by Belva Plain
“You must be aware that during those shameful years, the Nazi program was very popular in the universities. Educated people who should never have been infected—well, no matter. That’s how it was. At the same time, though, there were some young people, not enough of them, but some, who were decent and courageous enough to go against the tide. The particular group to which Walter belonged, or so I construct the event from the accounts, was caught when one of the students was picked up with pamphlets in his possession. The rest I suppose you can imagine.”
“Oh, I can imagine. Nazi justice. No trial,” David said. “Quick justice, shall we say? Quick and over with.”
“Quick? A bullet in the head? No, unfortunately not. Prolonged torture as only they knew how to do it. Then death by hanging in a most grisly—well, never mind,” Amalia said after glancing toward Jane.
“My poor sister,” Jane whispered. “All her life she has been tormented by this. She never says much, but she doesn’t need to. Please, can you tell me something about Walter as a person, something I can bring back to her? Anything you can think of will be precious.”
“I haven’t very much more than some impressions. He wasn’t here long. And when he was here, he was out of the house with Caroline. My impressions? He was a cultured person, perhaps even an intellectual. Mannerly and refined. And very deeply in love with Caroline, very tender with her. I remember that sometimes he called her ‘Rebecca’ in fun because she looked like those old engravings of Rebecca with the long black hair.”
Jane was thinking: My mother was here with him in this house. She might even have sat in this chair.
“History,” she murmured. “So long ago.”
Amalia corrected her. “Not so long. It is very real to me, and there are still many others who remember those years. You only feel like that because you’re young.”
“I feel like that because I am here in this house with someone who knew my mother when she was not yet nineteen. What can you tell me about her? Any little thing at all?”
“Ah, my memory is funny. One minute it’s so clear, and then the next minute it isn’t. Well, let me see. I can’t tell you much, but I can say that she was charming. She had a delicacy, an innocence that you don’t often see these days. She was very young for her age. Obviously she had been sheltered. Very likely she was more sheltered than she would have been if the times had been different. But they were violent, and the German streets were full of rowdies. She had needed protection. Oh yes, there was ‘law and order,’ too, under that government, plenty of order—depending upon who you were.
“My husband saw something in Caroline that I admit I did not see. I worried about her when that blow struck and she learned that he wasn’t coming back to her. And there she was, setting forth across the ocean without her parents, for I had little confidence in their survival, even though it was before we knew as much about death camps as we later learned. But my husband was a discerning judge of people, and he always said that Caroline was strong. Resilient, he said. Good stock.”
“Jane,” David suggested, “tell Mrs. Schmidt about the business that this very sheltered young girl built up—with your father, of course.”
“I can’t,” Jane said. “I’m sorry, but I think I’d like to go outside for a few minutes.”
When Amalia Schmidt stood up to follow, David stopped her. “I know her ways. She needs to be alone when she’s troubled.”
“One has to wonder whether traits like that are inherited. Caroline, in her worst despair, used to shut herself in her room upstairs or else go out alone and walk for hours.”
The scene was as Lore had so often described it: a long, sloping lawn, a walk along the rim of the lake, and even a group of rustic chairs beneath the linden tree, which must have been much smaller then. And Jane stood quite still with no constructive thought in her smitten brain, only a sum of maddening questions.
Why had Lore told them that Caroline was dead? It made no sense. In fact, it was so senseless that it was not to be believed. Caroline, weighed down by grief and helplessness, must have been in a wretched state. So Lore might simply have written that she feared for Caroline’s health and had been misunderstood by the Schmidts. Mrs. Schmidt was now admittedly forgetful; perhaps she was even entirely confused.
Looking outward as now toward the calm gleam of water and sky, Jane was struck by its contrast to the muddy turmoil of human affairs.
When she returned to the house, Mrs. Schmidt had spread photographs out on the dining room table. “I haven’t taken anything out of that closet in years,” she was saying. “But I suddenly thought that there might be some pictures in there. Look at these. Our neighbor took one of my husband and me with Caroline and Walter. Now that I see it again, I remember the day. Here’s Caroline. She had on a pink dress. I think it was her favorite. And Walter—you see how tall he was? A distinguished young man. Too bad it’s faded, but you can still see—”
Jane took the picture to the light. So often and so carefully had Eve tried to describe their mother, yet even she could not describe Caroline at the age of nineteen. So here is Caroline; does she seem happy? I can’t tell. She is close to him. Almost touching each other, they stand apart from the older couple. The photo can be enlarged. I can have a copy for my own. What is she seeing behind her quiet gaze? Her shoes have two straps, back in style now. They were probably white. And so that’s the pink dress. She has a ribbon band, Roman-striped, tying her hair back. This is her brief, sweet summer. No, it’s not even a whole summer, only a few days. She has no idea what is going to happen to her life. But then, none of us ever has. Eve says she got over him when she married my father. I wonder. I doubt it. No woman could ever forget such loss.
