The Beasts: A Winter's Tale

James Strauss the Second, better known as Cousin Jim, took the long walk from the first floor, past the second, all the way to the third. Traveling up from the living room really was like coming to a different place. It was a colder clime, and a more solitary one, free from the hot grief of the family. Here this whole floor was empty and nearly dark except for the moon through the window and the light in the bathroom and one last light in the bedroom across from it. This whole floor, how unfair was that, but then no one had ever wished to claim it, belonged to his cousin, Kristian Struass.

He tapped on the half open door and came in without speaking.

“You’re making yourself awfully familiar up here,” Kris said.

“I wanted to talk,” Jim said. “I wanted to check on you.”

“Well,” Kris, who was sitting upright on his bed with a dirty ashtray and a packet of Marlboros said, “you’ve found me. And I’m still alive.”

“Yeah, that’s great,” Jim said, his voice less sure than usual.

“I just wondered if you felt as awful—if you… I feel so awful.”

“And you wondered if I felt as awful as you?” Kris looked up coldly at his cousin.

“That’s not what I meant. I meant—”

“You wondered if some detective coming to our house and telling us that my father died in a river and then was eaten by wildlife makes me feel as bad as it makes you feel, Jim?”

“I just meant…Well, he was my dad, too, right?”

“He was your uncle,” Kris said, stubbing out his cigarette and swinging his leg around the bed.

“For thirty years you’ve… you’ve tried to take everything that’s mine. But my dad wasn’t yours. He was my dad, and he’s dead.”

“Fine,” Jim said. “You’re right. I’m going to go now. Leave you to yourself.”

“Great,” Kris said, tonelessly.

Jim made himself walk at a regular pace.

Catch your breath he told himself. Breathe in. Breathe out. Don’t let it get to you. Don’t let any of this get to you.

He had been very little, about four, when he had been swept up into a rage. It was here, in this house, and Jim wasn’t sure if his father was still alive or not. He had become so angry the light in his eyes had misted over to red, and when he had come to, Aunt Pamela, more kind that anyone had known her, was wiping his brow and singing in German to him.

“Do you know the story of Cain and Abel,” she had asked him.

He shook his head and the very old woman, with yellow still in her white hair half sang about Adam and Eve and their first born Cain and the younger, Abel, and how they all had made sacrifices to God, and God had preferred Abel’s offering over Cain’s, and this had sent Cain into a rage. God came to Cain and told him to master his rage. He said sin lurked like a monster at his door, but he must master it.

“What happened?”

“Cain did not master it. Not then. He was filled with rage, and so he killed Abel, his own brother. Rage, unmastered, does horrible things to men, more men than women and more the men of this family than any men I have known. The story leaves out one thing, and it is that the rage, not mastered, eventually kills Cain as well. Your rage is a wolf, little James. If you master it, it will make you a king of wolves, but if you do not, oh, my child, the wolf will eat you.”

He went downstairs, and he was embraced by family and put Kris out of his mind.

“You look like hell,” Peter said, wrapping his arm around Jim.

“Well, you know.”

“I know exactly what happened.”

Peter had thick dark hair and was tall and thin with sharp blue eyes like glass bits, handsome in his angular way.

“You went up to try to bond with Kristian, and the two of you just don’t bond.”

“He’s such a fuck.”

“He’s really hurting,” Peter said. “Just like you. You both just lost a dad.”

“Kris made sure that I knew he lost a dad and I lost an uncle. I’m an interloper. I’m a—”

“Enough of that,” Peter said. “Come on into the kitchen and have a drink with us before we head out. I gotta bring the kids to their mom. If you want you can stay at my place.”

“I feel like I should stay with Grandma.”

“Aunt Natalie’s—” Peter started, then he said, “You know what, you’re probably right. As long as you don’t stay at your place.”

“I work hard, pl—”

“Play hard and deserve nice things, yeah, yeah, but that huge apartment with no one else… you shouldn’t stay alone tonight, cousin.”

Past the dining room and the parlor that had become a den, down the hall passing the library and the bedroom and bathrooms, they came to the large kitchen where, under the fluorescent light, two very old people were drinking.

“Jimmy!” the old man called, “have a seat. Where’ve you been?”

“Steiger, leave him alone,” Natalie admonished. “Young people can’t be crowded all the time.”

