The Days of the Teehaus, Part Four
Denise spent a miserable week. She knew they must break this off — and was miserable. She did not want to break it off — and was miserable. She daydreamed of how he had kissed her, how it had felt to be held in his arms — and was miserable, knowing she must never feel his touch again.
All week she vacillated. In the morning she would be steadfast in her decision that she would never go to the Teehaus again. And by nightfall she had changed her mind a dozen times. She would go there just this once as Fritzi had requested of her. She would hide here in the house instead. She would, she would — oh! what would she do?
She wondered what he could possibly have in mind that would make everything right. She knew there was nothing he could do to make it right. She puzzled again and again over his variable height, and over the strength of his arms as he had enfolded her — that had not felt like the embrace of an old man! Younger, but no, not as young as Craig… Perhaps, oh, Uncle Artie's age then? But how could that be?
And still she dithered. She would never see him again, for both their sakes. She longed to see him again, for this one last time. One last time. And if so, she hoped…
Oh, she hoped he would kiss her, if only to kiss her good-bye.
She woke the morning of her half-day with the firm resolve that she would not set foot out the door all day long. And when the studies were done and her free afternoon loomed before her, she left a distinctly wide-awake Missie in the charge of the three delighted Morgan girls — backed up, of course, by the housekeeper, various maids, and the girls' own mother — as she dashed off at once to the Teehaus.
She could see the table in the window as she approached. It was empty. No Fritzi. Her shoulders sagged and she nearly turned away. But her feet took her to the door anyway, and she set the little bell chime a-jangling as she pushed open the door and entered.
It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the difference in lighting as she came in out of the bright sunshine. Then she looked around. Perhaps he was at another table? No. Fritzi was not here. But here was Berthe the waitress bustling forward with a warm greeting of, "Guten Tag, Frau Spatz! Herr Drossel is not here yet, but you will sit und I will fetch you your tea. Ja?" And she swept off to do just that, leaving Denise seated in the window feeling very conspicuous and very alone.
The bell chimed as the door opened — no Fritzi. Berthe brought the tea — no Fritzi. Denise stared through the window at people passing outside. No Fritzi. She was fighting the impulse to cry.
The bell at the door chimed once more. She glanced up. No Fritzi…
What?
In the doorway stood a man, tall and straight, head held high. He was dressed in a green uniform of some European design. Gold frogs graced the front of his jacket; gold trim gleamed along the side seams of his trousers. He sported a fuzzy black shako, spotless white gloves, and resplendent knee-high black boots. But it was his face that caught Denise's attention. The goatee and moustaches, the straight nose, the dark eyes — Fritzi? He looked so much like him! How… A son? But no, of course not; Fritzi's only child had died as an infant. A nephew then?
His cheek. There on his cheek was a scar just like Fritzi's: the same length, the same angle as it turned at his cheek bone. But how could he have the exact same scar?
All this passed through her mind in the brief time it took for the man to pause to let his eyes get accustomed to the dimmer light inside. Now those eyes were sweeping the room, turning inevitably toward her. Coming to rest on her. Lighting up at the sight of her. He smiled, and the smile was Fritzi's. He came toward her, crossing the room as if all else in it no longer existed for him. He stopped at Denise's side, inclined his head to her, clicked his heels (which made her jump), and said, with Fritzi's twinkle in his eyes, "Frau Spatz."
His voice. It was firmer, younger, deeper than Fritzi's, and not so heavily accented. And yet…
She stared at him. "Fritzi?"
He gestured at the second chair, his eyes asking permission. She nodded and he sat, removing his shako to reveal a headful of shiny black curls. Drawing off the gloves as well, he answered, "My name is Matthias Kleiber. Or to put it more precisely, Matthias Konrad Friedrich Kleiber."
Noting the emphasis he had placed on his third name, she asked, "Is… is Fritzi a nickname for Friedrich?"
"It is."
"What are you telling me?" said Denise cautiously.
With a level gaze, he replied, "My dear, you know what I am telling you."
"That you're Fritzi? You?" He saw the anger that was beginning to flash in her eyes. "But… why have you done this? Why have you set out to deceive me?"
