Ordinary Grace

38

The drive to the home of Emil Brandt was no more than five minutes but it felt like forever getting there. Because of my father’s doubts, seeds of doubt had been planted in my own thinking and I thought maybe Jake was right. Maybe I should have said nothing and left the resolution of the whole mess in God’s hands. But what was done was done and when we parked in front of the old farmhouse I got out and steeled myself for the ordeal ahead.

As we approached the porch I could hear Emil Brandt playing his grand piano inside. I knew the piece. It was something Ariel had composed and in the wash of its beauty I swore I could feel Ariel’s presence. We stood on the porch until the piece was finished then my father-reluctantly, I could tell-raised his hand and knocked on the screen door.

He called, “Emil?”

“Nathan?”

Through the screen I saw Brandt rise from the great piano and come to greet us. He pushed open the door and said, “Who’s with you?”

“Frank,” my father said.

He smiled with pleasant surprise. “What brings you both back so soon?”

“We need to talk.”

The smile fell away and Brandt looked troubled. “This sounds serious.”

“It is, Emil.”

Brandt stepped outside and we took the wicker chairs where not long before he’d sat in good friendship with my parents. With the sun down, we sat in the moody blue of dusk.

“Well?” he said.

“Did you father my daughter’s child, Emil?”

My father asked it so directly that it startled even me and I could see that Brandt was clearly taken aback.

“What kind of question is that, Nathan?”

“An honest one. And I would appreciate an honest answer.”

Brandt turned his face away and held himself motionless for a long time. “She was in love with me, Nathan. Blind and battered as I am, she loved me.”

“Did you love her, Emil?”

“Not in that way, not really. I’d come to rely on her greatly, and I loved her presence in this house, and she reminded me so much of. .”

“So much of whom?”

“Of her mother, Nathan.”

“And that’s why you made love to an eighteen-year-old girl? She reminded you of her mother?”

Was it anger I heard in my father’s voice? Profound indignation? Betrayal?

“I know how terrible it sounds, but it wasn’t like that, Nathan. It happened once. Just once, I swear, and I was so ashamed. But Ariel, for her it was so much more. Of course. Something like that to one so young, it means everything, I know. She talked marriage. Marriage to me, can you envision that, Nathan? A man more than twice her age, blind as a bat and with the face of a monster. What kind of marriage would that be for her once she opened her eyes and realized the poor bargain she’d struck? And what about Lise? Lise could never have accepted someone else in our retreat here, especially someone who might, in my sister’s understanding, steal all my affection. Nathan, I told Ariel no. Honest to God, I did everything in my power to dissuade her from throwing her life away on a wreck like me. But she. . oh, the young, they’re always so certain of what they want.”

Brandt stopped talking and the silence was a great, heavy stone that settled on us all. He was blind but he nonetheless looked down as if his eyes were weighted with shame.

“I tried to kill myself once before,” he finally said. His voice was like something that had come from a distance on the wind. “Did you know that? In the hospital in London after I was wounded. I fell into such a darkness. I couldn’t imagine a life for myself this way.” He put his fingertips to his monster of a face and then went on. “Do you want to know why I tried to kill myself this time? A more noble reason, or at least that’s what I told myself. I wanted Ariel to be free of me, and I simply couldn’t see any other way.”

“Except killing her,” I said.

“Frank,” my father cautioned.

“Killing her?” Brandt raised his head and a terrible understanding blossomed in his sightless eyes. “That’s what you think? That I killed Ariel? That’s why you’re here?”

The screen door opened and Lise Brandt stepped outside and looked at us with concern and irritation as if we were trespassing. She said, “Emil?” Except that because of her deafness and the resulting oddness of her speech it came out something like Emiou?

Brandt signed to his sister.

“I wan them to go away,” she said in a drone.

Brandt turned so that she could read his lips. “We have business to finish, Lise. Go back inside.” She didn’t immediately obey him and he said, “It’s all right. Go on. I’ll be in soon.”

Lise drew herself back slowly like mist being sucked into the house and I thought that if I were her I’d hide myself and listen but of course that would do her no good. I watched through the screen as she vanished into the kitchen and I heard the faint sound of cookware rattling.

“It’s true then,” my father said. “The baby was yours.”

