The Wicked: A Love Story

LIFE BECAME AS CLOSE to blissful as it ever was with Friederich. The bear was soothed, and something in me was soothed as well. Katherine, who had long since stopped sleeping with my father, and had never enjoyed it anyway, moved to the bedroom downstairs by the kitchen, and I began to sleep in Friederich’s room. I came to him at night, when the house had gone to sleep. In those nights, I, who had begun to feel old, began to quicken again. The skin which was only firm and soft to Jimmy when he touched it under an enchantment began to, indeed, feel firm and supple to me once again as well. And Friederich, who had been growing ancient, seemed to become a lion once more. Making love to him was, in many ways, like making love to Jimmy. Neither one of them seemed to have much in common, the father with the son, and both of them seemed beyond such passion. But each ran the backs of his hands down my sides in the same way, each kissed my nipples the same way, and it was in the same way, that each of them buried their face between my thighs and sent me into paroxysms with their tongues.

Not long after Christmas, Natalie gave birth fo Kristin. Friederich was in love with her the way he had never been in love with any of his daughters save, perhaps, me. When Katherine suggested she be in pink, Friederich said no, such a girl should be in lavender, lavender, lavender. And she was all in white with lavender bows and the smell of lavender was in her nursery.

“It is good to have a child in the house again,” Katherine declared, and when Natalie said maybe she and Jimmy should move once he got back from the war, and get their own place, both Friederich and Katherine vociferously disagreed.

“I have been waiting for such a long time,” Katherine rocked the child, “for Natalie to give me a little granddaughter.”

Jimmy and Steiger came home. They had not arrived in the country at the same time, but had come on different planes and different days, and there was a bit about how soldiers had to spend some time…. Soldiering at the soldier place…. This was beyond me, before they were returned to normal society. The boys came home on the same day, and though there was joy enough, and though neither one of them ever spoke of that war, they were changed. Jimmy began to drink, and not as the silly young man who went to parties. There was a shadow behind his eyes, and though Friederich said it was because he was now a man, I knew that was not it. It was far more. Or less.

Jimmy took less joy in Kristin than I thought a father should, and he had been home only a few nights when I heard tussling which I thought was romance, only for it to be followed by something breaking. The next morning, Natalie had a bruise under her cheek, and Jimmy had a flat out black eye and a wound on his right cheek.

I do not think he ever touched her again.

By the end of the year, Natalie was pregnant again, and you could see in Caroline’s face that she longed for a child too. There was an anger in her, not at Natalie though, a frustration that I noted. I cared for Caroline Dashbach, certainly more than I had for her older cousin, my stepmother, and I knew what it was to be a woman smoldering with anger, choked with upset.

Long after everyone else had gone to bed, I stayed up singing to myself and staring into the fire. Augustus had taught me how to do it, but Frau Inga had done similar things before, and I dozed off. When I awoke, flushed, and having slept far too long, disturbed by a dream I could only halfway remember, I thought how Friederich, waiting for me, must have become so irritated before going to sleep. I would go to him, for I wanted him too. But now I rose and took up the little lantern I was so used to even though the house was full of electric light. Passing through the living room I looked past one of the curtains and thought how different things had been when first we came here. It was 1953 and there was a car, rounded and gleaming like a beetle in front of every house. Some of the houses were shabbier and poorer and Germantown was not so German as it once had been. I turned my back on these rambling thoughts as I turned my back on the first floor and went upstairs.

But I did not stop on the second floor. I left my lantern in my room and then continued upstairs to the third floor. I needed no light, but only my wolf eyes, which had become stronger to me. The strength and silence of my wolf walk had returned as well, in truth, since I had begun sleeping with Father again.

On the third floor I saw a shaft of light. Here Caroline stayed with Steiger, but now I saw the door open, and Natalie was walking out of the room. As I looked into it, I saw Jimmy and Steiger lying naked together. They were not boys anymore, their limbs were powerful, well muscled, downed with hair, and their square jawed faces, even in sleep, bore care. I pressed myself to the wall and watched Natalie close the door behind her and go to her room. She knew, and Caroline must know as well, but for Caroline there was no help. Caroline must, every night, I now knew, sleep alone.

THERE IS NO REAL justification for what came next. There is a reason, and if we leave the reason at that we can say, this is why it happened. It happened because I had always loved Steiger more than Jimmy, because I thought he was so much more worthy than my little brother. Later, after Jimmy became my lover, I changed that assessment. I knew that Steiger was just golden, just beautiful, and I wished for him to have his desire. I was almost relieved that they were still together, but even in my relief, I began to understand something else about myself.

I came to Caroline. She was, by now, frequently anxious and frequently angry, and Natalie was growing large with her second child. I told her, “Do not worry. Things will be well. You will have your child. I promise you will have the marriage you desire.”

She looked at me with such love and such relief. She said, “Miss Strauss, the truth is, I always feared you.”

“Believe me,” I told her, “I want to help you. Will you look at me, child? Will you look at me, and believe me?”

