by Belva Plain
David broke the silence. “We have good flying weather, anyway.”
“Hadn’t we better get ready? What time is our flight again?”
“Twelve forty-five. Let’s get started. We can’t miss the connection to Ivy.”
THEY buried Lore in a little churchyard not too many miles away from Ivy. It was still rural there, and Eve hoped it would remain that way.
“Mom always said Lore had a love affair with old trees,” she said.
Her only love affair, Jane thought, in a life of labor and small, lonely pleasures. Nothing more.
It was surprising to see the numbers of people who came to the cemetery. There were nurses and doctors at the hospital from which Lore had long since retired, neighbors in her apartment house, and family friends of the last half century. Emmy Schulman came in a wheelchair to tell everybody how her husband had met Lore at the train back in the fall of 1939.
After the cemetery, there was lunch at Eve and Will’s house. To David, Jane remarked how odd it was that people who seldom ate more than a quick sandwich at noon would eat enormous quantities after a funeral.
“Some wit once wrote that it’s because they are rejoicing over not being dead,” he replied.
“Maybe. I prefer to think it’s because good friends provide food that you can’t resist.”
“Do you know what’s missing?” Eve asked. “Lore’s chocolate cake. I don’t suppose we’ll ever taste anything like it again. What do you think, Jane?”
“I’m afraid you’re right. No matter how I try, mine never tastes like hers, not that I try very often.”
“It will seem so strange not to know that she’s somewhere available when you need advice, or just need to talk.” Eve’s black eyes could shine with tears that she always managed to blink away before they fell. “Whenever there was a crisis, she was there. She was so—so necessary. I only hope she knew how much we appreciated and loved her.”
“I’m sure she did. She must have,” Will said.
Jane was thinking what a nice man he was and what an unusually appealing group Eve’s family made in their friendly, simple house with their books, and dogs, and Halloween pumpkins on the doorstep. It was too bad that David’s introduction to them should have come on this day when there was no humor in them, for the young ones were each noted for possessing a wide comic streak. And the fair-bearded father with the scholarly face and outdoor vigor had a delightful wit.
“So you two are off to Europe?” Will asked.
“Yes. The firm has a case that involves some lawyers in Zurich, so we’ll be going there after our pleasure trip. When we come back, you’ll be invited to our little wedding. We’re having a honeymoon in reverse.”
They were all standing in the uncertain silence of people who are weary and who do not know what else to say. The day had worn them down. And David, sensing this, reminded them that, “Unfortunately, it’s never quite over with a funeral. Somebody should go to the apartment and make sure that it’s secure until you’re all ready to clear it out.”
Eve nodded. “I know. Papers and knickknacks. All that’s left of a human being.”
“Jane and I will only be away for ten days. Leave everything to us,” David said kindly. And then he laughed. “Now that you’re about to have a lawyer in the family, you might as well get a little special treatment. We’ll do it all.”
LORE’S rooms were impeccably neat, as might have been expected. The only disorder was the pile of records strewn on the shelf.
“She had been arranging an evening concert for herself,” Jane said. “She always did that. Look, all Wagner. She certainly never expected to die within the next hour or two. I really think she expected to be one of the rarities who live till a hundred and four.”
Lore’s housewifery was superb. Her green plants were well tended, and her books were in alphabetical order by author. The only costly articles were Caroline’s bedroom furniture from the lake house, the sound system, and the heavy silver frame, a gift from Jane, in which was the photograph of last year’s Thanksgiving dinner.
“It’s eerie,” she said now, regarding Lore’s homely, sagging face. “This is my first close experience with death. I was a tiny kid when Dad died, and all I have, as I told you, is my memory of cigars.”
“Hey, look at all this, all these notebooks in the closet. Handwritten, too.”
“Oh, that must be her daily diary from year one. Here. I’ll put it back. Even our grandfather used to tease her about it, Eve said. He claimed that it would end up being longer than the Bible. David, I know I keep saying it, but I can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Well darling, she is, and we had better be going, too. We have to be at the airport again by seven thirty in the morning.”
SEVENTEEN
As the little rented Fiat struggled out of Italy up through the Alps, they hoped that the engine would not fail; then, as it inched down deep slides, they hoped that the brakes would not fail. But it was grand adventure. They were moving through a jumble of clouds and slanted shafts of light, of somber evergreens and flamboyant autumn.
“ ‘Ridi, Pagliaccio,’ ” David sang. “Oh, these heights make me feel operatic.”
“You were operatic all through Italy. I thought I knew you, but I never knew you had a good voice.”
“Flattery will get you a seat in the park.”
“No, it’s true.”
They had laughed their way through Italy. They had hiked its hills, eaten out of a basket on its country roadsides, and been enchanted by its music. It was the morning of their world.
“I won’t need too long in Zurich,” David said. “We’ve done all the preliminaries on the case by phone and fax. You’ll be on your own for two days at the most.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m a walker. I’m not a shopper, but this time will be an exception. There are a few things I want.”
“A cuckoo clock, I’ll bet.”
“Yes, and lederhosen and a hat with a feather for you. I’ll make you wear them, too.”
