes were deep and moist, hazel specks on a green field.