The Left-Handed God (6 page)

Frau von Langsdorff looked at the basket, clearly torn between pleasure at the gift and worry about Franz. Augusta took pity. “Herr Seutter said he will make enquiries about Franz, but he thinks it’s just a matter of lost mails. He says there will be peace and Franz will come home very soon.”

“Oh.” Frau von Langsdorff’s face broke into smiles. “Oh, the dear man! Oh, he must be right. How very kind! How very thoughtful! To take such trouble with a poor widow like myself. It shows great warmth of heart, don’t you think?” She lifted the pretty cloth and peeked inside the basket. “Chocolate and cream also. And sugar. And such delicious little cakes. Ah, he knows what a lady misses most when hard times befall her. Come, Augusta, don’t dawdle. I cannot wait to taste chocolate again.”

Franz forgotten, she bustled into the kitchen and busied herself looking for the small copper pan and a spoon, then sent Augusta into the
salon
for porcelain cups.

When Augusta came back, her mother was stirring the chocolate over the fire and humming to herself. The rich smell filled the kitchen. “You know, Augusta,” she said, “I have been very remiss. Herr Seutter has been everything that is kind and attentive, and I have done nothing in return. It’s time we gave a little supper for him. The poor man is quite alone and at the mercy of ordinary servants. I could make a
fricassée
de
poulet
aux
champignons
. Or a
terrine
. Or perhaps a
ragoût
de
veau
en paté
. What do you think? I used to make a very nice
ragoût
for your Papa. It was quite his favorite dish. And my pastry was famous among the ladies in Heidelberg. Perhaps we could have some carrots and a chestnut
purée
, too. Nothing too elaborate. Just a small, elegant supper.”

Augusta said, “Mama, we don’t have the money. And a man as wealthy as Herr Seutter would not expect it.”

Her mother trilled the notes of a song. “Silly girl. It won’t take much. All men enjoy a little pampering. Why do you think he comes here? He’s as lonely as I am.” She handed Augusta a cup of chocolate.

Augusta stared at her mother. The thought that a man might court her mother had never crossed her mind. She found she had lost her appetite and set the chocolate aside untasted.

Her mother sat down and sipped. “Delicious! Drink, Augusta. The dear man. How very thoughtful he is!”

“Mama,” Augusta said, “you cannot think that he…‌surely you would not want to marry a man like that?”

Her mother gave her a reproachful look. “Who said anything about marriage? And what do you mean by ‘a man like that’? He’s one of the most important men in this city. And he’s a very handsome figure of a man.” She smiled and patted her curls. “Come, you must tell me all about his house.”

Of course this was about marriage. Augusta looked at her mother, a small woman who had added weight in spite of their restricted diet and whose brown hair already showed some gray, and she marveled. To be sure, Herr Seutter was probably almost the same age, but this florid man with his bright vests was nothing at all like her dear Papa, who had been a slender figure dressed in black, with pale, elegant features and the kind, vague eyes of the scholar. The very idea was abhorrent. She would not allow it. It was a betrayal of their father’s memory. How could her mother sell herself to a man like Seutter just because they were poor as church mice and she missed the finer things? Her mother was blinded by wealth and luxuries. By a cup of chocolate!

But as Augusta saw the happy face, the sparkling eyes, the rosy glow in her mother’s cheeks and remembered her sprightly manner of talking and humming, her courage failed her. She sighed and described Herr Seutter’s
salon
.

3

Mannheim

Maxima est enim factae injuriae poena fecisse.
(The heaviest punishment is the fact of having done an injury)

Seneca,
De Ira

H
e dreamed of the lake. Always. Seasons passed in his dreams. The leaden waters of winter, on which the snow fell like down from gray cloud featherbeds, drawing a veil across the alps, gave way to the azure sparkle of spring amid green shores wreathed with flowering apple trees. In midsummer, the lake’s warm waters lapped gently against his boat as he floated, bathed by the heat of the sun under a crystalline blue against which gulls soared and swooped like kites borne by the wind. And in autumn the flaming sunsets spilled their glory of molten gold across its surface and made the trees along the shore burst into flame.

