Bloodline

On her thirty-fifth birthday Anna had gone to Kitzhübel, in Austria, and there she had met Walther Gassner, a ski instructor thirteen years younger than herself.

The first time Anna had seen Walther the sight of him had literally taken her breath away. He was skiing down the Hahnenkamm, the steep racing slope, and it was the most beautiful sight Anna had ever seen. She had moved closer to the bottom of the ski run to get a better look at him. He was like a young god, and Anna had been satisfied to do nothing but watch him. He had caught her staring at him.

‘Aren’t you skiing, gnädiges Fräulein?’

She had shaken her head, not trusting her voice, and he had smiled and said, ‘Then let me buy you lunch.’

Anna had fled in a panic, like a schoolgirl. From then on, Walther Gassner had pursued her. Anna Roffe was not a fool. She was aware that she was neither pretty nor brilliant, that she was a plain woman, and that, aside from her name, she had seemingly very little to offer a man. But Anna knew that trapped within that ordinary façade was a beautiful, sensitive girl filled with love and poetry and music.

Perhaps because Anna was not beautiful, she had a deep reverence for beauty. She would go to the great museums and spend hours staring at the paintings and the statues. When she had seen Walther Gassner it was as though all the gods had come alive for her.

Anna was having breakfast on the terrace of the Tennerhof Hotel on the second day when Walther Gassner joined her. He did look like a young god. He had a regular, clean-cut profile, and his features were delicate, sensitive, strong. His face was deeply tanned and his teeth were white and even. He had blond hair and his eyes were a slate grey. Beneath his ski clothes Anna could see the movement of his biceps and thigh muscles, and she felt tremors going through her loins. She hid her hands in her lap so that he could not see the keratosis.

‘I looked for you on the slope yesterday afternoon,’ Walther said. Anna could not speak. ‘If you don’t ski, I’d like to teach you.’ He smiled, and added, ‘No charge.’

He had taken her to the Hausberg, the beginners’ slope, for her first lesson. It was immediately apparent to them both that Anna had no talent for skiing. She kept losing her balance and falling down, but she insisted on trying again and again because she was afraid that Walther would despise her if she failed. Instead, he had picked her up after her tenth fall and had said gently, ‘You were meant to do better things than this.’

‘What things?’ Anna had asked miserably.

‘I’ll tell you at dinner tonight.’

They had dined that evening and breakfasted the next morning, and then had lunch and dinner again. Walther neglected his clients. He skipped skiing lessons in order to go into the village with Anna. He took her to the casino in Der Goldene Greif, and they went sleigh-riding and shopping and hiking, and sat on the terrace of the hotel hour after hour, talking. For Anna, it was a time of magic.

Five days after they had met, Walther took her hands in his and said, ‘Anna, liebchen, I want to marry you.’

He had spoiled it. He had taken her out of her wonderful fairyland and brought her back to the cruel reality of who and what she was. An unattractive, thirty-five-year-old virginal prize for fortune-hunters.

She had tried to leave but Walther had stopped her. ‘We love each other, Anna. You can’t run away from that.’

She listened to him lying, listened to him saying, ‘I’ve never loved anyone before,’ and she made it easy for him because she wanted so desperately to believe him. She took him back to her room, and they sat there, talking, and as Walther told Anna the story of his life, she suddenly began to believe, thinking with wonder, It is really the story of my own life.

Like her, Walther had never had anyone to love. He had been alienated from the world by his birth as a bastard, as Anna had been alienated by her illness. Like her, Walther had been filled with the need to give love. He had been brought up in an orphanage, and when he was thirteen and his extraordinary good looks were already apparent, the women in the orphanage had begun to use him, bringing him to their rooms at night, taking him to bed with them, teaching him how to please them. As a reward the young boy was given extra food and pieces of meat, and desserts made with real sugar. He received everything but love.

When Walther was old enough to run away from the orphanage, he found that the world outside was no different. Women wanted to use his good looks, to wear him as a badge; but it never went any deeper than that. They gave him gifts of money and clothes and jewellery, but never of themselves.

Walther was her soul-mate, Anna realized, her doppelgänger. They were married in a quiet ceremony at the town hall.

Anna had expected her father to be overjoyed. Instead, he had flown into a rage. ‘You’re a silly, vain fool,’ Anton Roffe screamed at her. ‘You’ve married a no-good fortune-hunter. I’ve had him checked out. All his life he’s lived off women, but he’s never before found anyone stupid enough to marry him.’

‘Stop it!’ Anna cried. ‘You don’t understand him.’

But Anton Roffe knew that he understood Walther Gassner only too well. He asked his new son-in-law to come to his office.

Walther looked around approvingly at the dark panelling and the old paintings hanging on the walls. ‘I like this place,’ Walther said.

