A Shroud for Jesso

Chapter Twenty-two

The room was lit as always, two candelabra and the yellow bulbs over the buffet. It kept the tall ceiling in the dark and made the three figures around the table look like decorations. They ate in silence. In itself, this wasn’t anything unusual, except what they made of it. Kator made a waiting out of it. He’d laid his trap and all he had to do was wait. Jesso would be back, Kator had made sure of that. Jesso would be back because Renette was here and this was Kator’s simple trap. To spring it shut would be even simpler. Kator was on home ground and all he had to do was wait. He chewed his meat, drank his wine. Jesso hadn’t sat at this table more than once, but it almost felt to Kator as if he missed him.

Von Lohe didn’t have a thing to say for once. He sat, not tasting anything and to him the room was like a prison. And Kator had the key. Not Kator, Jesso! If Jesso were here now, then von Lohe would know what to do. Somehow his hate would find direction and all it needed was the moment-and Jesso. It almost felt to von Lohe as if he missed him.

Renette waved at Hofer and had another glass of wine. She tried to pay no attention to the room, the mood, and the two men. It wasn’t really hard. Another fifteen minutes and she would leave. Her plans for the evening had nothing to do with Helmut or with Kator, and both had learned that it didn’t make much difference to her any more what they might say. She still had her old suite behind the bend in the corridor, but that was all. She didn’t live there as von Lohe’s wife and Kator hardly felt that she was still his sister. She looked across the table, past the bouquet, and thought of Jesso, the way he had sat behind the flowers. She thought of him with pleasure; a pleasure without regrets and in the past. She tasted her wine and didn’t miss him.

When von Lohe looked at her she was pulling her napkin through the silver band and placing it next to her plate.

“Johannes,” said von Lohe, “if you are going to follow my suggestion, better speak to her now.”

Kator looked up, trying to understand.

“She’s leaving, I believe.” Von Lohe sounded peevish.

“Oh, yes.” Kator wiped his mouth, looked at Renette. “Before you leave…” and then he waved at Hofer.

Hofer waved at the two servants by the buffet and followed them out of the door.

“Helmut had a suggestion,” Kator said. “A rather good one.”

“Helmut?” She smiled at her husband as if she hadn’t known he was at the table.

“It seems,” Kator said, “that his friend Paul Zimmer is proving difficult. I have not obtained the concessions I want, and Helmut found it hard to apply the pressures on the Zimmer family that are at my disposal. Traditional loyalties, he calls it. But no matter.” Kator sighed. “I’m giving you the assignment, Renette.”

Kator watched her turn her head and for a moment he had the uneasy feeling that she had just noticed him at the table.

“I know nothing about the whole affair,” she said. “Nothing that would help.”

“That’s not the help you are supposed to give,” said von Lohe, and his smile was angelic. His mouth was lewd.

“I see why you didn’t get anyplace,” she said to him.

“Nevertheless, in a way Helmut is correct,” Kator said. He said it without inflection, made it cold and businesslike. Maybe that way he would get Renette back in line. “Zimmer-that is the one we’re after-is only slightly older than you. I’m sure, Renette, there is very little about you that he wouldn’t like.”

“I’m not interested,” she said. “I know him.”

Kator had expected something like that, even though the reason for her refusal confused him. “Nevertheless,” he said, “I am giving the assignment to you.”

Renette wet her lips with her tongue and her wide eyes seemed to go bland.

“Johannes,” she said, “your insults no longer work. I have other plans.”

“She means that-that-Jesso!” Von Lohe waved his arm. He never noticed when he wiped his sleeve through the gravy on his plate.

“Of course, Helmut.” Kator turned back to his sister. “Listen to me, Renette.”

“You’re wrong,” she said.

Nobody believed her.

“Listen to me. I feel I cannot force you, Renette, but as your brother-”

“I know. You’ll try anyway.”

He took it in his stride. His voice got soft, as if he were saying something sad. “Your Jesso, Renette, is like something from another world, a world where your tastes, your kind of life, mean nothing. You understand?”

She did. She knew it.

“To attach yourself to him is like eating the wrong kind of food, Renette. I say this as a warning, as a threat. But not from me. From Jesso.”

She listened because she understood. Her brother hadn’t talked to her, come close, since-It didn’t matter. She understood him and the old attachment was still there. Not like a chain this time, but simply there.

“I’m sure you think he’s done nothing but good where you have been concerned,” he went on. “I’m sure you think that no matter how perverse, how rotten this man is, somehow he had it in him to be for once, with you, only good.” Kator made a tired gesture and smiled as if he weren’t sure. “You know, Renette, I like to think you feel that way about your brother, because I, I truly live two lives, Renette. One for my work, and one for you.” He suddenly frowned and his face turned to stone. “But I was talking about Jesso. With him you are part of his schemes. Tell me,” and Kator suddenly jabbed one finger at Renette, “did he ever ask you about me?”

Jesso had, and Renette knew that Kator knew it. She had told him. But now the question was ominous.

“And has he ever asked about my business? We both know he has and I refrain from guessing at what moments of your intimacy he has asked. Now more. Did he make you promise to help him get a passport? And finally, Renette, did he not leave you behind?”

“I didn’t want to go,” she said.

“I’m proud of you. But you see, my dear, he didn’t try to force you, did he? A man like Jesso, and he did not insist!”

Kator stopped, as if at the end of a triumphal march, and then he summed it up, making it casual. “You see, my dear, from your first meeting to the very last, each thing he did served one purpose only. It served Jesso. Anything else he might have done was nothing but the bait to serve the moment of his advantage. And you, Renette, have been his tool.” There was silence and he was through. He stopped because he knew the spell of his words was there, Renette had heard, and, judging her by himself, he knew he’d given her the clues that she might need to break with Jesso. One thing he didn’t know: that Jesso had not been a man to her, a person, but a force; that she had gained by that force, made it her own.

“And now, Johannes?”

“What do you mean?”

“Before you advised me about Jesso, it was the Zimmer affair you talked about.”

“Oh, yes.” Kator thought the switch was very rapid, but so much the better. “Young Zimmer will be at a party. I’ll give you the details. I want you-“

“Johannes,” she said, “I told you no,” and when nobody answered she got up, excused herself, and left the room.

Kator did not see how he could have failed. Nor did he know that Renette had been impressed with many of the things he’d told her. They meant to her that Kator was a cold and clever man. They also meant that Kator was trying to be kind. They meant that Jesso had set her free from both those things, and even from himself, and that her brother did not see any of it. No one did, only Renette.