Stella didn’t know what she would do with him when he died. All at once the problem was overwhelming, his remains would hang around for weeks. The idea of disposal seemed so remote and impossible. Surely the man who took care of such things would be long out of business, where could she turn? If only the body would fly away with the soul, but, no, it would linger on, linger on here in this very room. “He doesn’t look at all,” she thought, “like the man I married in the garden.” Where is the railroad station? She helped him through each physical minute, becoming more impatient as he coughed and turned. Suddenly it struck her that this was not old Herman’s son, and now she was nursing a stranger, not even a ward of the State. “Dear Ernst,” she thought, “you look just like Father.”
Every time he opened his eyes, he saw her there, warm, beautiful, efficient. The very breath of the flowers on her shoulder brought new life. When she sat on the bed, one soft dark knee upon the other, one thin elbow pushing gently against her bosom, holding the lovely head, all lofty desire was his, he was in the presence of the white lady of the other world. Ah, to die no longer with the fire but with the dove. The first stages of death took energy, the last mere confidence. The closer she bent with the spoon in her hand, the warmer he felt, the farther he flew.
“Stella?”
“Yes, Ernst?”
“Isn’t it time for the black pills?”
Immediately she brought the bottle.
“Herman, stay away,” he thought. “The old man must not come back, the wonderful peace of being waited on must not be broken. The corrupter’s prime agent should not be allowed out of the war, but should stay forever and ever in some black hole away from the gracious light of Heaven. The maiden voyage of the star, all hands accounted for, safely arrived into the sky. At last to be able to do something alone, without old Snow there to beat the other fellow’s back.” The dreams arose more vividly, he forgot the star. “Those were fearful times with the old man filled with wrath. Oh, no, that demon could not possibly come back to plague my end, to expect to be welcomed home at such a precarious, serious time.” Ernst channeled himself once more into the soft light, the medicine smelled as sweet as the valorpetals, without the demon’s horned masterful voice intruding.
“He flicked his eyes open and shut once,” Stella later told the guard.
“Stella.” He called again, “Stella, in the carpetbag, he’s there, somewhere near the bottom, get him, please.”
She rummaged through the flabby thing, like a peddler’s sack, and there, beneath the newspapers and photographs, sure enough, under the soiled shirt, near the bottom on a pair of black shoes, it lay, wrapped in old Christmas tissue.
“Here.” He patted the pillow near his cheek, “Here,” he said in bliss.
She put the carving of Christ, almost as large as his head, on the pillow. She waited as if for something to happen. How peculiar, the wooden man and fleshless God, they kept good company. Then she remembered: on the mountain she too lay by Christ, and it was a mistake!
Suddenly he coughed and the little statue rolled over, its arms and legs thrown wide in fear.
“Here,” she said, “now drink this, drink it.” For a moment it looked as if he would recover. Then, no, no, he smiled again and all was lost. Stella crossed her soft dark knees.
The guard did not bother to open the door for Gerta and Herr Snow, but whistled and wondered at the old woman’s return, while the soldier and his girl pushed alone into the darkness of the wide downstairs hall. For a moment, Gerta stood uncertainly in the middle of the vacant foyer, listening for the sounds of the dead, with Herman leaning, drugged, on her arm. She could hear the guard, the last guard, behind her shuffling about on the other side of the door. Herman breathed heavily in the darkness, his weight sagged, she could see nothing. Then she heard them, those dead two, master and mistress, and far overhead she saw a line of light and heard the tinkle of glass, ghosts in their cups.
She wanted to shut the soldier, shirt off, shoes off, into her room with all night, every night for no telling how long, before her. But she began to lead him toward the light. Mistake, mistake to bring such a tender man, so close to popping, within the realm of unwanted, unexpected guests — to let the steam off the wrong end, the end of white, flat apprehension. And she too, by walking up the stairs, was holding off. As they neared the top, he tripped once, twice, and Gerta began to cross the line from love to nurse, from grand-sharer to assistant.
It was Fraulein Stella’s room. They waited before the door.
The trains were still arriving. Under cover of darkness, small and squat, they emptied themselves of soldiers home on leave. In the dark the girls milling on the platform could not tell whether the trains were full of passengers, perhaps men, or empty. Signals crossed, whistles argued out of the stops of tangled rail, “Train from 31, train from 9, let me pass, I’m carrying wounded.” “Wait, you’ll have to wait, 31, there are dogs in front.”
Gerta could hear the whistles far out in the night. They were long and old-fashioned and far away.
“Do you hear the dogs?” Ernst spoke, hands picking at the covers.
“Of course, dear husband.”
He could hear them barking among the boat whistles in the middle of the night.
Stella mixed the potions and wondered about the hour, what could she do when the hour stopped? All about her the phials, the wads of cotton, the handbook of medical instruction, were out of reach, too slow. There was nothing she could do against it, she lost her place in the handbook. All the soft embrace of the mountain was gone, all the humor of his saber wounds was healed; he was stitched and shrouded in that impertinent, unthinking smile. He grew thinner, and staring her full in the face with his three fingers twitching helplessly on the cover, he gagged.
They heard the scratching at the door and at first they thought it was the wind, only the comforting night air.
“Now, what’s she doing here,” thought Gerta as she stepped into the patient’s room with her lover behind.
The red-bearded devil leaned across the bed, staring at the man with a toothache. Herman looked from his son to Stella, the lovely girl, from the colored bottles to the boarded window, and back to the majestic bed.