Mrs. Schmidt’s memory, reviving, flowed like a stream. “They each had a trunkful of beautiful clothes, no difference between the two of them in quality. Lore said she was one of the family. They were wonderful to her. You could see that she appreciated everything, the good clothes, everything. She told us that once the doctor reached America, they would be ‘back on top.’ She was a very intelligent woman, very clever. The doctor had entrusted Caroline to her, and she felt the responsibility. Yes, you could see that.”
After a long while, as the afternoon drew in, signals began to pass between David and Jane. It was time to leave; they made the usual motions and spoke their words of gratitude.
“Why not stay awhile?” Mrs. Schmidt was not ready to end the day. “Stay and have a little supper.”
But neither wanted to, so with more thanks they accepted the photo, promised to write, and departed.
In the car they were stunned and quiet, their mutual disturbance palpable in that silence. The wave of dread that Jane had managed to fight down while at the Schmidt house now threatened again to swallow her.
David started to think aloud. “I can’t seem to make up my mind whether the stuff is true or not! In some ways the old lady seemed very sharp, and then in the next moment she was unsure of herself. She could have gotten Walter’s name wrong, and that business about Caroline’s death did seem very farfetched. Didn’t you have the feeling that she was sometimes wandering a bit?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. But I think maybe not.”
David gave her a sharp look. “You know something you’re not telling me, Jane, such as why you wanted to go there in the first place.”
“If I ever wanted to hide anything from you,” she replied ruefully, “you’d catch me, wouldn’t you? Yes, I did have a reason, but it seemed so cockeyed that I hesitated to tell you about it.”
“Well, tell me now.”
“I almost don’t know where to begin.”
“At the beginning.”
“Remember when you and I went to Lore’s apartment and you remarked on the rows of notebooks in a closet? You opened one and I put it back on the shelf, but not before I had glimpsed something that I thought very, very odd. It went something like this. ‘I feel so much guilt because they’ve been so good to
me all my life. When I feel this way, I’m always so sorry. I can’t bear to remember all the things I have done to them.’ That’s all I read, but it’s haunted me ever since. What do you make of it?”
“Are you thinking she meant your family?”
“Who else?”
“I would think, perhaps, the people at her job in the hospital.”
“All her life?”
David looked sober. “Well, perhaps not. Are you connecting what you just quoted with what we heard today at Mrs. Schmidt’s?”
“I’m not sure. Of course, I can tell myself, as I have been trying to do, that the Schmidts misunderstood the whole business. Someone did, and it was either Lore or Mrs. Schmidt.”
David, still looking very sober, asked, “What about her saying that Caroline was dead?”
“To spare her from learning from the Schmidts how Walter died?”
“If indeed he did die.”
“David, my head’s splitting. And what about Eve? Shall we tell her?”
“No, wait. There’s no point upsetting her until we know what we’re talking about. I suggest that we fly back tomorrow, go out to Ivy, and read that diary.”
EIGHTEEN
“It feels so strange to be here among her things,” Jane lamented. “It seems wrong to be snooping in her diary.”
In his orderly, decisive way, David, now in the fourth hour of their search, had taken charge. “It’s funny how, after the first few of these fat tomes had been written in German, she suddenly switches to English.”
“She was a perfectionist. As soon as she became fluent enough to speak English well, she thought it was inappropriate to use a foreign language in one’s new country.”
“Born before the First World War! She saw a lot of history in her time. These early ones are especially fascinating.”
Far from being fascinating, Jane thought, most of them were very dull. She had already gone through fifty-five pages, and all they seemed to do was record every penny Lore had ever spent: so much to have shoes resoled, so much at the pharmacy.… It was touching.
“Make believe you’re panning for gold,” David advised. “You have to pick through tons of rock and dust before you find a nugget. Somewhere in all this stuff there are nuggets, I’m convinced.”
Filled with discomfort, Jane gazed toward the rainy twilight out the window. A life, a long, humble life, lay revealed in these shabby notebooks, and they were exposing it as if they were stripping a person’s clothes off on a public street.
David advised again, “Incidentally, it doesn’t matter that we’re not reading chronologically as long as we mark the dates on the record sheets and make a few short notes. The books are so jumbled up, and it’s not worth taking time to put them in order.”
“Records? Notes?” asked Jane. “You talk like a lawyer.”
“You always say that.” David laughed. “Don’t worry, I know I’m a lawyer.”
The atmosphere, in spite of his effort to lighten it, was heavy. There was Lore in the photograph, staring at them behind her thick glasses, as if to accuse them of trespass. And there was the sibilance of turned pages as Jane flipped through them.
“Dr. D. was furious this morning. That stupid R. forgot his patient’s medication.” Continuing, she found that the price of lemons was outrageous and that the new coat was not warm enough for this climate. Drowsiness had begun to set in when David startled her.
“And now this. ‘How astonishing it is,’ ” he read, “ ‘that all their calamities come out well in the end. Except, of course, for the poor parents, but that was a worldwide calamity that very few escaped.’ ”
“What’s the date?”
“June, 1955.”
“There’s nothing special then that I can think of, unless maybe my father’s buying the lake house.”
“Wait. There’s more on the next page. Listen. ‘Who would have thought she could change like that, a girl who never did anything but look pretty, that she could work day and night and build up such a business? I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the way she pulled herself together after Eve was born. She used to ask my advice on every little thing, and now she actually gives me advice.’ ”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Jane said. “It’s admiration for my mother, that’s all. It’s praise.”
