"But you haven't always been called Paul, have you," said Kline.
"Perhaps the most successful of the pieces Paul Wittgenstein commissioned, philosophically speaking, is another one by Hindemith, which is a struggle even for a two-handed man to play well. And yet there is something about the stress it places on the fingers of the one-handed man that gives it a poignancy that a more relaxed, more confident two-handed approach is virtually unable to bring about. Hindemith had two hands, but when he wrote that piece it was as if he had only one. Do you play, friend Kline?"
"Play what?"
"The piano, of course," said the Paul.
"No," said Kline.
"Never learned?" said the Paul. "Took childhood lessons but never followed through?"
"Something like that," said Kline.
The Paul went back to the piano and struck a chord, let it resonate, then struck its tonic inverse.
"I of course have the advantage on you," said the Paul. "I've had my eyes on you for quite some time. You, on the other hand, have little if any idea who I am."
"You're Paul," said Kline.
"Who isn't?" asked the Paul. "Even you might well be Paul, were there not another role prepared for you."
"Who says I want to accept it?" said Kline.
"Surely you don't believe, friend Kline, that we have any choice in the paths our lives take? God is the only one who controls our fate. We are predestined from the beginning. You believe in God, don't you?"
Kline didn't answer.
"No matter," said the Paul. "It makes no difference whether you believe in God, since God, so I have been led to understand, believes in you. And we believe in you as well, friend Kline. At first we weren't sure you were the one, so we watched. But now we're sure. From the moment you chose to go with their messengers to the compound, your fate has ground itself inexorably forward."
"Who's we?"
"We," said the Paul, and spread his arms wide. "Paul."
"I'm not the one, Paul," said Kline. "Whatever it is, I'm not it."
"But you are," said the Paul.
Kline shook his head.
"You made us certain when, instead of being killed by them, you extricated yourself wielding a sword of destruction. Metaphorically, I mean. By a sword I mean a gun."
"Like hell," said Kline.
"Yes," said Paul. "Exactly like hell. You harrowed them."
"I want to leave now," said Kline. He tried to look away, but didn't know where else to look.
Paul frowned. "You can go," he said. "You always could. We're not like them. Nobody is stopping you from going. But they'll be looking for you. Borchert's men."
"That so?" said Kline.
"They'll never stop looking," said Paul. "It's either you or them. An eye for an eye, friend Kline. If you leave, you'll have to kill them all."
They left him alone in the room for the rest of the day, though he had the feeling that if he were to get out of bed and go toward the door a Paul would suddenly be there, attentive, perhaps more than one. He could, he thought, leave if he needed to. He felt all right, considering, would be all right if leaving was all it was. But despite their assurances that he was free to go, he couldn't believe they wouldn't try to stop him. And once he was out, if Borchert's men came after him, what then? Better to stay and recover as best he could, choose the right moment to leave.
The trick, he told himself, was to avoid letting his curiosity get the better of his judgment, to know when, still suffering or no, to leave. He looked again at the painting of the one-legged screamer and now it seemed to him that the man wanted to leave the scene but couldn't, couldn't bring himself to limp out on the bleeding woman bundled up beside him, perhaps dead. Perhaps that was why he was screaming.
But I'm not like him, Kline told himself. If I have to leave something behind, I do. Even when it's part of me.
His dinner was brought to him by the piano-playing Paul, the Paul that seemed to be in charge. It consisted of a scoop of mashed potatoes, skins worked in, and a chicken leg.
"You're still here," the Paul said.
Kline nodded.
"I'm glad you decided to stay," said the Paul. "Things have gone so nicely to this point that I'd hate for them to take an unfortunate turn now."
"I'm not the one," said Kline. "Whatever it is you think I am, I'm not it."
"How can you say so if you don't even know what it is, friend Kline? You have to give yourself a chance."
Kline just shook his head.
"There's something I want to show you," said the Paul.
He turned slightly toward the open doorway and in came another Paul, carrying before him a lacquered casket, about a foot and a half long, fairly narrow. He carried it carefully forward and presented it to the first Paul, who took it and then carefully placed it on the bed, balancing it in Kline's lap.
"Go ahead," he said to Kline, "open it."
"What's in it?" asked Kline.
"Open it," he said again.
The casket had a gilt hasp, firmly shut but not locked. He ran his hand over the lacquered wood; it was smooth, felt exactly as it looked.
Undoing the hasp with the edge of his thumb, he opened the lid. The casket was lined with red velvet, the angle of the light lending it an odd sheen. The only thing in the box was a bone. Or rather two bones, from a forearm or foreleg, held together by a strand of wire at each end. He reached in and touched them, then glanced over at Paul.
"Go ahead," Paul said. "Pick it up if you want."
"What is it?" asked Kline.
"A relic," said Paul.
When he lifted the bones out, they clicked against one another. They were, he was suddenly certain, human. Both had been sheared off, leaving the ends open and porous and, he saw, strangely dark. He leaned the bones against the box and prodded the end of one; the marrow gave slightly, was oddly spongy.
"These are recent," said Kline, slightly surprised.
"Of course they are," said Paul. "They belonged to you."
Kline pulled back his hand, as if stung.
"We have one of our best Pauls seeing what he can do about acquiring your toes. We'd like your hand as well, but we've been looking for that for much longer and inquiries seem to have led nowhere. You wouldn't happen to know where it went, would you? Kept in evidence, perhaps?"
"Please," said Kline, "please, take it away."
The Paul stopped and looked at him closely. "There's nothing to worry about, friend Kline," he said. "Every bone has to come from somewhere. This one just happens to have come from you." He reached out and carefully lifted the bones, settled them into the casket, closed the lid. "It has a life of its own now, friend Kline."
"Thank God," said Kline.
The Paul stooped and awkwardly gathered the casket up, settling it on his forearms and carrying it out before him.
"Besides," he said. "It's not just you. We all have relics. I could show you my own if you'd like."
"Somehow that doesn't reassure me," said Kline.
"Would you like to see it?" asked the Paul.
"Absolutely not," said Kline.
"Don't worry," said the Paul. "You'll get used to it. You'll even start to understand it. You won't be able to help yourself." He started toward the door. "Some other time, then," he said, and went out.
Kline closed his eyes but against his eyelids still saw the bone, its spongy end. He opened them again, stared at the piano, the lacquered sheen of it.
The trick, he told himself, is knowing when to leave, and then leaving. And then he thought, I have to leave now.
II