Free Katherine Keenum by Where the Light Falls Page A

Mr. Murer.”
    “But—”
    “Take the fare from the till if you are afraid Mr. Murer will not pay.”
    “It’s not that, but—”
    She waved away objections. “Tell Theodore Murer that Frau Lund is with his brother, and he must come. Now.” She turned the placard in the window to read
Closed
and pulled down the shade.
    Hans returned with Theodore, who had the cabdriver deliver himself and Edward to the house in Mount Auburn. This time, Edward did not resist when Carl was sent around to the boardinghouse to pack a suitcase. Sophie installed him in the guest room. Hans and Carl took over the drugstore.
    Although the symptoms of Edward’s collapse were unnervingly like those of his postwar debilitation, a few weeks of poor eating and finally some laudanum were physically nothing compared to two years of near starvation. Theodore was inclined to give him more laudanum, at least for a few days, but Sophie was against it. “He is ashamed of his use,” she said, “and it dampens his appetite. Let us try to bring him around without it.” She started Edward at once on soups and custards, carried up on a bed tray. When he failed to pick up his spoon, she hand-fed him small swallows, a few at a time. When he closed his eyes, she held his hand gently until he was willing to try again. As soon as she could move him to solid food, she did, always in small servings. To please her, he forced himself to use a fork even while food still stuck in his throat. He had not been able to bring himself to ask Carl to find a newly opened bottle of laudanum in his room; pride prevented his begging Theodore for more; and he suffered through the days wondering at the body’s insistence on living. Meanwhile, the weather cooperated by turning warm and dry. In the lengthening March afternoons, Sophie led him on walks in the neighborhood; they made excursions by carriage to the sylvan retreats of Burnet Woods, still leafless but picturesque and sunlit. He rejoined the family table. In spite of an apathy born of self-loathing, his physical health returned and with it a restlessness.
    *   *   *
    “It’s time to sell out to Hans, Edward,” said Theodore, one evening, leading Edward into his study after supper. “Here.” He held out a glass with a small splash of brandy.
    “Should I?” asked Edward, not reaching for it.
    “Certainly! What do you take me for? You are no drunkard, Edward, and you know it,” said Theodore, stabbing the air at him with a cigar, which he left unlit in deference to Edward’s damaged lung. “Besides, wine is—”
    “—the foundation of civilization.”
    “You mock me, but it is true. Where is the cradle of civilization if not the Mediterranean? And what grows there? The grape. The ancient Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans—they all drank wine. What better to stimulate the flow of conviviality, the soul of humanity? And brandy—”
    Edward cut him short. “In Turkey, the site of Troy, they grow poppies.”
    Theodore placed the glass on a table at Edward’s elbow, poured a larger glassful for himself, and sat down. “Edward, opiates consume the user. They isolate him; he does not eat. He gives no thought to his fellow man.”
    “What you mean is, I’m all washed up.”
    “That is exactly what I do
not
mean!” said Theodore, pounding the arm of his chair. He brought his temper under control. “No, but I do say that you need a change; you grow stale. I would be the same if—”
    “—if you had moldered on at the store.”
    Theodore waved aside the old quarrel impatiently. “After your recovery from the war, Edward, you took up many things. While Papa was alive, we played chamber music together, with Herr Schwartz, remember?”
    “I was only the violist.”
    “
Ja
, but you were good. Or what about that fencing master? You went to his school on Vine Street?”
    “Dancing master was more like it; you know that—you were the real fencer. Anyway, that was before the war, not after.”
    “So,