‘Yes, I’m sure it’s better than the orphanage.’

Walther looked up at him sharply, his eyes suddenly wary. ‘I beg your pardon?’

Anton said, ‘Let’s cut out the Scheiss. You’ve made a mistake. My daughter has no money.’

Walther’s grey eyes seemed to turn to stone. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

‘I’m not trying to tell you anything. I’m telling you. You won’t get anything from Anna because she hasn’t got anything. If you had done your homework more thoroughly, you would have learned that Roffe and Sons is a close-held corporation. That means that none of its stock can be sold. We live comfortably, but that’s it. There is no big fortune to be milked here.’ He fumbled in his pocket, drew out an envelope and threw it on the desk in front of Walther. ‘This will reimburse you for your trouble. I will expect you to be out of Berlin by six o’clock. I don’t want Anna ever to hear from you again.’

Walther said quietly, ‘Did it ever cross your mind that I might have married Anna because I fell in love with her?’

‘No,’ Anton said acidly. ‘Did it ever cross yours?’

Walther looked at him a moment. ‘Let’s see what my market price is.’ He tore open the envelope and counted the money. He looked up at Anton Roffe again. ‘I value myself at much higher than twenty thousand marks.’

‘It’s all you’re getting. Count yourself lucky.’

‘I do,’ Walther said. ‘If you want to know the truth, I think I am very lucky. Thank you.’ He put the money in his pocket with a careless gesture and a moment later was walking out of the door.

Anton Roffe was relieved. He experienced a slight sense of guilt and distaste for what he had done and yet he knew it had been the only solution. Anna would be unhappy at being deserted by her groom, but it was better to have it happen now than later. He would try to see to it that she met some eligible men of her own age, who would at least respect her if not love her. Someone who would be interested in her and not her money or her name. Someone who would not be bought for twenty thousand marks.

When Anton Roffe arrived home, Anna ran up to greet him, tears in her eyes. He took her in his arms and hugged her, and said, ‘Anna, liebchen, it’s going to be all right. You’ll get over him –’

And Anton looked over her shoulder, and standing in the doorway was Walther Gassner. Anna was holding up her finger, saying, ‘Look what Walther bought me! Isn’t it the most beautiful ring you’ve ever seen? It cost twenty thousand marks.’

In the end, Anna’s parents were forced to accept Walther Gassner. As a wedding gift they bought them a lovely Schinkel manor-house in Wannsee, with French furniture mixed with antiques, comfortable couches and easy chairs, a Roentgen desk in the library, and bookcases lining the walls. The upstairs was furnished with elegant eighteenth-century pieces from Denmark and Sweden.

‘It’s too much,’ Walther told Anna. ‘I don’t want anything from them or from you. I want to be able to buy you beautiful things, liebchen.’ He gave her that boyish grin and said, ‘But I have no money.’

‘Of course you do,’ Anna replied. ‘Everything I have belongs to you.’

Walther smiled at her sweetly and said, ‘Does it?’

At Anna’s insistence – for Walther seemed reluctant to discuss money – she explained her financial situation to him. She had a trust fund that was enough for her to live on comfortably, but the bulk of her fortune was in shares of Roffe and Sons. The shares could not be sold without the unanimous approval of the board of directors.

Anna told him. Walther could not believe it. He made her repeat the sum.

‘And you can’t sell the stock?’

‘No. My cousin Sam won’t let it be sold. He holds the controlling shares. One day …’

Walther expressed an interest in working in the family business. Anton was against it.

‘What can a ski bum contribute to Roffe and Sons?’ he asked.

But in the end he gave in to his daughter, and Walther was given a job in administration with the company. He proved to be excellent at it and advanced rapidly. When Anna’s father died two years later, Walther Gassner was made a member of the board. Anna was so proud of him. He was the perfect husband and lover. He was always bringing her flowers and little gifts, and he seemed content to stay at home with her in the evening, just the two of them. Anna’s happiness was almost too much for her to bear. Ach, danke, lieber Gott, she would say silently.

Anna learned to cook, so that she could make Walther’s favourite dishes. She made choucroute, a bed of crunchy sauerkraut and creamy mashed potatoes heaped with a smoked pork chop, a frankfurter and a Nuremberg sausage. She prepared fillet of pork cooked in beer and flavoured with cumin, and served it with a fat baked apple, cored and peeled, the centre filled with airelles, the little red berries.

‘You’re the best cook in the world, liebchen,’ Walther would say, and Anna would blush with pride.

In the third year of their marriage, Anna became pregnant.

There was a great deal of pain during the first eight months of her pregnancy, but Anna bore that happily. It was something else that worried her.

It started one day after lunch. She had been knitting a sweater for Walther, day-dreaming, and suddenly she heard Walther’s voice, saying, ‘My God, Anna, what are you doing, sitting here in the dark?’