“She didn’t tell me about the baby, Nathan. She never said a word. And when I found out that she’d died pregnant, I hoped against hope that Karl might be the father.”

“You hoped that Ariel might be sleeping around?”

“That’s not what I meant. It just seemed impossible. Ariel and I had been together only once.”

“She came here often after dark,” my father said. “Frank saw her leave the house several times.”

“Yes,” Brandt admitted. “But she came late at night and all she did was stand out there in the yard and watch my window.”

“You’re blind, Emil. How could you know this?”

“Lise saw her. She wanted to chase her off, but I asked her not to interfere. I talked to Ariel and she promised to stop her nocturnal visits.”

“Did she?”

“I suppose so but I don’t really know. It was right after that that I tried to kill myself. And then so much happened.”

“Did she come the night she disappeared?”

“I’m sure she didn’t. If she had, Lise would have said something to me. Look,” he pleaded, “I didn’t kill Ariel. I couldn’t have killed Ariel. In my wounded way, I loved her. Not as she would have liked, but in the only way I was able. You have to believe that, Nathan.”

My father closed his eyes and in the gathering dark sat in silence and I believed he was praying. “I do,” he finally said.

Brandt looked as if he was in physical pain. “You’ll have to tell Ruth, I suppose.”

“No. That’s something you’ll have to do, Emil.”

“All right. I’ll talk with her tomorrow. Will that do, Nathan?”

“Yes.”

“Nathan?”

“What is it?”

“We’re finished as friends, aren’t we?”

“I’ll pray for the strength to forgive you, Emil. But I have no wish to see you again.” My father rose. “Frank?”

I stood too.

“God be with you, Emil,” my father said in parting. He didn’t say it in the way he sometimes did to a congregation as a blessing at the end of a service. This sounded more like a criminal sentence. I followed him to the Packard and we got in. I looked back before we drove away and Emil Brandt and the dark of the coming night were merging and if he stayed there long I figured you wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other.

At home my father parked in the garage and turned off the engine and we sat together in the stillness.

“Well, Frank?”

“I’m glad I know the truth. But I kind of wish I didn’t. It doesn’t make anything better.”

“There was a playwright, Son, a Greek by the name of Aeschylus. He wrote that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

“Awful?” I said.

“I don’t think it’s meant in a bad way. I think it means beyond our understanding.”

“I guess there are graces I like better,” I said.

My father slipped the car keys into his pocket. He put his hand on the door handle but didn’t get out. He turned back to me. “There’s something I haven’t told you yet, Frank. A congregation in Saint Paul would like me to be their pastor. I’m going to accept.”

“We’re moving?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“In a month or so. Before school begins.”

“I guess that would be all right,” I said. “Does Mom know?”

“Yes, but not your brother. We should go inside and tell him.”

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t hate Mr. Brandt. In a way, I feel sorry for him.”

“That’s a good beginning. It would be nice to leave this place with a heart that’s not full of enmity.”

I saw a firefly blink in the dark of the garage and I realized it was getting late but I didn’t move.

“Is there something else, Frank?”

There was and it was Warren Redstone. Although I knew the sheriff intended to question Morris Engdahl and Judy Kleinschmidt further about the night Ariel was killed, I didn’t believe anymore that they had something to do with her death. Redstone had murdered my sister. I accepted that now. I’d fought against believing it, a battle whose real purpose was simply to keep me from being overwhelmed by guilt because I didn’t do anything to stop Danny’s great-uncle when he made his escape across the river. I was finished with blame, finished with feeling lousy, and so I told my father everything. The whole horrible story spilled from me in a torrent I couldn’t stop, a complete unburdening. I’d been afraid that he would be angry, that he would condemn me. In my worst imaginings, he ceased to love me. Instead he held me and pressed his cheek to the top of my head and said, “It’s okay, Son. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” I insisted between sobs. “What if they never catch him?”

“Then I suppose God’ll have a lot to say to him when they meet face-to-face, don’t you think?”

I drew away a little and looked into his eyes. They were brown and sad and gentle.

“You’re not mad at me?”

“I’m ready to be done with anger, Frank. I’m ready to be done with it forever. How about you?”

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

“Then let’s go inside. I’m kind of tired.”

I opened my door and walked with my father toward the house where Jake and Gus were waiting and where my mother at her piano filled the night with music.