Read Online The Traitor's Emblem by Juan Gómez-Jurado - Free Book Online

was ten years old, I heard shouting in the library and went down to see what was happening. I was very surprised that your father had called on us at that time of night. He was in discussion with my father, the two of them sitting at a round table. There were two other people in the room. I could see one of them, a short man with delicate features like a girl’s, who was saying nothing. I couldn’t see the other one from the door but I could hear him. I was about to go in and greet your father—he always brought me presents from his travels—but just before I entered, my mother grabbed me by the ear and dragged me to my room. ‘Did they see you?’ she asked. And I said no, over and over. ‘Well, you’re not to say a word about this, not ever, do you hear me?’ And I . . . I swore I’d never tell . . .”
    Eduard’s voice trailed off. Paul grabbed his arm. He wanted him to continue the story, whatever it took, though he was aware of the suffering that it was causing his cousin.
    “You and your mother came to live with us two weeks later. You weren’t much more than a baby, and I was pleased, because that meant I had my own platoon of brave soldiers to play with. I didn’t even think about the obvious lie my parents told me: that Uncle Hans’s frigate had gone down. People were saying other things, spreading rumors that your father was a deserter who’d gambled everything away and had disappeared in Africa. Those rumors were just as untrue, but I didn’t think about them, either, and eventually I forgot. Just as I forgot what I heard soon after my mother left my bedroom. Or rather, I pretended that I’d made a mistake, in spite of the fact that no mistake was possible, given the excellent acoustics in this house. Watching you grow up was easy, watching your happy smile as we played hide-and-seek, and I lied to myself. Then you started getting older—old enough to understand. Soon you were as old as I’d been that night. And I went off to war.”
    “So tell me what you heard,” said Paul in a whisper.
    “That night, Cousin, I heard a shot.”

7

    Paul’s understanding of himself and his place in the world had been teetering on the edge for some time, like a porcelain vase at the top of a ladder. That last sentence was the final kick, and the imaginary vase tumbled, shattering into pieces. Paul heard the crash it made as it broke, and Eduard saw it in his face too.
    “Forgive me, Paul. Christ help me. You should go now.”
    Paul got up and leaned over the bed. His cousin’s skin was cold, and when Paul kissed his forehead, it was like kissing a mirror. He walked to the door, not quite in control of his own legs, only vaguely aware of having left the bedroom door open and of having slumped down on the floor outside.
    When the shot rang out, he barely heard it.
    But as Eduard had said, the mansion’s acoustics were excellent. The first guests to leave the party, busy exchanging farewells and empty promises as they collected their overcoats, heard a bang that was muffled but unmistakable. They’d heard too many in the preceding weeks to fail to recognize the sound. Their conversations had all ceased by the time the second and third echoes of the report rebounded through the stairwell.
    In her role as the perfect hostess, Brunhilda had been saying goodbye to a doctor and his wife whom she couldn’t stand. She identified the sound but automatically activated her defense mechanism.
    “The boys must be playing with firecrackers.”
    Disbelieving faces popped up around her like mushrooms after a rainstorm. At first there were only a dozen people, but soon more emerged into the hallway. It wouldn’t be long before all the guests knew that something had happened in her house.
    In my house!
    Within two hours it would be the talk of all Munich if she didn’t do something about it.
    “Stay here. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
    Brunhilda picked up the pace when she began to smell gunpowder halfway up the stairs.