“Why, Cousin,” Fulmar said, “I simply considered the alternative.”
“You’ll have to soak that in brine,” she said. “It’s the only thing that will help.”
“By brine, you mean salt in water?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Before we do that, I would like a very large cognac,” he said, and pulled off the other sock. The other foot was worse. The blood from the sore spots had flowed more copiously, and when it had dried, it had glued the sock to the wounds. He swore as he pulled the stocking off.
The Countess walked to a cabinet and returned with a large crystal brandy snifter.
“I’ll heat some water,” she said. “And make a brine.”
“And pickle my feet,” Fulmar said dryly. “Thank you, Cousin, ever so much.”
“Why do you call her ‘cousin’?” Professor Dyer asked.
“We are, by marriage,” the Countess said. “My late husband and Eric are, or were, cousins.”
“Your late husband?” the professor asked.
“The professor tends to ask a lot of questions,” Fulmar said mockingly.
“My husband, the late Oberstleutnant [Lieutenant Colonel] Baron Manfried von Steighofen, fell for his fatherland on the eastern front,” the Countess said dryly.
“And you’re doing this?” the professor asked.
“It’s one of the reasons I’m doing ‘this,’ my dear Herr Professor,” the Countess said.
“And the other?” Fulmar asked.
“Is it important?”
“I’m curious,” Fulmar said. “If I were in your shoes, I would be rooting for the Germans.”
“If I thought they had a chance to win, I probably would be,” she said matter-of-factly. “But they won’t win. Which means that the Communists will come to Budapest. If they don’t shoot me, I’ll find myself walking the square outside asking strangers if they’re looking for a good time.”
“Beatrice!” von Heurten-Mitnitz exclaimed.
“Face facts, my dear Helmut,” the Countess said.
“The flaw in your logic,” Fulmar said, “is that you are helping the Russians to come here.”
“In which case, I can only hope that you and Helmut will still be alive and in a position to tell the Commissar what a fearless anti-fascist I was,” she said. “There’s a small chance that would keep them from shooting me out of hand.” There was a moment’s silence, and then she went on. “What I’m really hoping for is that there will be a coup d’état by people like Helmut against the Bavarian corporal, and in time for whoever takes over to sue for an armistice. If there’s an armistice, perhaps I won’t lose everything.”
“Huh,” Fulmar grunted.
“And what has motivated you, my dear Eric,” the Countess said, “to do what you’re doing?”
It was a moment before he replied. “Sometimes I really wonder,” he said.
The Countess nodded, then turned to Gisella Dyer.
“Would you help me, please?” she said. “I made a gulyás, and if you would help serve it, I’ll heat some water to ‘pickle’ Eric’s feet.”
The sting of the warm salt water on his feet was not as painful as Eric Fulmar had expected, and he wondered if this was because he was partially anesthetized by the Countess’s brandy, or whether his feet were beyond hurting. The gulyás was delicious, and he decided that was because it was delicious and not because of the cognac—or because they’d had little to eat save lard and dark bread sandwiches since leaving Marburg an der Lahn.
Von Heurten-Mitnitz waited until they were finished and Fulmar was pouring a little brandy to improve his small, strong cup of coffee, and then he said:
“I think it would be best if I knew precisely what has happened since you entered Germany, Eric.”
“A synopsis would be that everything that could go wrong, did,” Fulmar said.
“What about the Gestapo agent? Did you have to kill him?”
“I killed him when he opened the luggage that had been left on the train for me,” Fulmar said matter-of-factly, “and found the Obersturmführer’s uniform. And then the boots didn’t fit.”
Von Heurten-Mitnitz nodded. “And in Marburg, was what happened there necessary?”
“Yes, of course it was,” Fulmar said impatiently. “I don’t like scrambling people’s brains.”
“You could learn some delicacy,” the Countess said.
“We are not in a delicate business, Cousin,” Fulmar said.
“But that’s it? There’s nothing else I don’t know about?” von Heurten-Mitnitz asked.
Fulmar’s hesitation was obvious.
“What else?” von Heurten-Mitnitz persisted.
“I was recognized on the train,” he said. “Before I got to Frankfurt. On the way to Marburg.”
“By whom?”
There was another perceptible hesitation.
“Christ, I really hate to tell you,” he said. “I don’t want you playing games with her.”
“I think I have to know,” von Heurten-Mitnitz said.
“Fuck you,” Fulmar said. “You have to know what I goddamn well decide to