“As long as I don’t have to wear them at my meetings.”
“Okay, a loud hat and a loud clock with a loud cuckoo. We’ll have fun.”
“We always do.”
It was only when the little car rattled across the border into Switzerland that Jane felt the small shock, the swift return of a hidden, vague unease. Under the peace and sweetness of these days, it had been waiting.
ON the second morning in Geneva she remarked, “I was wondering whether you’d like to do a little exploring into the past with me. You remember that my mother spent some time near here before she left for America? She stayed near Geneva with a doctor who’d been in medical school with my grandfather. No one’s ever heard from them since, and I was thinking that I might like to visit them.”
“That’s ancient history. They’re probably dead by now.”
“It’s not so ancient. They’d be old, but not necessarily dead. In fact, Mrs. Schmidt is very much alive, although the doctor isn’t.”
“How do you know that?”
“I looked them up. While you were working, I found a medical society and inquired. They were very nice. They even telephoned her for me.”
“It’s not the best idea,” David said seriously. “I should think, given the circumstances then, the peril and the final agony, that the very sight of the place would be insufferable for you.”
She did not answer at once. She was trying to analyze her feelings, which were fearful, sorrowful, and yet resistant to sorrow.
Below the window lay the great lake, flat as a blue platter between a curve of hills. Lore had described everything in detail. The house was old with a timbered overhang, Swiss style. It stood at the end of a long, narrow lawn that ran almost to the edge of the water. There was a narrow walk along the lake. So does a family’s legend stay alive.…
“It’s not far from here,” she said. “Will you go?”
“Jane, I really don’t think it’s wise. It seems li
ke morbid curiosity. It will be bad for you.”
“Perhaps it will be bad,” she said. “Still, it seems to me that if I don’t go, I will regret it once we are home. I will feel that I should have gone.”
It’s a dreadful story, she thought, and I dread hearing it again. I’ve heard it often enough from Lore, who witnessed it. Yet I need to hear it.
She looked at David. “Will you go?” she repeated.
“All right,” he said gently. “I’ll go. When shall we do it?”
“Tomorrow afternoon? We’ll browse through the Old Town and have lunch first.”
They sped, the next day, over a small road parallel to the lake. On the left lay pastures dotted with grazing cows.
“Cliché,” said Jane. “It’s like a picture book. All clean and tidy.”
“You don’t have to make conversation, Janie. I know how nervous you’re feeling.”
“Yes, I am, awfully. But it would be so much harder for Eve. He was her father, after all, not mine, thank God.”
“Are we almost there?”
“We should be. They told me to watch for a church on the right, about two miles after the village we just went through. It’s a stone church, I think they said. Fifteenth century or older.”
“The more I see of Europe, the more I wish I knew about architecture.”
“I wish I knew more about everything. Oops, we almost went by it. That’s got to be the one. The house is opposite.”
The house, too, was stone. They stepped out of the car into perfect silence, went up a path bordered in yellow and bronze chrysanthemums, rang the bell, and waited. Around them, the afternoon slept.
After a minute or two the door was opened. A white-haired woman, who might have been ninety or might have been seventy, stood before them. She wore dark blue and a gold locket. Words ran through Jane’s head: Old World. Refined.
She gave their names. “I believe you’re expecting us, Mrs. Schmidt.”
“Yes, I am. Come in, come in.”
They entered a large room that must have faced the lake, for an immediate gleam met their eyes. Here was old, carved furniture, interrupted knitting on a chair, and a row of ruby glass objects on a shelf. Even the swiftest glance around a stranger’s house told fundamental things. Here were tradition and dependability, or so Jane hoped.
And she began, “It’s very kind of you to see us, Mrs. Schmidt.”
“Oh, I’m happy to help if I can. But I have to say I’m puzzled. Some people from the medical society said you want to ask about your relatives. And please excuse my English. I seldom use it and I’m out of practice.”
“I can already hear that it’s a great deal better than my German.”
Who of us is the more tense? Jane wondered. The poor lady is probably expecting to be interrogated about some criminal.
“Come, before we go any further, please sit down. Here, at the window. You are American, I think?”
“Yes, but my mother wasn’t. Did the Zurich people give you any names?”
“To tell you the truth, I forgot to write it down. I didn’t understand anyway what it was all about. I don’t know anybody in America.”
“This was a long time ago, just before the war it was when my mother stayed here with you. Her name was Caroline Hartzinger.”
Jane’s mouth was dry, and in her ears her own voice sounded like the quaver of a child who, not having done her homework, is being called upon in class.
Mrs. Schmidt removed her glasses, stared at Jane, and replaced the glasses. She was trembling.
“I know this must seem very strange to you,” Jane said gently, “I was hoping you might remember her.”
“But you—excuse me, but you are—thirty, maybe?”
“More than thirty. Why do you—”
“Ask? I ask because she went to America, we took her to the train in August 1939, and she died soon after they got to America. How can you be her daughter?”
“Died?” cried Jane. “Yes, she did die, but not until years later when I was a child.”
Her shaking voice stopped while the two women kept staring at each other. David came to the rescue.
