The Lost Prince (57 page)
The man before her submitted to the attention, closing his eyes as the sponge and Eleanor’s gentle strokes worked over his body. When she had finished, she paused for a moment and pulled herself back to the present, and then at her suggestion, he stood and allowed her to towel him with careful thoroughness and then wrap the towel around his waist. “There you are,” she said with a warm satisfied smile, his face remaining without expression. “Reborn.”
Moments later, as if fully aware of the timing, Herr Jodl returned with the new clothing. As he entered the bedroom and saw the man supposed to be Arnauld Esterhazy wrapped in a towel, Jodl looked at Eleanor and asked his question. “Now,” he said, “are you absolutely certain?”
“I am now absolutely certain,” she repeated to her protector after they had dressed their patient. “Our search is over.”
As with their trip from Vienna, more than once they found their train stopping and going no further. In one small Austrian village, they had to disembark and sit in a small station. Jodl left the other two travelers sitting on a wooden bench while he talked with the stationmaster about the schedule, if there was one, to Vienna. The station man only shrugged. “We shall see,” he said in German.
When their train arrived, they boarded and continued their journey back through the impoverished countryside until the next stop and then stood patiently on platforms together waiting for the next connection, none of the three seeming to tire. Finally, at one last small Austrian town, the conductor said the magic words, “Through train.”
The three of them now sat in silence as the Austrian countryside rolled past, on their way north to Vienna. The man chosen by fate to be reborn as Arnauld Esterhazy, legendary teacher of St. Gregory’s School, stared vacantly, only the deep recesses of his eyes betraying that hint of terrified alertness that signaled his not being an ordinary traveler.
Oh, my dear Arnauld,
Eleanor wondered at one point when Jodl had gone to find coffee,
where have you been? What have you seen?
ODYSSEUS AND ACHILLES
E
leanor and Jodl thought it wisest that they travel directly to Zurich, without stopping in Vienna for more time than necessary to pick up young Standish from Fräulein Tatlock and for Eleanor to say her good-byes, informing no one of their extraordinary discovery until they had arrived safely in Switzerland. “We shall wait until we are secure in Dr. Jung’s sanctuary,” Eleanor said, “before we try to sort all this out,” and Jodl nodded his taciturn consent.
They had planned that Jodl would wait at the train station with his secret charge, the man they assumed was Arnauld, while Eleanor went on to Fräulein Tatlock’s.
As anticipated, the reunion at Fräulein Tatlock’s was emotional, joyous on young Standish’s part. He ran to his mother and threw out his arms. “Oh, Mother,” the almost four-year-old exclaimed, “I thought you would never come,” and she hugged him with a fierceness that surprised both of them.
“We have made the best of our time,” the fräulein said, “but he missed his mother.” She had tears in her eyes now, already anticipating the parting. “He is a brave young man.”
Eleanor paused with her news, as she knew it would be poignant for this old woman, who had known the family from long ago. “I have found Arnauld,” she said. “He was in a hospital in Gorizia, among the unidentified.”
The old woman took a long slow moment to absorb what she had just heard. “He is alive, then?” she said faintly.
“He is alive. He and Herr Jodl are waiting for us at the train station. We are taking him to the hospital in Zurich, to Dr. Jung’s care.”
“Have you told his parents?”
“No,” Eleanor said. “I wish to get him safely to Switzerland before I tell them. You must tell no one until then.”
And Fräulein Tatlock, who held the secrets, only nodded. “It will be a shock to them.”
“I know,” Eleanor said.
Fräulein Tatlock looked at Standish for a long moment. “There is much you need to know of his birth,” she said suddenly.
Eleanor searched Fräulein Tatlock’s face. “I know the story,” Eleanor said. “Frau Esterhazy has told me in a letter.”
“It is only a story from long ago, not mine to confirm or deny.” Eleanor had known twenty years ago that Fräulein Tatlock had known Arnauld Esterhazy’s family, and now she was aware for the first time that the old lady knew dark secrets.
“You know the whole story?” Eleanor asked.
“It is not mine to tell.”
“I will see his parents in Zurich,” Eleanor said. “We will share the story then.”
The old woman nodded. “Perhaps then,” she said.
Eleanor ushered Fräulein Tatlock and her son to the train station, and they approached Jodl and his companion sitting on the bench in the large central hall. Fräulein Tatlock approached cautiously, her eyes filling with tears. “It is he,” she said in little more than a whisper. She reached out her hand and touched his arm. Arnauld did not move or acknowledge her in any way, only stared straight ahead. “It is he,” she repeated, obviously stunned.
