III Malinconico

Night fell finally, and the shock of discovery had muted to burning curiosity. Tomasz and Casimira, as she expected, knew nothing about another family name, and Katherina declined to inform them of the journal. Clearly, if there were answers to the mystery of her father, she would have to look for them in his writings.

Tentatively, as if before a hazardous venture, she settled onto the sofa and studied the slender volume. The few Cyrillic pages tucked in the front were a puzzle and would have to wait for a translation. She thumbed through the rest of the journal. Though written in a variety of pens and pencils, sometimes hurriedly, other times with precision, all the entries were in the same legible hand. She hesitated again, as she had before her father’s study, reluctant to intrude even farther into an obviously private domain. But then she asked herself, Why does a man write things down unless he wants someone to read them?

She wiped her hand once again over the cover, brushing away dust, and folded it back to the opening page. She was not prepared for the shock of the first entry.

February 20, 1943

I cut off Georgi Adrianovitch’s legs today. More precisely, I assisted at their amputation. But when he regained consciousness, it was me he saw, and he screamed. Finally we calmed him down and got him to understand that it was an exchange he had to make, his deal with the devil. He bought his life, and a trip home, but he paid with his legs. I could sympathize. I’ve made a deal too, but I paid with my soul.

I’ve started my journal again, this time in German. If it’s confiscated or captured, all that anyone will find are the broodings of a coward. No military information here, not a word about Stalingrad.

Commander Chuikov needs me for only half an hour every day; the rest of the time he’s ordered me to the field hospital. I’m assigned to gangrene amputations. Cutting away dead flesh suits my state of mind. I’m dead myself.

Georgi Adrianovitch was a special case, a Stalingrad hero, wounded twice before and sent back to the front. Not this time. He has a new row of shiny medals for his chest, but no legs. And this is me now, with legs but no heart. No more writing pretty phrases in Russian. That was the Sergei of Stalingrad.

Katherina laid the journal aside for a moment and rubbed the bridge of her nose, as if that could dispel the confusion. Then she read the entry a second time, trying to absorb it.

Apparently, Sergei Marovsky had been a front-line surgeon with the Red Army. That explained the uniform. Well, no. It didn’t so much explain it as add another layer of mystery. How had a German citizen become a Soviet doctor? Had he defected to the Russians? If so, why had he never mentioned it? What had happened at Stalingrad? Most unfathomable of all was how he could have served Vasily Chuikov. Even she knew he was the commander of the Russian troops that had invaded Berlin with the savagery of a Mongol horde. And how, after all that, did this Doctor Marovsky metamorphose into a soft spoken-German dermatologist with a tiny practice in the suburbs of Berlin? So utterly illogical. The journal seemed like a piece of fiction, and if she closed it, reality would return. Except that her father would still be dead, and the Russian uniform would still be lying unfolded on the floor.

“Katya, there’s a telephone call for you. ” Casimira stood in the doorway wiping her hands on the dishtowel she seemed to always have. “She says she’s your agent. ”

Katherina followed her back to the living room and lifted the handset. “Charlotte? Yes, the interment is tomorrow. After that I suppose I’ll stay here for a few days to put things in order. ” She looked around a living room that was already immaculate.

“You want me to do what? Carmina Burana? I don’t know. ” She shook her head, though there was no one in the room to see it. “I can’t think about a concert right now. ”

Charlotte Lemke persisted. She pointed out that the engagement was three weeks away, in Hamburg—an easy train ride from West Berlin, had an undemanding part with only three rehearsals, and paid a good fee. More importantly, she went on, it was with Joachim von Hausen, who was conducting the next season in Salzburg. What’s more—Charlotte tossed her last card on the table—in three weeks Katherina would prefer to work any place at all rather than stay at home staring at the walls in deep mourning.

Katherina glanced back toward the study where a performance that Joachim von Hausen conducted had hypnotized her for an hour. He seemed a witness to the family mystery now.

“All right. Tell them I’ll do it. ”

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