"I did not set out…"
"For two months you have presented yourself to me as a sweet little old man, cultivating my friendship, cap… captivating me with lies!" she fumed.
"No lies. Apart from the age and the name, everything I told you was the truth."
"I don't believe you."
"Nevertheless, Niecie, I…"
"Don't call me that!" she hissed. "Only Uncle Artie can call me that!"
He fell silent and looked down, toying with his cup of tea. Then softly he said, "My apologies, Mrs Sparrow. You have asked me for an explanation. I am willing to give it, but it is a long one. If you will hear me out?"
Warily, she said, "I'll think about it."
He gave a wan smile. "That is all I ask. Where would you like me to begin?"
"Start with why you've been pretending to be someone you're not."
"That goes back to the very first time we met. I was in disguise at the time as part of my job."
She scoffed.
"Does not your Uncle Artie do the same? I work at my country's Embassy. It is my job to keep everyone who lives and works there safe, as well as others of my countrymen who are here in your United States. And on a particular night not long ago, there were many rumors flying about. A kidnapped child. A dead Secret Service agent. A chemical that could melt marble buildings. You know of which I speak."
"Of course I know," said she. "I was in the middle of it. The kidnapped child was my daughter. The agent who wasn't dead as initially reported was my uncle. And the chemical wasn't real."
"But at the time, it was not known whether the chemical was real or not. If it had been real, it could have destroyed the Embassy building. It was my job to get to the bottom of the rumors. So I did what I usually do. I transformed myself into little old inoffensive Fritzi Drossel, and I snooped. After all, people will say many things to such a man is Fritzi that they would never say to a man dressed as I am now." He spread his arms, indicating his uniform. "And was not your Uncle Artie doing the same thing that night? For I saw him, you see, in the street in front of the building shortly before you were, ah… defenestrated."
Her eyes flickered. "When you ran to save me."
He shrugged. "Yes. Well, I could not stand there and do nothing! Anyone would have done the same. Your uncle was running too. I was only closer, that is all."
She was silent for a few seconds, then said, "Go on."
Now he was silent for a bit. "I, ah… I was impressed with you that night. When your uncle came and checked on you, he asked you questions and you just calmly answered them. No hysteria. No weeping. Just clear answers."
"Well…" she said. "I did have me a good cry later on."
He covered her hand with his own. She looked at the hands for a moment, then withdrew hers and folded both her hands in her lap.
He tapped his fingers on the table, smiled apologetically, then at length went on. "It was not that day that I began to think of you. It was the next day, and the day after that, and the following day, and every day since then. The woman who fell out of a window and into my arms, so to speak." He lowered his head, looking up at her from under his eyebrows, looking at her with Fritzi's eyes. "I began to be very angry with myself for not getting your name. I had only a few clues, among them the names that you and your uncle called each other. Kosenamen, they were."
"Kosenamen?"
"Pet names. Nicknames. Niecie and Artie. That was all I knew, at first. But I am very good at finding out more from next to nothing. And so I did what I do. I snooped."
"You spied on me?"
"Not spied. Snooped. There is a difference."
"I fail to see it."
He shrugged amiably. "I started with your uncle. In the list of Secret Service agents you spoke of to him by name, a certain name was glaringly absent. You mentioned James West. Why did you not also mention Artemus Gordon? They are like — how do you say it? — like bread and butter; they go together. Of course then I realized that the name 'Artie' is a Kosename for Artemus, and I realized whom I had seen that night, doing his own snooping in that street. Your uncle is Artemus Gordon."
"You already said that you knew that."
"But not at first. I realized it later. And I thought, now it is easy; I shall find out who is the niece of Artemus Gordon."
"Except he doesn't have a niece," said she.
"Yes, so I learned! So I went to the next thing. I thought, what else was happening that night? The child! I did more snooping and learned that the name of the kidnapped child — and to my relief, I learned also that she was returned home safely — the name of the child was Artemis Sparrow. What a coincidence, hmm? Two people involved in the events of that night sharing such an unusual Vorname — forename."
"So you found me through my child," she said. And she did not look happy.