The afternoon had turned to dusk, and she looked down at the sweater in her lap and she had not touched it. Where had the day gone? Where had her mind been? After that, Anna had other similar experiences, and she began to wonder whether this sliding away into nothingness was a portent, an omen that she was going to die. She did not think she was afraid of death, but she could not bear the thought of leaving Walther.

Four weeks before the baby was due, Anna lapsed into one of her day-dreams, missed a step and fell down an entire flight of stairs.

She awakened in the hospital.

Walther was seated on the edge of the bed, holding her hand. ‘You gave me a terrible scare.’

In a sudden panic she thought, The baby! I can’t feel the baby. She reached down. Her stomach was flat. ‘Where is my baby?’

And Walther held her close and hugged her.

The doctor said, ‘You had twins, Mrs Gassner.’

Anna turned to Walther, and his eyes were filled with tears. ‘A boy and a girl, liebchen.’

And she could have died right then of happiness. She felt a sudden, irresistible longing to have them in her arms. She had to see them, feel them, hold them.

‘We’ll talk about that when you’re stronger,’ the doctor said. ‘Not until you’re stronger.’

They assured Anna that she was getting better every day, but she was becoming frightened. Something was happening to her that she did not understand. Walther would arrive and take her hand and say goodbye, and she would look at him in surprise and start to say, ‘But you just got here …’ And then she would see the clock, and three or four hours would have passed.

She had no idea where they had gone.

She had a vague recollection that they had brought the children to her in the night and that she had fallen asleep. She could not remember too clearly, and she was afraid to ask. It did not matter. She would have them to herself when Walther took her home.

The wonderful day finally arrived. Anna left the hospital room in a wheelchair, even though she insisted she was strong enough to walk. She actually felt very weak, but she was so excited that nothing mattered except the fact that she was going to see her babies. Walther carried her into the house, and he started to take her upstairs to their bedroom.

‘No, no!’ she said. ‘Take me to the nursery.’

‘You must rest now, darling. You’re not strong enough to –’

She did not listen to the rest of what he was saying. She slipped out of his arms and ran into the nursery.

The blinds were drawn and the room was dark and it took Anna’s eyes a moment to adjust. She was filled with such excitement that it made her dizzy. She was afraid she was going to faint.

Walther had come in behind her. He was talking to her, trying to explain something, but whatever it was was unimportant.

For there they were. They were both asleep in their cribs, and Anna moved towards them softly, so as not to disturb them, and stood there, staring down at them. They were the most beautiful children she had ever seen. Even now, she could see that the boy would have Walther’s handsome features and his thick blond hair. The girl was like an exquisite doll, with soft, golden hair and a small, triangular face.

Anna turned to Walther and said, her voice choked, ‘They’re beautiful. I – I’m so happy.’

‘Come, Anna,’ Walther whispered. He put his arms around Anna, and held her close, and there was a fierce hunger in him, and she began to feel a stirring within her. They had not made love for such a long time. Walther was right. There would be plenty of time for the children later.

The boy she named Peter and the girl Birgitta. They were two beautiful miracles that she and Walther had made, and Anna would spend hour after hour in the nursery, playing with them, talking to them. Even though they could not understand her yet she knew they could feel her love. Sometimes, in the middle of play, she would turn and Walther would be standing in the doorway, home from the office, and Anna would realize that somehow the whole day had slipped by.

‘Come and join us,’ she would say. ‘We’re playing a game.’

‘Have you fixed dinner yet?’ Walther would ask, and she would suddenly feel guilty. She would resolve to pay more attention to Walther, and less to the children, but the next day the same thing would happen. The twins were like an irresistible magnet that drew her to them. Anna still loved Walther very much, and she tried to assuage her guilt by telling herself that the children were a part of him. Every night, as soon as Walther was asleep, Anna would slip out of bed and creep into the nursery, and sit and stare at the children until dawn started filtering into the room. Then she would turn and hurry back to bed before Walther awoke.

Once, in the middle of the night, Walther walked into the nursery and caught her. ‘What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?’ he said.

‘Nothing, darling. I was just –’

‘Go back to bed!’

He had never spoken to her like that before.

At breakfast Walther said, ‘I think we should take a holiday. It will be good for us to get away.’

‘But Walther, the children are too young to travel.’

‘I’m talking about the two of us.’

She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t leave them.’

He took her hand and said, ‘I want you to forget about the children.’

‘Forget about the children?’ There was shock in her voice.

He looked into her eyes and said, ‘Anna, remember how wonderful it was between us before you were pregnant? What good times we had? How much joy it was to be together, just the two of us, with no one else around to interfere?’

It was then that she understood. Walther was jealous of the children.