The interims between his dreams were filled with images of torment and death. He wanted no part of them and fought the demons that inhabited this bleak and hellish land until he found his way back to the lake.

He learned to explore his dream world to feel it more intensely. He would let his hand fall over the side of the boat to trail through the cooling, caressing waters and imagine touching and being touched by a lover. At other times, he walked along the lake shore, on and on, passing through small familiar towns with smiling people, resting under trees heavy with ripe fruit‌—‌cherries melting sweetly on his tongue, apples bursting into tart juice, pears that tasted of honey‌—‌and the bees would buzz and sometimes sting, but even their sting was delicious. He would circle the whole lake endlessly, passing under snow-capped mountains, lying in flowering meadows, kissing pretty maidens in their kitchen gardens, and he would end where he had begun, happy for what had been and eager for the next journey.

Once, only once, in his passionate love affair with the lake, he flung himself into its waters, naked like a lover or a newborn, losing himself in its embrace, mastering it, letting himself be absorbed into its dark and mysterious depths, to die in ecstasy.

Better to die quickly than to live in terror
, says Aesop.

Dulce et decorum est
etcetera.

Death pays all debts.

Come unto me and I shall refresh thee
, calls the lake…‌

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and water to water
.

And so ye shall be reborn.

But it was not to be. The four apocalyptic specters interjected themselves between him and his consummation.

He thought of them as apocalyptic because they were four, differentiated by their colors. Red, black, white, and a pale ivory. In the
Book
of
Revelations
the four horsemen are sent to end the world. They ride into battle against a sinful mankind. He had once seen a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, showing the four horsemen as knights or soldiers with raised swords, looking much like the Prussian hussar who had ridden him down and taken his colors. But his own apocalypse walked on foot now, befitting his insignificance.

War

Death

Pestilence

Famine

He was not sure who was what in
Revelations
, but he knew that his red apocalypse spoke of War, and the black one of Death. The white apocalypse brought pain, and the pale one came with the white one, so he thought they must be Pestilence and Famine.

The other two came separately.

He hated and feared all of them, for they warred with his desire to be reborn. They tormented his body and rent his soul. They kept him from fleeing to his lake with its refreshing waters and its island paradise.

However much he resisted, they were slowly winning the battle, for his escapes became shorter and his suffering greater, longer, and more intense.

In time he was to learn that his chimerae were mere flesh-and-blood men, but that did not change his fear and anger. The white figure was a military doctor in Austrian uniform with a stained white apron tied around his middle. He worked on the legs, inflicting such exquisite agony that Franz would scream like one of the damned in hell. Sometimes his screaming would produce the nurse Famine with a meager draft of laudanum, the nepenthe of forgetfulness that brought a brief sojourn back to his lake.

The red chimera was another military man, in red coat and breeches. His visits were rare in the beginning, and Franz did not know if it was always the same officer. He had a notion that this man had been asking questions that Franz could not or would not answer. At least once those questions concerned Mama and Augusta. He remembered trying to answer but his tongue had refused to obey.

Not that he felt like talking to any of them. The most irritating visitor was the clergyman assigned to him. In his sober black robe and with his harsh voice reminding him to put his trust in God who was the resurrection, he seemed Death personified. Franz knew the way to resurrection and hoped for more laudanum, enough laudanum so that he could cross over and lose himself forever in the lake.

It was not to be.

They had brought him here to this hospital. Drifting in and out of his dream state, he remembered little of the journey except discomfort. He had lain on a stretcher in a covered wagon with other wounded men. Then he was in this room, and here he suffered more pain, worse than the first, but there was also more laudanum, and he returned to the lake.

The pain did not leave him, but it abated in time. And when it did, there was no more laudanum. The cup the nurse offered to his lips now contained broth, and later soup with bits of meat. At first he refused the food, knowing that it sustained existence, and existence was too painful to contemplate.

Another doctor came and asked questions. Franz answered with grunts. Like all doctors, the man volunteered little himself. One day, Franz strained very hard to speak and managed, “W-wh-hat?”