"Yes…" he said slowly. "I did find that the mother of the child was a certain Denise Sparrow and realized that 'Niecie' could well be short for 'Denise.' But I also found out that you were a married woman. And as it is not my habit to pursue the wife of another man, I gave up."
Interesting; the man had scruples at least. "But in fact I'm not…" she began.
He was nodding. "I know that now, yes. But at the time I only knew that the child's parents were Craig and Denise Sparrow. So I let the matter drop." He sat back and spread his hands. "That was it. I was done." He gave a shrug and added, "Except that one of my operatives did not know that I was done and came to me bringing the information that Craig Sparrow had died before his daughter was born. I…" He frowned. "I found that hard. On the one hand, I know what it is to lose the other half of one's self. And on the other…"
"I was free for you to pursue again," she said, her eyes cold and glittering.
"Hmm. Well… Not to put too fine a point on it..."
"But why? Why were you pursuing me? Who was I to you?"
"How can I explain? You enter my life in such dramatic fashion, you pique my interest with your calmness in such strange circumstances, you turn down my offer to see you home — a very bad habit of yours, I might add! — and I, foolish I, turn you over to your uncle and walk away. I have been kicking myself daily every since!"
"Calmness! I wasn't calm, Fritzi, I…"
"Matthias."
"…Matthias. I wasn't calm; I had just nearly died and I had nothing left in me to be afraid with!"
"All right. Perhaps I misread you. Perhaps it was only that you were pretty." He grinned at her, pleased to see her blush in response. "Our lives intersected that night. If I had not been there, would anyone else have gotten to you in time? I wonder that sometimes. I wanted… I wanted to know you, to know what sort of person I had saved."
"You wanted more than that. From your own words, you stopped looking for me once you thought I was married."
"Yes, I know. I had that thought from the start, I admit. And I still have that thought. I love you. I would like to share the rest of our lives together."
She shook her head. "But you lied to me."
"That was not my intention. Listen. Once I knew that much about you and knew where to find you, I wanted to see if in fact Denise Sparrow was the woman I knew as Niecie. But I also wanted… well, I wanted to confirm it by seeing if you would recognize me as well. And the only way you would recognize me was for me to be dressed as Fritzi Drossel. That was why I came to you in disguise. My intent was to speak with you, confirm you were Niecie, and later I would somehow contrive to — how do you say? — bump into you as myself. Only… things did not go quite as I had planned. I met you; you recognized me. But then I made you cry. That I had not intended. And so to cheer you up, I invited you here." He smiled tenderly. "Which turned into a lovely afternoon. I enjoyed your company tremendously. And I think you enjoyed mine?"
"Well… yes…" she admitted.
"I enjoyed being with you, Mrs Sparrow, and so I…"
"Denise."
He paused, a warm smile spreading across his face. "Denise. I wanted to see you again, so I invited you to have tea with me the following week. Except, you see… it was only after you were walking away that I realized: you had not accepted an invitation from Matthias Kleiber, but from Fritzi Drossel. That was why I continued to visit you in disguise. Every week only made it harder for me to extricate myself from my mistake. And I could think of no way to explain what had happened without you getting angry with me — as, of course, actually happened. And in the meantime, I was falling in love with you. Until at last…" He sighed heavily. "Last week I could bear it no more. When we were standing together on your front stoop, I stopped pretending to be anyone but myself. It was only that I did not remove the wig and make-up. When I took you in my arms and kissed you — that was Matthias. Not Fritzi."
"That's why you were suddenly taller and stronger!"
"But still a fool. I should have admitted the truth to you long before. I am so sorry. Will you forgive me?"
She considered. "I'll think about it," she said.
He nodded. "And tea? Will you come next week to have tea with me? That is to say, with Matthias rather than Fritzi?"
A long pause. "I'll think about it," she repeated.
Again he nodded. "Thank you. That is all I ask. Except, ah… may I see you home?" There was a twinkle in his eye as he said it, and the twinkle did not diminish when she shook her head No. With a nod, he got up, paid for the tea, took up his shako and gloves, bowed to her with a click of his heels once more, then said, "Auf Wiedersehen, my dear. Until next week." And he left.