And then Caroline, with her wonderful red hair, looked at me and broke into a smile, nodding.

I wondered if she was a virgin.

I told Jimmy I wanted to see Steiger, and when Steiger came to me he said, “Yes, Aunt Pam?”

He was so fresh and so handsome, his voice always gentle and gentle to me because he knew I loved him.

“Caroline is heartbroken. I need you to go to her tonight.”

Steiger opened his mouth to protest, but I said, “I do not care what is in your heart. I understand you better than you think. But tonight, go to your wife. Try. Try for me. I will give you something to make it easier, alright?”

Steiger looked at me for a while. I could see him seeing me, understanding that I understood.

This was really my last enchantment. It was late in life that I took to reading stories again, and I remember reading a novel about the wizard Merlin, and the last book was called The Last Enchantment. It was the end of his career, so to speak, not that he died, he just ceased being the Merlin that everyone knew, who made things happen, and in a way, this was my last great work, the last time I would be the Pamela Strauss people had known and, perhaps, sometimes feared.

There was no fear in this meal, only desire, only passion, only a want for all the things we desired, and at that meal there was only Jimmy and Steiger, only Caroline and myself. The meal was humble, of soup and bread, and I had sent Katherine and Friederich out with Natalie. All through the last few weeks I had blended animal hearts and kidneys into strong broth and then sweetened it with honey and molasses, and nectar, with stewed apples, and I had sang old songs over it taught to me by the black women of the neighborhood and put in herbs from Augustus, and mostly, I had put in my desire.

That night Caroline waited in a room, and though she saw the loving husband she wished to see, it was Jimmy who came to her. Jimmy wished to be a loving husband, and he saw in her Natalie. What happened in that room I know well enough, but it was, in the end, so that I could go to Steiger. As he came to me eagerly, taking down my gown and kissing my mouth hungrily, I do not know if he saw the wife he wished he could love, or if he saw Jimmy whom he always had. His blue eyes were fevered with desire, and I hurt, just a little, that the desire was not for me. But, I thought, maybe it was. Maybe it was because, after all, he had always loved me and known I had loved him.

I had longed for him so long. I had longed to feel these strong hands, the smoothness of these golden arms, to see, close, his lightly muscled chest, squared shoulders, to be taken up in Steiger’s arms and throw my arms about him, running my hands over this strong back which, in many ways, reminded me of Friederich, reminded me of Hagano. I lay under him, gritted my teeth, closing my eyes while tears came from between the lids at the joy and at something else I could not explain. I had longed for this. I had needed this. I had wanted this from Steiger Frye since, perhaps, he was a boy of sixteen, maybe even fifteen. He gathered up my thighs and, grunting, drove himself inside of me until, at last, while my hands were clutching his damp hair, he came.

Steiger Frye had me three times that night. He had me while the bed creaked without mercy, and when I left him, both of us exhausted, the bed was damp, and I ached so I could barely reach my own bed. I hadn’t known he was capable of giving such passion, or I of receiving it.

I did not trust myself to a bath. I thought I would fall asleep in that tub and drown. I showered quickly, still feeling the ache of Steiger inside of me. In bed I dreamed of him, wanting him again, knowing I could never do this again, that it was use of him, and though I did not regret it tonight and never would, to do it again would be a rape, a discredit to him. Perhaps it had been now, but I did not wish to think of that.

There were, at any event, other things to think of. Only a few months later, Natalie gave birth to Byron, her second child and first son, and Caroline announced that she was finally pregnant with her first child, a child which could not be Steiger’s, but how could she know?

Steiger seemed perplexed, but I was far more perplexed. I was, in fact, panicked for the first time in a long time. I had said that since I had returned to Friederich’s bed my body had changed, I had felt younger and more youthful. I had felt alive and supple with him as I had with Hagano. This was true, and I continued to feel stronger still, but I was a woman long past fifty, and Friederich, getting old, could not have me very often, indeed, had not had me for some time. And yet, though I wished to deny it, here I was, pregnant again, and with Steiger’s child.

Steiger Frye. I looked to him with a mixture of love and protection, and yes, desire hard to explain unless I explain to you, Marabeth, everything that I never told a soul, that, perhaps, now you yourself may have to find a way to tell others. For Steiger Frye, the last child of the old and now dead Frye family, was not only their last, but their adopted one, and they knew to keep the secret. I had sent the child to them, ahead of me, the child I had born in a convent in 1928, when I had lain with Friederich not knowing Katherine would bear Jimmy. I wanted to have my son near me, growing up as much a part of the house as possible. Perhaps I even wanted him to replace Jimmy if my frail brother should die. But in the end he had become Jimmy’s lover, his blood so strong that he did not make the wolf Change as Jimmy had. Now, I realized, I was so clear on him being Friederich’s son and Jimmy’s brother, and my son, I had never paused to realize I had given birth to my own brother. And now, having lain with my Steiger, my brother, and my son, I was pregnant with my own grandchild.