Chris Bohjalian - Skeletons at the Feast

“You're being ridiculous.”

“And you're panicking. When it's time to leave, the authorities will tell us.”

“No, they won't. That would mean admitting defeat. The Russians will be at your door before anyone official will tell you to go.”

“Fine. Then I will greet Commander Ivan with”-and here he pointed at the decanter of schnapps on the desk-“Commander Berentzen, and we'll get along famously. Let's face it: These days, you and I-our families, our world-are nothing more than skeletons at the feast anyway.”

Helmut didn't think his uncle was drunk, but he recalled how the man was known for an almost superhuman ability to hold his liquor. He wondered now if his uncle had been drinking all morning.

“Karl-”

“No. There is nothing more to discuss.”

When they left, Jutta and the boy were there in the front hallway, and this time Helmut saw real fear in the poor woman's eyes.

ANNA AND HER father stared for a long moment at the silver and crystal and china they had left in the snow in the hunting park, and neither said a word. Both, however, were thinking the same thing: The platters and salvers looked like headstones, and the park now resembled a graveyard. But the ground was rock solid, and they hadn't the time to bury anything properly. They had tried, but it was just impossible.

Now her father put his gloved hand upon her shoulder and murmured, “Don't tell Mutti.” He was sweating from his exertions, despite the cold, despite the way their breath rose like steam in the still air. “We'll tell her it's safely hidden.”

She nodded. “She thinks we're coming back,” Anna said simply.

“And we might, sweetheart. We might.”

“But you don't really believe that.”

He paused, and in the silence the rumble of the distant artillery seemed to grow closer. Then: “No. But I've been wrong before in my life. And I will be again.”

“We're still leaving tomorrow?”

“That's the plan,” he said, and then he changed the subject. “We got a long letter from Werner this morning. I haven't read it yet, but Mutti says he sounded good-better, even, than one might expect.”

“How…”

“Yes?”

“How will he find us if we're not here?”

“Mutti's writing him. We'll find each other.”

His answer wasn't at all satisfying, but Anna didn't want to burden him further by pressing the issue. He was, she realized, about to leave his life's work. This farm, the estate. He had grown up on a farm, but for a time had left that world behind when he had contemplated becoming a lawyer. But he had missed it too much, and as a young man had married a country girl and thus wound up a farmer after all. An excellent farmer, it would turn out, as well as an exceptional businessman. He had been a quick study and a hard worker. He had also been profoundly intuitive, always, and now, as if he sensed what she was thinking, he went on, “We'll wire Werner from Stettin. It'll be fine.”

“We're going that far?”

“We might have to.”

Mutti had a cousin in Stettin. Once they had visited the family, detouring there after an excursion to Berlin, but that had been years ago. In the first months of the war. She had been twelve, and this cousin was older than Mutti and her children had already left home. Anna's principal memories of the visit were the hours she spent entertaining young Theo while the grown-ups reminisced for hours in a light and cheerful room that looked out upon a lake that fed into the Baltic.

Her father took his fingers off her shoulders and clapped his hands together with the sort of exuberance he might have exhibited if he were about to build a snowman with her. It was so sudden that it caught her off guard. Then he picked up the two shovels from the ground, brushed the snow off them, and said-his voice almost mirthful-“You are the world to me, Anna: you and your brothers and Mutti. I hope you have always known that. At this point, you're all that matters. Everything else? Irrelevant. Those plates in the snow? The wineglasses? The carving knives? The Russians can have them, for all I care.”

“Grandmother wouldn't want that, of course,” she said, trying to sound equally cavalier about all they were losing. Though she hadn't known her grandmother well, the woman's inordinate affection for the family crystal and china was legendary, and a source of running jokes at holiday meals. The woman had been dead for nearly a decade, and still everyone would look warily toward the stairway that led to her long-empty bedroom and sitting room whenever someone accidentally broke a glass or discovered a chip on one of the plates. They half-expected to see her gliding down the steps and into the dining room, her nearly floor-length dark skirts sweeping across the heavy carpets and polished wood.

Her father smiled at her small joke and Anna was pleased. “No, she wouldn't,” he agreed. “But your grandmother was not completely unreasonable. Unlike your uncle Karl, she would see that we haven't any choice but to leave. To go west. She would…”

“Yes?”

“She would have been a veritable whirlwind of organization and efficiency,” he said and then sighed. “I don't know what the next weeks or months hold for us. For any of us. All we can do is our duty. I'm sorry it has come to this. But it has, and there is nothing else to be done. Now, since we can't bury these valuables, please start loading one of the wagons with feed for the horses. I think that should be the next task. Leave room in the other for the suitcases and trunks, and whatever your mother will pull from the pantry.”

“How many horses will be coming?”

“Four. Two wagons. Four horses.”

“Bogdana won't be one of them, will he?” she asked, referring to Theo's pony. She knew how this would sadden her brother.

Her father shook his head ruefully. “I'm sorry for that, too. I realize how disappointed Theo will be. But I want only the strongest horses we have.”

“What about Balga? I know when you think of him, you think only of his speed, but-”

“I know how powerful Balga is. Plan on having him help lead one of the wagons. Also, bring Waldau. Theo likes him, too, doesn't he?”

Anna nodded. Theo wasn't a strong enough rider yet or even physically large enough to manage Waldau outside of their training ring, but he did indeed love that animal. Bringing that horse would be some consolation for the boy.

“Pair him with Balga,” her father continued.

“And the other animals?”

He hesitated. Then: “The Russians will be here soon enough. The horses won't go hungry.”

“And the car, Father?”

The car-the vehicle that her father and Helmut had driven to Uncle Karl's that morning-was a BMW sedan from 1934. It was big and roomy, and Anna had fond memories of long drives in which she had dozed in the deeply cushioned backseat. It had grown nearly impossible to find replacement parts for the engine as the war had dragged on, however, and there was no longer a spare tire.

“No car. We don't have much petrol left. We used almost the last we had this morning when Helmut and I went to your uncle's.” Together they started back toward the house, and the snow felt heavy on her boots. She noted once again how differently her father moved in his army uniform: His strides were longer, his posture more erect. “And I can't imagine petrol will be easy to come by in the coming months,” he added. “Whatever Germany has will be needed by the army.”

There was one final question pressing upon her, and she wasn't sure how to broach it. Whether she could broach it. But it was a subject that had been troubling her for days: their prisoner. Her Callum. Neither her father nor Mutti had given her any indication at all of their plans for the man. He had been living inside the house for over a month now, but his room was the slim maid's quarters off the kitchen and she had been careful to give her parents no inkling that he was anything more to her than a field hand she found entertaining in the absence of other, more appropriate companions. He had dined with them while her father and Helmut had been gone, but now that they were back to load up the house, once more-with an unspoken understanding of his real position-he had vanquished himself from the dining room.