Page 30 of Hell to Pay

“The story will keep,” I said. “It’s kept this long, after all.”

Ashleigh sighed. “OK, but will you promise to let me hear when you tell the rest?”

“Maybe you should hear it for us,” Ben said. “Because that’s some seriously depressing stuff.”

“Works for me,” Ashleigh said. “I’ll produce it and you can watch it. Or not.”

“I’ll tell the rest,” I said, “tomorrow, to whomever wants to hear. That’s the point of this journey, after all.”

“I thought the point was to find the tiara,” Ben said.

“I’ve come to believe,” I said, “that the reasons behind one’s actions can be mysterious even to oneself. Shall we go?”

I didn’t, in fact, “tell the rest tomorrow.” All the activity had caught up with me, it seemed, and when Alix phoned me at eight o’clock the next morning, I was forced to say, “I believe I may have overdone a bit. I find I need a quiet day.”

“This was way too much,” Alix instantly said. “Do you want me to stay with you? Or do you need a doctor?”

“No,” I said, knowing my tone was waspish, “I don’t. I’m as healthy as a ninety-four-year-old hemophilia carrier can possibly be. I want you to go enjoy yourself with your family, and come back to see me tonight.”

“Well,” Alix said dubiously, “I suppose thatiswhy we allocated two weeks for this trip.”

“Exactly,” I said. “For the wait time. Well, this is our wait time.”

I didn’t even read more of Joe’s letters and my diary, but contented myself withA Tale of Two Cities.The French Revolution may have been another chamber of horrors, but at least it wasn’tmychamber of horrors. Also, the book featured a love story and acts of unselfish sacrifice, which are far more pleasant to contemplate than bombings and death camps.

Not everybody, though, was waiting patiently for the rest of the story. I discovered that at dinner, because our party included only Alix, Sebastian, and Ben, Ashleigh having told Alix that she was busy working. There was interesting history,I supposed, and thoroughly uncomfortable history, and I doubted that a “content creator’s” audience had a taste for much of the latter in their snack-sized video consumption. Ashleigh would have realized that now, and that was fine. I wasn’t here for publicity.

Tonight, I was eating soup with bread and a bit of cheese—a much more reasonable meal for a person of my age than the extravaganza of yesterday. Perhaps I’d become so fatigued because I’d given my stomach too much work to do. A thoroughly depressing thought, is it not, that one must allocate energy for digestion? It was asparagus soup, though, andMilbenkäseeaten with fresh rye bread and butter, so I was perfectly happy.

Ben was beside me, happily consumingRinderrouladenandKartoffelklösse—rolled beef stuffed with bacon, onion, and pickles and served with red wine gravy, together with potato dumplings and more braised red cabbage. How that boy could eat! Between bites, he was telling me about their day trip to Berlin and “like, way more Nazi experiences than I wanted.” Apparently his meal wasn’t quite caloric enough, because he asked, “Can I taste some of your cheese?”

“Of course,” I said, and when he would have reached for it, “but let me prepare it for you.” I maneuvered a small slice of cheese onto a section of rye bread with knife and fork and used the utensils to place the tidbit on his plate.

“You do things really differently,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said.

He picked up the bread and cheese in his hand, sniffed at it, looked dubious, and took a bite. A few seconds went by before he finally pronounced, “I kind of like it. It’s strong, but sort of nutty. I’m used to, like, cheddar and jack and mozzarella and things like that. This tasteswaymore complicated.”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s due to the cheese mites.”

He paused with the second bite halfway to his mouth and said, “What?” Looking as horrified as if I’d offered him dolphin steak, or perhaps fried spiders.

“Cheese mites,” I said. “It’s a traditional Saxon delicacy. One takes Quark—you remember Quark?”

“I should,” Ben said, “since you keep telling me about it. Yoghurt, but better. Well, better because you can make cheesecake out of it, but that’s about all it’s got going for it.”

“Ben,” Sebastian said warningly.

I waved a hand. “One rolls the Quark into balls, seasons them, places them in a wooden box, and covers them with a layer of live cheese mites, which one feeds on rye flour so they don’t consume the cheese. They’re left for three months to a year, and voilà—Milbenkäse.”

Ben looked at once revolted and fascinated. “If the mites eat the flour, what’s the point?”

“Their excretions,” I explained, “ripen the cheese and deepen its flavor.”

Ben set the bread and cheese back on his plate. Carefully, as if they might explode. “That’s about the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, “and I’m a fifteen-year-old guy.”

“Yeah, no thank you,” Alix said. “I don’t really want to eat cheese that mites have pooped in, even if they’re gone.”