“We’re assuming that you’re talking about Caroline Hartzinger, the daughter of a physician who was a friend of your late husband. She was traveling with an older woman, a sister, an adopted sister, Lore, who was a nurse and—”
“Yes, yes, of course we’re talking about the same person. A lovely, darling girl. It was Lore who wrote us about her death. Very sudden, she said, and then we never heard any more. We were stunned.”
Jane spoke into the sudden silence. “This is unbelievable.”
David spoke again. “Let me start from the beginning. Here, very briefly, is what happened, Mrs. Schmidt. Caroline was pregnant when she left for America. She did not know it while she was still in your house. In New York she met a young man who, knowing she was pregnant, was so much in love with her that he married her, nevertheless. The baby was a girl. They named her Eve, and she grew up as his daughter. She is Jane’s much older half-sister.”
“Pregnant? Oh, yes!” Amalia Schmidt smiled a little knowingly and a little sadly. “We wondered about that sometimes when she and the young man wandered off together. They were so very much in love. You must remember that it was 1939, very different from today. Of course, it was wartime, too, or almost, and who knew what might happen to either of them?”
Energy and strength all went streaming out of Jane as water leaves a leaking container. And lying back in the chair, she repeated, “Unbelievable.”
Mrs. Schmidt was alarmed. “Are you feeling all right? Can I get you anything?”
“No, nothing, thank you. It’s your news. It’s an awful shock. Awful.”
David rose, paced to the window and stood there frowning in thought. Then he said slowly, “Obviously, we need to get back to Lore. Whyever would she have said such a thing? We shall have to work backward. Jane, you start.”
It took every effort for Jane to speak. “I only know,” she said simply, addressing Mrs. Schmidt, “that Lore has been the faithful heart of our family since the time she lived with my grandparents in Berlin. She was with my mother when she married, when my sister Eve was born, and when I was born.” Unable to say more, she stopped. “You go on, David.”
“I think Jane’s told you all that she can, and I myself know nothing more. Can you think of anything, Mrs. Schmidt?”
“Oh, I suppose I could search my memory and come up with many, many little things that I think I have forgotten. But I haven’t really forgotten. It’s all there hidden in the brain cells, you know,” she said, tapping her forehead. “Nothing is ever really lost, nothing at all. Yet for now, this minute, nothing comes to me.”
They waited. The old lady was so visibly disturbed, that she might be totally unreliable. Now, in her agitation, she made hostess gestures, intended perhaps to calm or delay; she offered coffee or tea; when these were declined, she brought a pitcher of water, placed it on the small table between Jane and David, and took on her lap a cat that had followed her from the kitchen. The cat’s bell tinkled in the stillness.
“I’m trying to think,” she said.
And David answered gently, “Don’t try too hard. Take your time.”
“Well, first there were the parents, Caroline’s father and mother. She was so worried about them. She was terrified. Did she ever find out what happened to them, how they died?”
Jane was looking down at the rug, a very old Oriental, worn where a chair’s feet had stood. Pink faded flowers lay between dark-green octagons, and a vine crept among them. In the grandparents’ house, Lore said, all the floors had been covered with Oriental rugs.
“Yes,” she said. “After the war, my mother found out how they died.”
“And Walter? What did she know about him?”
The name, as neutral and common as any Thomas or William, would always have the power to shock; even I, thought Jane, who have no connection with the owner of the
name, still have my store of pictures, imagined from what I have been told, and remembered from what I have seen in Eve’s eyes.
“Only,” she said bitterly, “that she loved him and thought he loved her, and that he deserted her.”
Another sad smile, mingled this time with irony, passed across the old face. “Deserted her? He couldn’t very well help it, could he?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know that he died?”
“How would we know?”
“We wrote to Lore. He was killed, you see, and it would have been too shocking for Caroline to open such a letter.”
“Killed in the war?”
“No, no. Just before the war. The Nazis caught him.”
“But he was one of them!”
“A Nazi! He was never a Nazi.” The old lady gasped. “Is that what you all think? My God, what a pity. Poor young Caroline! How awful, how very awful, that she never learned the truth. Terrible as it is, it would have made all the difference in the world. No, Walter was never a Nazi. Never at all. Quite the opposite. He was arrested with a group of students who had plans to assassinate Hitler.”
Jane’s heart, which had quieted, awoke to beat in her very ears. “Mrs. Schmidt!” she cried. “This is mad! It’s mad! Are you sure of it? Why, Lore said—”
“Lore was mistaken. The entire episode was in the German papers, and of course we learned of it here. It got particular attention because Walter’s father was such an important industrialist and Party man, that the whole affair was all the more shocking. In fact, the father was in serious trouble over it and only managed by the skin of his teeth to survive.”
“But Lore,” Jane insisted, “but Lore said—”
“It doesn’t matter what Lore said, my dear. These are the facts.”
“But, Mrs. Schmidt—” Jane stopped to put into some sequence a torrent of questions.
Now David interrupted. “Let Mrs. Schmidt finish. How did all this happen? What else do you know?” he asked.
Amalia Schmidt sighed. Making a little steeple with her fingers, she began to speak with such fluent ease now that surely she must have told the story many times before.