“I was just being gloomy,” Jim made light of himself and Peter, grinning at his cousin said, “I will get you that drink, little brother.”

“I wonder,” Rebecca Strauss, who was swishing a thick bottomed glass of bourbon in one hand, said, “if you all are more closely related than brothers.”

“Well,” the tall elegant, blue suited Peter said, handing his cousin a Scotch, “Grandma Maris was Uncle Jimmy’s sister, but Grandpa Will was Aunt Natalie’s brother, so… we’re double cousins.”

“What an odd story,” Rebecca reflected. She turned to her mother-in-law, “Didn’t you ever find it strange?”

Jim sat down beside the old man, his grandfather, and Natalie said to Steiger, “We’re the only ones left from those days. You know, Parker and Will married Maris and Claire, and I thought how very odd it was my brothers marrying a pair of sisters. I had other things to do with my life. Other boyfriends,” she laughed. “Imagine when the last Keller married the youngest Strauss. Yes. It was strange. And strange that, when I look back, we weren’t married very long.”

She looked to Steiger. “Jimmy died so young.”

“Did he look like me?” Jim asked.

“Truthfully?” the old woman said. “No. I mean, you’re a lot more handsome than James.”

They burst out laughing.

“But it’s true,” Natalie said. “I loved him, but he was very thin and shy and not at all like his father. I think Friederich terrified him. You take after Steiger. To me Steiger hasn’t changed a day. You all still look just a like.’

Jim grinned at his grandfather.

“Except for the white hair, the stooped back and the palsy,” the old man said, “I haven’t changed a bit.”

“You’re getting better and better, Granddad,” Jim said.

“If I keep getting better, you’ll have to nail my coffin shut,” Steiger returned. “And I can make jokes like that. Because I’m ancient.’

“Well, if you’re ancient, I’m ancient,” Natalie swirled the last of her bourbon and downed it, then held her glass out.

“Peter, I’ll take another one. It’s a good night to get drunk and talk about what was.”

Jim’s long tall cousin, perched on the edge of his chair, reached out and pulled the bottle to the table.

“You could have fallen on your head,” Steiger told him.

Peter shrugged.

“What old people don’t understand about their nephews and nieces and grandkids is we’re getting old too, and don’t want to keep getting up and sitting down.”

“We were the youngest,” Natalie said, as she poured her own glass, and then filled Peter’s and Jim’s and also Rebecca’s.

“Out of them all, me and Jimmy and Steiger. Jimmy and Steiger were brothers. They were the best of friends. So close I almost felt I split them up.”

“You made things richer,” Steiger said. “You made it better.”

“And then you married Caroline,” Natalie said.

“Delia looked just like her,” Steiger said.

Jim looked down at the table, and his grandfather said, “Jim, I know in the end, things were bad for your mother, but she loved you. And in a time you can’t remember, she was a bright, bright shining girl.”

Natalie nodded her head reverently.

“She was—” then Natalie touched Rebecca’s hand, “you both were my own daughters. Especially after Kristin. You were the fire and she was the star.”

Suddenly Jim’s hand hit the table and the bottle of bourbon fell over only for Peter to catch it. Despite the noise and Jim’s sudden embarrassment, no one moved. He looked across the table to his cousin Peter.

“I know,” the elfin faced man said, “We’ve lost so many people we’ve loved, and none of those losses seem to have been peaceful.”

In a house this full of people, no one had noticed the front door opening, and no one noticed Marabeth and Joy until they had come into the kitchen and Natalie said, “Where have you been?” for they brought the cold in with them, and their coats were not off yet.

“We drove around,” Marabeth said. “Joyce took me to I-Hop.”

“And now,” Joyce saluted them, “I will thank you for the wonderful Christmas and be on my way.”

Most people would have said sorry for your loss, but it didn’t seem to really cover it, and so Joyce left that out.

“You’re leaving?” Jim nearly stood up.

“I’m intruding,” Joyce said. “This is a time for family to be there for each other, not have some guest just sitting around.”

“Oh…” Natalie began, looking for the right word, “Bullshit!”

“She’s right,” Rebecca said, “I know for some people that’s true, but for us… we’re a little too claustrophobic of a family. We would be honored if you would stay with us. Besides, Mara doesn’t really have any friends but you.”

“Mother!”

“You don’t,” Rebecca said.