“I will wait for you to inform Herr and Frau Esterhazy,” Fräulein Tatlock said as they bade good-byes there in the spacious sitting room.
Eleanor repeated her intentions to keep shipments of food coming from Switzerland. “Things will get better for Vienna,” she said with confidence.
“That is our prayer,” the old Viennese said.
During the whole trip to the Swiss border, the four travelers kept silent company. Arnauld sat across from Eleanor and her son, and he could only stare. Young Standish was fascinated by the man, finding it difficult to keep his eyes off the face that showed so little of the animation the boy was accustomed to.
“Why does he not speak, Mother?” the boy said, noticing that whenever the man became agitated and tried to form words, his mother calmed him with a movement of her hand, and with a comforting smile.
“He has been in the war,” she said, as if that would be enough explanation for her young son.
“I see,” Standish said, “like Odysseus and Achilles.”
“Like Odysseus and Achilles,” the mother repeated, and at the words their passenger gave the hint of a troubled look.
“It is all right, Arnauld,” she said gently. “You do not need to speak.” And then she added for good measure, “Everything will be all right.” And that seemed to calm him.
A SAD PARTING
E
leanor was unable to rest until she had delivered her charge to Carl Jung deep in neutral Switzerland. “We must get him there,” she had announced to her companion Jodl, “and only then announce to the world and his family our remarkable discovery.” She sank as comfortably as she could into her seat, allowing herself to drift into sleep, her attention fixed on the beautiful but vacant face across from her, fully assured that her companion would watch over them both. She thought of Arnauld’s letters to his parents she had received only recently and recalled one in particular, the last fully detailed one from the Isonzo war zone, the last fully coherent one.
Dear Mother and Father,
The tension is palpable as we await the next move of this Italian enemy that a very short time ago was our admired friend. The stench and discomfort of the trench becomes so routine as to be bearable, the uneven moments of rest and sleep now regular. Nerves that have gotten the better of me, I fear, can now be hidden as I look out for the betterment of my men. They don’t complain, the conditions of daily life so awful as to appear deadeningly normal. One of the most vocal, a seventeen-year-old from Moravia who has seen two of his teenage friends blown to pieces has concluded, “Don’t pick off the lice until they’re the size of cockroaches; they’re easier to see.”
Be on the ready, I tell them all. Always be on the ready. I steady
myself through meditation, like a Buddhist monk. I try not to let anyone hear me talking to myself. My boy-men need me; they need someone to tell them what to do: to stand fast in the middle of the deafening artillery fire.
One dream keeps me going, one image sustains me. My last night in Boston, with my beautiful Eleanor, whom you will someday meet perhaps when this nightmare has passed. We were alone at dinner that last night. She told me with great confidence of her vision of the future. Years before in Vienna an older gentleman, an American, had given me the same vision. “You will need to know this,” Eleanor said. “You will be a great teacher. You will be revered and long lived. I hope to have a son, she said, and you will be his Mentor, as Mentor was the great teacher of Odysseus.” She looked into my eyes with great intensity. “You will have a great ordeal, I fear, and you will have to keep this certainty before you, but you will return. I know you will return.” She seemed emphatic, desiring that I absorb without question what she was saying. I could not understand the urgency of her words then, but you can imagine now how comforting that simple prediction becomes in my present state.
We sat in her beautiful drawing room, and we talked leisurely and at length. The memories of that last evening fuel me now, carry me past my despair, allow me to escape this hopelessness. It is in that moment that I see and feel, in all her tenderness and power, my beautiful Beatrice.
Your loving son,
Arnauld
The other letters, the ones that followed, only a few of them, were short and increasingly disconnected, written in an increasingly faltering and trembling hand. And then they stopped altogether. That last letter was very much on her mind now as she looked into the face of the man who had been lost and now perhaps could be restored to life. She found herself grateful that her words of confidence had carried such weight for him during his ordeal, and she searched within herself now to find that faith once again, this time for herself.
It was then that she felt especially grateful for the friendship of
Carl Jung.
How fortunate we all are to have him,
she thought,
how complex and challenging, if even possible, his task is to be, leading this ruined human being back up into the real world.
If anyone could do it, she reckoned, Jung and his clinic could.