The doctor gave him a sharp glance over his spectacles and said, “What is the outlook, do you mean?”

Franz had meant to ask, “What is wrong with me?” but this would do. He nodded.

“Well, the field surgeons did the best they could.”

They always say that when the news is bad, Franz thought.

“They should have taken your leg off. But as they didn’t, I could see that yours was the sort of case we might learn from.” The doctor preened a little. “There was an article‌—‌published by a Frenchman‌—‌his name’s Desault, if you’ve a mind to know‌—‌that proposes to deal with necrosis by cutting the rotting flesh away. It seemed the opportune moment to test the theory. Mind you, it was touch and go. I cannot count the bits of bone and metal I had to remove first, and it’s a miracle you didn’t die from gangrene fever after all. Nasty stuff, gangrene. Your flesh turns black and stinks to high heaven. Well, I kept cutting and cutting, and here you still are.”

“M-m…‌m-m?” Franz wondered why his tongue would not cooperate.

“I mean, the leg’s still there. Both of them. Though the right knee may be a bit of a problem. Won’t be able to bend it or put much weight on it. I’m afraid crutches will be in order. The other one’s well enough. Scarred, of course. You’re a lucky fellow.”

“L-ll…‌l-l…‌l-la?”

“What’s wrong with your tongue?” The doctor bent over him and pulled down Franz’s jaw, peered inside his mouth and then felt around it with his fingers, pulling his tongue up and down and sideways.

Franz gagged. The doctor’s fingers had a disgusting smell and taste of tobacco and other unspeakable things.

The doctor removed his hand and straightened. “Say something!”

“N-na-no!” croaked Franz and glared.

One day, Franz stole a glimpse at his legs while the doctor and nurse were cleaning and re-bandaging them. It was a very brief glimpse, for the pain was, as usual, excruciating. But the sight of his wounds was so unnerving that for a long time afterward he refused to look at them. The flesh was a violent red or purple, puffed up so much in places that the middle of his leg no longer looked like a limb but like something rotten and slimy unearthed from a grave. On the right leg, trickles of blood and pus pulsated from the doctor’s incisions like burning lava from small volcanoes. The smell of corruption reached his nose, and he closed his eyes, gagging on his vomit.

*

The sharp-nosed servant with the odd yellow eyes closed the double doors of the library behind the visitor. The visitor advanced nervously, bowed, and sat down on the other side of the wide, ornately carved desk. “Is it true?” he asked.

His host poured cognac into two glasses and pushed one toward him. “Really, Paul,” he said. “You have less self-control than a female. Pull yourself together. It appears there
was
a letter, but it has been five months. We would have heard if it had been delivered.”

The other man emptied the glass and set it down with a shaking hand. “Your informant was certain that such a letter was written, but we don’t know what happened to it? How can you be so calm? As long as it exists, our lives aren’t worth a copper
pfennig
. And surely we have to abandon our plan.”

“What plan? There never was a plan.”

The visitor raised his glass, saw it was empty and set it back down. “You said a hunt was quite as useful as a battle for fatal accidents. I thought‌—‌”

“What?” His host’s face had purpled. He rose from his chair. “I never said anything of the sort. Beware of that careless tongue of yours. That sort of thing will get you into trouble.”

His guest blustered, “I would never mention the matter outside this room. You mistake me. I am completely devoted to the cause.”

The other man glared. “Understand this: there is no cause! There never was a cause, just idle talk of foolish men in their cups.”

The visitor looked astonished. He rose slowly. “Well, if that’s the way it is…‌and if you are certain all is safe…” He saw the other man’s face. His voice trailed off, and he turned to go.

*

After several weeks of fever and pain, Franz became aware that his right leg was no longer straight but made an awkward curve near the place where his knee had been. But both his legs continued to heal‌—‌at least the wounds did. The shattered knee cap and the badly aligned bones would never get better. Yet the doctor thought his treatment entirely successful and told Franz that he was writing an article of his own, based on the case. He had saved the limb after it had been nearly destroyed by an exploding canister filled with rusted nails and assorted bits of metal, and the patient had not died from the experiment.