8. What I Learned About Defeat

The pile of saddlebags and covered implements lurked in silhouette against the drapes like Vesuvius in the background of an awful play about the last days of Pompeii. But it was being caught in a transgression more minor than murder that turned the assassin’s face raw-meat red.

“Begging your pardon, Miss Elodie. It’s been ages since I had the benefit of hearing some beloved pieces. I simply could not resist.”

“It’s a tad out of tune,” I cautioned, though he must have perceived the overwhelming presence of the fact.

“Don’t trouble yourself over such a small matter. I do understand.” His compassion did not deter him from making a face when keys at the high end emulated the wavering pitch of a soprano past her prime.

Anshel snatched some books and sheet music from the piano lid. “Here! We have lots of music. What do you want? Beethoven? Mendelssohn? ‘Oft in the Stille Nacht?’”

“‘Stilly Night,’” I corrected. “‘Oft in the Stilly Night.’ ‘Stille Nacht’ is a Christmas song.’”

Boniface Antony coughed out a laugh. “Have you never heard of ‘Silent Night?’”

“He doesn’t celebrate Christmas,” I advised, though Anshel, I knew, was able to do so himself. “He’s an Israelite.”

“What’s he doing in Virginia?”

“My mother’s uncle in Germany sent him to help us with the farm after Daddy went to war.”

“I see.” Boniface Antony continued playing the Chopin. To tell the truth, he was out of practice and tended to play more cracks than keys. But he played with the kind of sense that turns a musician into a storyteller, making listeners cling to every word, wondering where they would go and what they would feel next. Somewhere around the middle, his concentration waned. Perhaps he was aware of Anshel standing between us and the heap of weaponry, leafing through a book of piano duets. Or perhaps something else was on his mind. “You’re mother’s an Israelite, too?”

“Yes.”

“And your father?”

“Yes.”

His questions were delivered with the spontaneity of tone that inhabits one stranger’s attempts to grow acquainted with another. What caught my attention was the fact that Boniface Antony had been in company for the better part of two hours when they came out of him. Was he so caught up in his mission to murder deserters that he never noticed Anshel’s sidecurls or the business with the kippah? I looked at Anshel, striving to shout at him, with my eyes, that his plan was a forlorn hope. Never would Boniface Antony be distracted from his mission. We were doomed.

“And you?”

Our incipient executioner was talking to me? “What about me?”

“You’re an Israelite, too?”

“Yes.”

“So I don’t suppose you would have any mammals of the porcine persuasion moping around your barn, would you? Dearie me, I was hoping for a nice side of bacon. Haven’t had a satisfying slab since … why, bless me, I don’t know how long it’s been! Do you know, Miss Elodie, I think my consternation deserves an airing. If you’ll be so good to indulge me …”

He aired that consternation by clobbering the keyboard with the opening chords of Beethoven’s Pathétique piano sonata. The instrument quaked beneath the blows, then shimmied and swayed as Boniface Antony ripped through the rest of the first movement. The assault was enough to drive the deserter pretending to be Daddy into the room with a very real display of displeasure.

“Ease up, son! Turn that piano into a lump of firewood, and I’ll turn you out into the storm.”

“I do apologize, sir.” Boniface Antony sat with his hands in his lap. The piano stopped shivering.

“An instrument as fragile as that deserves a lady’s hand.”

“Yes, yes, here, Loydie, play Mendelssohn. Here.”

Anshel opened a book of duets to an arrangement of the Swiss Song from Mendelssohn’s eleventh symphony for strings. I pulled a chair beside Boniface Antony, but Boniface Antony was not to join me in this performance. Heeding the summons for a lady’s hand, Mama took the bench. Boniface Antony stood at my side, eager to turn pages.
The deserter found his way amid the towers of books to an easy chair flanked by a side table and the empty bookcase. Anshel discreetly stationed himself between Boniface Antony and the mound.

There was no possibility of finishing the jaunty tune. Once again the porch was a platform for people on the outside trying to escape the storm.

Boniface Antony watched as Anshel peeked through the drapes.“Soldiers or civilians?”

“I can’t tell. The snow, it’s blowing too hard.”

“No matter. We can’t leave my things here.”

“Why not?” said the deserter.

“I don’t want anyone to see them.”

“We see them.”

“No, no, Mr. Sternbach. If the men out there are deserters, and if they see these things, they’ll grow afraid. They’ll try to overwhelm us.”

“You mean they’ll try to overwhelm you! They’ve no argument with us, son. This is our home. We were here first.” The glass in the door rattled as the blows reflected the growing desperation of the travelers. At least two men were shouting, demanding to know if anyone was home.

“Well, son, what are you going to do?”

“We’ve got to move my things.”

“So bring them out to the barn.”

“It’s too far. I can’t carry it all by myself.”

“Then put it in the cellar.”

“It’ll still take too long! I can’t do it all by myself.”

“It’s your stuff, son. You managed to get it all here by yourself. I’m certain you can convey it down a few steps all by yourself. Leave the visitors to me,” he said as Boniface Antony protested. “God forbid I get in the way of business between you and your superior officer.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Sternbach, but my business is with someone greater than my immediate superior officer. I was given this task by General Jackson himself. I daren’t fail.”
“I admire your initiative, Boniface, but General Jackson does not command this home.”

“Yes, sir. And sir?”

“Yes, Boniface?”

“It’s either Boniface Antony or B.A., never Boniface.”

“I’ll remember that, B.A.”

“Thank you.”

“‘B.A. The Boy Attilla.” The deserter muttered as the laden youth commenced the first of several descents by way of the stairs in the kitchen. “Who on God’s great earth had the dimness of intellect to make that child an officer?”

Now the people on the porch were pounding on the side of the house. I read a certain anguish in the deserter’s eyes. He must have been afraid to answer the door. But how could he not answer the door? He was the head of the house. How would it look if he left his wife to deal with strangers aching to escape the blizzard and perhaps fearing for their lives if they were denied shelter? He asked Anshel if the new arrivals had horses. They did. The animals would need shelter, too.

The deserter directed Anshel to go to the barn and make certain his horse was blanketed and his uniform was out of sight. When Anshel returned from the barn, he did not return to help us greet the latest guests. I happened to catch him tiptoing up the stairs that led from the passage at the back door.

I asked him where he was going.

“It’s time for mincha, mid-day prayers.”

“You have until close to three to say mincha, haven’t you?”

“I need to say it now.”

He didn’t look at me as he spoke. That, and his hurried manner, led me to suspect something was amiss. Had he found something or someone in the barn?

I followed him up the stairs, not stopping for breath as I asked one question after the other. He relented only when we reached his room. He leaned against the door as though anxiety and disbelief were mashing the energy out of him.

“We’ve made a mistake, Loydie,” he whispered. “We let Boniface Antony bring all those weapons into the cellar. I think he means to entice us down there, and to kill us, and to bury us. We’ll never be found. And nobody will ever know.”