The weeks and months passed swiftly. Walther never went near the children now. On their birthdays Anna bought them lovely presents. Walther always managed to be out of town on business. Anna could not go on deceiving herself for ever. The truth was that Walther had no interest in the children at all. Anna felt that perhaps it was her fault, because she was too interested in them. Obsessed was the word Walther had used. He had asked her to consult a doctor about it, and she had gone only to please Walther. But the doctor was a fool. The moment he had started talking to her, Anna had shut him out, letting her mind drift, until she heard him say, ‘Our time is up, Mrs Gassner. Will I see you next week?’

‘Of course.’

She never returned.

Anna felt that the problem was as much Walther’s as hers. If her fault lay in loving the children too much, then his fault lay in not loving them enough.

Anna learned not to mention the children in Walther’s presence, but she could hardly wait for him to leave for the office, so that she could hurry into the nursery to be with her babies. Except that they were no longer babies. They had had their third birthday, and already Anna could see what they would look like as adults. Peter was tall for his age and his body was strong and athletic like his father’s. Anna would hold him on her lap and croon, ‘Ah, Peter, what are you going to do to the poor fräuleins? Be gentle with them, my darling son. They won’t have a chance.’

And Peter would smile shyly and hug her.

Then Anna would turn to Birgitta. Birgitta grew prettier each day. She looked like neither Anna nor Walther. She had spun-gold hair and skin as delicate as porcelain. Peter had his father’s fiery temper and sometimes it would be necessary for Anna to spank him gently, but Birgitta had the disposition of an angel. When Walther was not around, Anna played records or read to them. Their favourite book was 101 Märchen. They would insist that Anna read them the tales of ogres and goblins and witches over and over again, and at night Anna would put them to bed, singing them a lullaby:

Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf,Der Vater hüt’t die Schaf …

Anna had prayed that time would soften Walther’s attitude, that he would change. He did change, but for the worse. He hated the children. In the beginning Anna had told herself that it was because Walther wanted all of her love for himself, that he was unwilling to share it with anyone else. But slowly she became aware that it had nothing to do with loving her. It had to do with hating her. Her father had been right. Walther had married her for her money. The children were a threat to him. He wanted to get rid of them. More and more he talked to Anna about selling the stock. ‘Sam has no right to stop us! We could take all that money and go away somewhere. Just the two of us.’

She stared at him. ‘What about the children?’

His eyes were feverish. ‘No. Listen to me. For both our sakes we’ve got to get rid of them. We must.’

It was then that Anna began to realize that he was insane. She was terrified. Walther had fired all the domestic help, and except for a cleaning woman who came in once a week, Anna and the children were alone with him, at his mercy. He needed help. Perhaps it was not too late to cure him. In the fifteenth century they gathered the insane and imprisoned them for ever on houseboats, Narrenschiffe, the ships of fools, but today, with modern medicine, she felt there must be something they could do to help Walther.

Now, on this day in September, Anna sat huddled on the floor in her bedroom, where Walther had locked her, waiting for him to return. She knew what she had to do. For his sake, as well as hers and the children’s. Anna rose unsteadily and walked over to the telephone. She hesitated for only an instant, then picked it up and began to dial 110, the police emergency number.

An alien voice in her ear said, ‘Hallo. Hier ist der Notruf der Polizei. Kann ich Ihnen helfen?’

‘Ja, bitte!’ Her voice was choked. ‘Ich –’

A hand came out of nowhere and tore the receiver from her, and slammed it down into the cradle.

Anna backed away. ‘Oh, please,’ she whimpered, ‘don’t hurt me.’

Walther was moving towards her, his eyes bright, his voice so soft that she could hardly make out the words. ‘Liebchen, I’m not going to hurt you. I love you, don’t you know that?’ He touched her, and she could feel her flesh crawl. ‘It’s just that we don’t want the police coming here, do we?’ She shook her head from side to side, too filled with terror to speak. ‘It’s the children that are causing the trouble, Anna. We’re going to get rid of them. I –’

Downstairs the front doorbell rang. Walther stood there, hesitating. It rang again.

‘Stay here,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll be back.’

Anna watched, petrified, as he walked out of the bedroom door. He slammed it behind him and she could hear the click of the key as he locked it.

I’ll be back, he had said.

Walther Gassner hurried down the stairs, walked to the front door and opened it. A man in a grey messenger’s uniform stood there, holding a sealed manila envelope.

‘I have a special delivery for Mr and Mrs Walther Gassner.’

‘Yes,’ Walther said. ‘I will take it.’

He closed the door, looked at the envelope in his hand, then ripped it open. Slowly, he read the message inside.

DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT SAM ROFFE WAS KILLED IN A CLIMBING ACCIDENT. PLEASE BE IN ZURICH FRIDAY NOON FOR AN EMERGENCY MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS.

It was signed ‘Rhys Williams’.

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