“And you do?”

“That’s not what I said,” Rebecca Strauss said. “The truth is, we all end up being a little friendless in this family, so actually, Mara’s doing great.”

Jim threw up his hand cheerfully, “I don’t have any friends, and I know Peter doesn’t.”

“We’re all a hopelessly introverted group of folks,” Peter said. “That’s probably why me and Myron are divorced. Mara too, for that matter.”

“I’m leaving you all,” Marabeth said flatly.

“Cuz, you wanna drink?”

“No,” she began. Then, “Well, possibly. Maybe.”

“If you’re going up to read your Aunt Pamela’s journal, from what you said is in there, you might want a drink,” Joyce said.

But at this, everyone looked at Joyce and Marabeth, not with laughter but with genuine concern. Not Jim, Joyce realized, but certainly Peter, Steiger, Natalie and Marabeth’s mother.

“What has she said?” Rebecca asked.

“Do you really remember her?” Marabeth asked.

“God, yes,” Rebecca said. “What is in that book?”

“It’s her journal,” Marabeth said, lamely, “She’s still in Germany. Still a little girl.”

For some reason Marabeth left out Friederich being a werewolf. She said, “Pamela thinks she is a witch. I’m going up to read more.”

She prepared to leave, taking the bottle of bourbon Peter proffered, but as she did, her grandmother said, “Witch was just the right word for her. And more.”

“Even when she was old she terrified me,” Rebecca said.

“She didn’t terrify me,” Natalie said, flatly. “And that’s a fact.”

“She did not terrify me,” Steiger said in a different tone. “No matter how other people were frightened of her, she was always kind to me. She told me to call her Aunt Pam, even though I wasn’t one of you—”

“Of course you were,” Natalie objected.

“Because she made me,” Steiger said. “I know she was frightening to some, and I know that Friederich was no an innocent man. He wasn’t,” Steiger said. “But… he was old when I was a boy, and he was always kind to me. That’s all I can say.”

“Well,” Jim pulled a chair between him and Peter, “if Mara’s going to read then, Joy, why don’t you sit up and drink with us?”

“She could be tired.” Rebecca said.

“We’re all tired,” Peter said, “and I gotta drive. You’re sitting with us, Missy,”

Joy took her seat, grinning, bemused, and Marabeth realized her cousin Peter was just a little bit drunk

“Peter, I know Joy’s not a cab service, but maybe she could drive you home. I’ll call Haley and tell her we’re keeping the kids, and will bring them in the morning.”

“Haley, Haley, Haley!” Peter repeated his ex wife’s name and laughed, and Marabeth knew he was past sobriety.

While Marabeth took herself up the back stair she could still hear her family talking down below, and it struck her that during the time when she was reading of a young Pamela under the mountains of Wurzburg even the oldest of these people had not been born.

She thought of going up to see her brother. There was only one staircase that went to the third floor. Here she stood before the door to Jim’s room. But in the end she decided she’d rather read, that even though she had been terrified by the strange world of her aunt, she was ready to return to the Book of Pamela Strauss...

HE MUST HAVE HEARD me, heard some breathing in the room. Even as a man he was fierce, snarled as he turned to me, but in a moment his vision resolved.

“Friederich,” I said. I did not call him Father.

I will not explain such a thing, and I cannot make you understand it. I am certainly too old to beg pardon for it, and whom would I beg pardon from? Seeing Friederch transform from a wolf, to a beautiful naked man, seeing him become one thing I had never known and then another thing I had always suspected, and even now I cannot say which was which, a thing had happened to me. His transformation had transformed me. He stood there, naked and muscled, his body covered in a transparent pelt of blond hair. As he looked at me I saw he was truly naked, for his great secret was exposed. His eyes were not hard, but almost afraid, and as we looked at each other, the sap, the thrill that had come upon me when I had seen that other man in the woods, came to me again.

Without speaking, I lifted my gown over my head. My nipples were hard, my body thrilled. I could see his penis rising from the cloud of his hair. We did not speak. I climbed onto the bed, and Friederich climbed onto the bed, then onto me. I opened my thighs for him. It hurt when he entered me, but more than that it satisfied me. I understood then that this was what I had wanted for a long time. I rejoiced more than I ever had before, and that late night or early morning was the first time I slept in Friederich’s bed. This was how he became my lover...