'In some ways,' she said. 'Particularly his ideas about farming. Our farming methods here are completely natural. We use no chemicals or artificial fertilizers, no unhealthy additives. It's more work, but it's better, don't you think?'
Fitzduane sipped the hot liquid she had given him. It was a disturbing yellow-brown color and tasted bitter. 'I guess it depends what you're used to,' he said.
'You like it?' she said, gesturing toward his mug. 'It's a special herb tea, my own recipe.'
Fitzduane smiled. 'I was going to blame Steiner,' he said. 'Anything that tastes this awful must do you good.'
Vreni laughed. 'My herb tea is good for everything. It cures the common cold, cleanse the insides, and promotes sexual vigor.'
'They used to call that kind of thing snake oil.'
'You don't know what you're missing,' said Vreni. 'Would you like some real coffee instead?'
While she was making the coffee, he continued his browse through the books, steering clear of Steiner. On the bottom shelf, title facing inward, and almost hidden by a row of encyclopedias, was a familiar volume: ' The Paradox Business, by Hugo Fitzduane. He flipped through its pages. A pressed flower and a small piece of printed paper slipped from it to the floor. The flower crumbled as he tried to pick it up. The paper was a ski pass. The book fell open at a full-page bleed photograph of Colonel Shane Kilmara.
He called out to her in the kitchen. 'I see you've got my book,' he said.
'We do?' she said, and there was amusement in her voice. 'I'm afraid I didn't know. Most of those books are Peter's.'
He replaced the book exactly as he had found it. He could still taste the bitterness of the herb tea on his tongue.
There were two windows in the room. Through one LakeThun could be seen below, bright blue in the sunlight. The second window was set into the end of the room and was at right angles to the first. It looked along the track to a small barn about fifty meters away. The track seemed to end there.
There was something strange about Vreni, something he could not as yet identify. On the face of it, she was calm and self-assured – in fact, so self-assured that it was easy to forget she was only twenty. Her manner suggested experience, a certain knowingness that he had most often encountered in the young in combat zones, where maturity came fast if you were to survive. It was a lack of illusion, a loss of innocence rather than the judgment that came with full maturity. It showed most of all in her eyes.
Yet in contrast with her poise and assurance were other emotions. He could sense an undercurrent of fear, sadness, and loneliness – and a great need for someone to confide in, for someone to help her. There seemed to be things she wanted to say but was afraid to.
Together with his coffee, she brought him a small glass and filled it with an almost colorless liquid. The bottle had fruit floating in it, some berries he could not identify. He tasted it with some trepidation, but it was delicious, a homemade schnapps distilled form fruit grown on the farm.
'We have a communal still in the village,' she said. 'You can make five liters per person per year without paying any tax, and one liter for each cow. It is used as a medicine for the cows, or at least that was the custom. Now I think the cows don't often see their share.'
'And what does Mr. Steiner think of that?' he asked. She threw back and head and laughed again, and for a few moments all the undercurrents were gone. All he could see was a young, beautiful girl with no cares and her life ahead of her.
Outside, the light faded, and it began to freeze again. He helped her bring in more wood from the shed and, away from the warmth of the farmhouse, shivered in the cold of the evening. She showed him around the house. They climbed through the circular trapdoor into the master bedroom. It was sparsely furnished apart from a low handmade double bed, covered with a sheepskin rug, and an old carved wardrobe. A SIG service rifle rested on two wooden pegs on the wall. Vreni saw him glance toward it.
'That is Peter's,' she said.
Fitzduane nodded.
'Peter owns this farm,' she said, 'but he is often away. I don't know when he will be back; it is dull for him here.'
'You don't have a photograph of him by any chance, do you?'
Vreni shook her head. 'No. He has never liked being photographed. Some people are that way.' She smiled. 'They think their souls are being stolen.'
Next door to the bedroom was a workshop and hobby room. Three were piles of ski equipment. Several planks were removed from the inside of one of the walls.'
'Woodworm,' she said. 'They have to be replaced.'
'Why not just spray them?'
'There you go with your chemicals again,' she said. 'It is wrong. We are just killing nature.'
'I understand your father is a director of a major chemical company,' said Fitzduane, 'among his many interests.'
Vreni gave him a look. 'That is not so widely known. You are well informed.'
Fitzduane shrugged. Silently he cursed himself for breaking the mood of the conversation now that she was talking more freely.
'There is much that my father has done, and does, that I do not agree with,' she said. 'He supports a system in Switzerland that is wrong. He pretends to lead a respectable, upright life, to be a leading citizen in the community, to support worthy causes and to be a model for others, but it is all a hypocrisy. He and a few thousand others in high positions in business, politics, the army, and banking manipulate our so-called democracy for their own selfish ends. They control the press, they are in league with the unions, and the people suffer. All over the world the people suffer.'
Suddenly she grabbed him by the hand – her mood changed in a flash – and, giggling, pulled him with her out through the workroom door. 'I've got a surprise for you,' she said.
Because of the steep slope of the hill on which the house was perched, the second-floor workroom led to a path outside that ran around the back of the house. There, separate from the living quarters but under the same weather-beaten roof as the old house, was storage for hay. In one fenced-off corner were several lambs nestling together. They sprang to their feet when the door opened and stood blinking in the light of a single electric bulb. One lamb was smaller than the others and had a brown woolly coat. Vreni ran forward and scooped the little lamb into her arms. It nuzzled against the familiar warmth of her breasts.
'Isn't he lovely?' she said. 'So soft and cuddly, and he's mine. Peter gave him to me. His mother died, and I fed him from a bottle like a baby.'
Vreni stood there with the lamb in her arms, her face loving and gentle, her cares momentarily gone. He could smell hay and milk and the warmth of her body. She stood very close as she placed the lamb in his arms. Then she kissed Fitzduane just once, gently.
Back inside the house, Vreni busied herself making supper, something of rice and vegetables and herbs. They ate in the sitting room in the glow of an antique oil lamp, and they drank homemade red wine. Afterward there was more coffee and schnapps. The cows certainly weren't going to get much of a look-in.
Vreni sat on her bean bag again and began to talk about Rudi.
'When we were small, it was all so simple. Mommy was still alive then and married to Daddy. It was a happy home. It was lovely growing up in Bern. Three was always so much to do. There was school and all our friends; there were dancing classes and singing classes. In the summer we went walking and swimming. In the winter there was skiing and tobogganing and ice skating. At weekends, and sometimes for longer, we'd go to Lenk. Daddy has a chalet there – a very old place, very creaky. Rudi loved it; we both did. We had a great friend who taught us to ski there. He farmed in the summer and would take his cows high up in the mountains. From time to time we would go