“Perhaps a little envy mixed in?” David suggested.
She did not reply. The rustle of pages resumed for so long that Jane, who had started another notebook, was growing weary with impatience, when suddenly David spoke again.
“Oh, oh. Here’s something. ‘Who would have thought that out of such a marriage she would have gotten so much? Look at the house they live in and now, a new baby besides. Some good fairy must have waved a wand over her just as some other fairy frowned on me.’ Nineteen fifty-seven. That’s when you were born, Jane. You’re the baby.”
They stared at each other, Jane thinking, who could have guessed that Lore was so bitter?
“I made a note back here,” David said, “something about another baby. It’s way back, 1940. Here it is.”
“What? That’s when Eve was born.”
“ ‘Well, life will be very different for this poor baby. No rose garden, no velvet dresses, and no governesses. No father, either, poor little thing. Just struggle, struggle. However will Caroline manage? What tricks life plays!’ ”
“The baby Caroline managed rather well, didn’t she? And the baby Eve didn’t do too badly either.”
“Good Lord, listen to this. It’s more clear than ever that she had to marry Joel. That’s why I made up the cancer scare, so that she would accept him.’ ”
“She made up the cancer? Actually made it up?”
“So she says. ‘He wanted her, and I am just not able to cope with everything by myself, the strange country, her moods, and an infant, too. But I promised to take care of her and I’m doing the best I can. It’s a matter of honor.’ ”
“She talks of honor!” Jane cried. “Oh my God!”
“Wait, here’s more. ‘Joel is a moral man, an innocent with a strict conscience, and he will see her through. He will be good to her. But when her parents, if they survive, meet this son-in-law, it will be a shock, I’m afraid. The daughter of that house, married to an uneducated working man! They will find out how the poor have to live. But I could tell them. I have memories enough. I could—”
Jane interrupted. “What a mean thing to say about my father! Mean and snobbish and stupid. On top of everything else.”
“Yes and no,” David spoke judiciously. “There’s some truth in it. His background actually was very different from your parents’! And think of the other good things she did say about him.”
“You’re not excusing her, I hope! A person who tricks a woman into marriage, who lies—”
“I’m excusing nothing. I’m investigating.”
“How much more can there be to investigate? A woman who could do what she did to Caroline and Joel can do anything. I’ll tell you: Amalia Schmidt was right, she knew what she was saying.”
“It was hearsay, Jane. You can’t depend on hearsay.”
“Stop talking like a lawyer.”
“Well, I am a lawyer. Come on. We’ve that whole pile to work through.”
“All right. I’ll close my eyes and grab. Here, 1961.”
Page after page was still cluttered with mundane affairs: endless hours on duty in the hospital, an occasional concert, a birthday party for “little Jane” and visits to the dentist to bewail her “awful teeth.” There was an appalling sameness in the record of these days.
Then, finally, as she started another volume she came across some lines that should have been marked in red ink. And she read them aloud.
“ ‘Now that it’s happened, I know that it went too far. I had my suspicions when Vicky brought in the new, young lawyer. I had no idea she would grab almost everything, but I should have guessed. She has changed from being the poor girl, the outsider that I
was when I went to live with the Hartzingers. She’s turned into a greedy, vulgar shrew. Eve said Joel told her there would be plenty for everyone, including me. Why didn’t I speak up and protect Eve? Because it was too late. Vicky knew that I had my suspicions and I would have been in the middle. I am sick. I am so ashamed of myself.’ ” Jane broke off. “David, I think I must be hallucinating.”
“As to your father’s will, you’ve known all along it was a fraud.”
“Yes, but never could I have known that Lore knew it beforehand.”
“Go on,” he said grimly.
Her hands, supporting the notebook on her knees, were cold and trembling. “ ‘Poor Joel,’ ” she read, “ ‘I really liked him. I’m glad he’s past knowing what was done. I would never have wanted to hurt him. He, too, came up the hard, hard way.’ ”
David raised his hand. “May I interrupt? Here’s a note I made this morning. See how important it is to keep notes? Listen. ‘… telling me he’s marrying Vicky partly to have a mother for Jane! She, a mother? When I’m the only one who loves Jane. And Jane loves me. If that’s what he wanted, what about me? I would have been a better wife to him, too.”
“My God. Did she really think my father could have wanted her for a wife?”
“Apparently she did. Come on, let’s finish. We’ve only got another half dozen to read through.”
Baffled and sickened, Jane skimmed further. After a long interval, another terrifying revelation leaped out.
“ ‘While Eve was packing to take Jane to California, I could hardly keep myself from screaming, “Stop! I think I may know something about all this. Stay and I’ll help you fight. Don’t go.” Instead, I just watched them leave for the airport and I went home and I cried.’ What to make of that? Or this, later. ‘It’s good to have them back in Ivy, like having a family again, going out to visit them at the school, or making dinner for them here. I’ve been so lonely. My loneliness is sometimes more than I can bear.’ ”
