“Hello, Papa,” said the old man. His voice was like dry leaves. He held out his hand but didn’t step inside.
“My son,” said Herr Bamberg. “Why, boy, how good to see you.” He grasped his son’s hand with both of his own. He smiled, forgetful of his teeth.
His son studied him and said, “You’re looking well, Papa.”
“Come in, come in,” said Herr Bamberg, motioning toward the sitting room at the back of the house. “I’ll have the nurse make some coffee.”
“No, Papa,” said his son. “I won’t stay long enough for coffee.” He seemed reluctant to come into the house.
“Nonsense! Come sit, my boy. It’s been so long. I’ve looked forward to this day for so long.” He opened the curtain on the front window to light their way toward the back.
Hermann scraped his boots on a step, absently handed his gloves and hat to Käthe, and followed his father into the study. A fire was going, but the room was still cold. Herr Bamberg took his accustomed place on the sofa. His son settled onto a wooden bench near the wall and rubbed his hands. Käthe went into the kitchen to make coffee.
“Papa,” Hermann said. “I’d like you to give me Mama’s jewels.”
“What?”
“Mama’s jewels. In the note she wrote us, just before she died.” He put his hand to his brow and adjusted his feet. “She said I was to have anything of hers that might ease my way in life. I haven’t needed anything until now, but I find myself in some difficulty and I should like to have her jewels so that I may sell them.”
Herr Bamberg looked into the fire. “You’ve been gambling, son?”
“Please,” said Hermann. “I have never asked anything from you, never once since I left school. They are mine by right and I—”
“You have barely written to me in twenty years.”
“Yes, Papa. I’m sorry, Papa.”
“And you haven’t come to visit me once since your mother—since she left us. Not once.”
“Yes, Papa. And yet she said in her note—”
“Her note!” Herr Bamberg stabbed the floor hard with his cane. “Her note!”
“I’m sorry, Papa,” he said again. “I know this is painful.”
Käthe came in with a serving tray. On it were a silver pitcher and two porcelain teacups identical to the one that held Herr Bamberg’s teeth in the bedchamber upstairs. As she poured the coffee, Herr Bamberg imagined biting the spout of the pitcher while it was pouring. He would splutter and choke and burn, he thought. The mess would be appalling.
When she left, Herr Bamberg said, “I have kept your mother’s jewels safe all these years. I have kept them to ease me through my old age.” He looked around the room as if it contained his old age, as if it showed how old he was.
“But surely you have enough money to get you through a few more… to get you through to the… to get you through whatever little difficulties might arise.”
“Impossible,” said Herr Bamberg. “Impossible.”
“It isn’t just for me. It’s for my family. They rely on me. Matilde is without a husband still, and Karl has married a poor woman and has very few prospects himself.”
“And Elsie?”
“What of Elsie?”
Herr Bamberg straightened in his seat. “You sent me a lock of her hair.”
“Ah,” said his son. “Elsie thrives. She climbs trees, she swims in the lake. She cries when Saint Martin’s Day is over, just like I did. They’re all living with us—Karl, Judith, and Elsie.”
“Karl and Judith have no other children?”
“No other children.”
There was a pause. Then Herr Bamberg said, “She must be of an age when she’s begun to lose her teeth.”
His son looked puzzled. “Yes, Papa.”
“And to grow new ones.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Good, strong ones?”
“I suppose so, Papa.”
“And she has a healthy appetite?”
“Sorry?”
“She eats well?”
“Yes, Papa. She eats well.”
There was another pause. “Do you speak to her about me?”
His son put his hand to his brow again. “No, Papa. You see, she’s just six, and there’s never been any occasion—”
“This money you need, is it for her?”
“Well, not exactly. But, well, that is to say, if I am unable to pay off my debts, the people who depend upon me will find it very hard going. So yes, you might say the money is for her.”
Herr Bamberg looked at his son. He looked flushed and haggard, like he had been drinking, like he was perhaps quite ill. His forehead was bisected by a single deep furrow that had been there since he was young and that always deepened when he was sad or scared. A memory came to Herr Bamberg: a dog running out from behind a farmhouse, barking cruelly, while he and little Hermann were walking together through the hills. He had first noticed the furrow then. Perhaps that was when it had originated.
He wondered about his son’s life, about the house they all occupied in Konstanz, how they spent their days, how they had spent the holidays. But try as he might, he felt nothing for this son or his family of strangers. The past was a scabbed-over wound, numb to the touch. The only feelings he had anymore came from these goddamn teeth.