by Ian Wedde
The envelope flap had long ago lost its stickiness and the yellowed and somewhat foxed newspaper clippings slid out on to the table.
PRINCESS THEATRE.
There commenced at the Princess Theatre to-day the screening of a gripping story of Paris, entitled ‘L’Apache’, in which Dorothy Dalton does some of the best work of her career.
Had Great-aunt Catharina been a film buff? There were a number of clippings. The next one stated that, ‘“Salome,” William Fox’s greatest achievement, commenced a season at the Queen’s Theatre to-day. It reflects the glory of Judea forty years before the time of Christ – and the shame of it – and scenes of Old Jerusalem are remarkably reproduced.’ Like the first clip, this one went on for a good quarter-page column, ending, ‘The celebrated episode which climaxed her career, the Dance of the Seven Veils, is an opportunity which, histrionically as well as scenically, it is naturally assumed is made the most of by the producer, J. Gordon Edwards.’
Madge Kennedy was at Everybody’s Theatre in a Goldwyn Production, ‘Leave it to Susan’. Here, the reviewer’s careful restraint revealed a prissy flash of character: ‘This bright photo-play is replete with moments of refreshing fun, wholesome and clean. In this satire of a Western thriller, the dainty star has a thoroughly delightful subject, in that she is given unbounded opportunities to display her talents as a comedienne.’
‘Leave it to Susan’ was also shown at Our Theatre, Newtown, where the critic’s response was even a bit droll: ‘Madge Kennedy will be seen surrounded by cow-punchers and bandits, in addition to four-footed denizens of the desert, on which she is stranded.’
Stranded on the four-footed denizens?
But the real question was, who in a family keeps clippings of so little interest to a real film buff? Either the person who wrote them, or the person who was proud of the person who wrote them.
If the writing on the envelope with the clippings in it was Great-aunt Catharina’s, then the reviewer who wrote the awkward film notes for the Evening Post in Wellington had to be her daughter Greta Hansen/Greta von Welden of whom her mother was proud and who, in 1920, would have been about seventeen? A budding cadet journalist just out of high school sent out to sharpen her quill on film notes for the trivia pages?
Her wine-glass hand was a bit shaky and there was a lump in her throat because thanks in part to Noel’s phantom forensic looking, not to mention his stubborn maddening patience, not to mention her irritation with Joe’s dismissive finger-screwing gesture, without which she might well have just fossicked on impatiently and set the stuff aside as being of minor interest – because she’d channelled Noel and resisted Joe and made demands of her own perfectly adequate attention to ‘the truth of the detail’ and her powers of observation, she’d found this precious thing, wrapped in its layers of protections and lost secrets, this little brittle hoard of a mother’s dreams for her daughter, her love, hope and pride.
Enough for now.
The light was fading outside on the deck, so she carefully packed everything back in the box.
And bloody old Frank hadn’t even bothered to look?
Evening sounds had returned to the garden, the whisperings of leaves, birds calling to each other, laughter and kid-noise from neighbouring houses, cars on the main road at the end of the street. Nice, ordinary stuff. The police helicopter battered past overhead. Somewhere in the mid-distance someone had the music turned up in their back yard – it was the Phoenix Foundation’s ‘Give Up Your Dreams’, Joe’s favourite album last year, ‘Give up your dreams, can anyone help me, it’s starting to fall apart at the seams’, a genius song, he reckoned, about not buying the hype, about finding transcendence in what was real. He and the boys put their own version together in the basement at their place, then he said Frankie came along and subverted the lyrics with stuff like ‘Give me your creams, can anyone help me, my face is falling apart at the seams’.
Kind of the point.
Nice to just sit outside for a while longer, with a bit of leftover baba ganoush and a fresh glass of wine, in the company of her gentle ghosts and her gentle heartache.
Catharina
10 December 1915
Dear dearest Mutti
It’s been many weeks since I wrote to you and the family far away in what I think of as Wolf’s Haven Valley. It’s been hard for me to find a cheerful tone let alone cheerful things to tell you. Now it’s no longer enough for me to thank you all in the valley for the provisions you have been able to send from time to time, though they have been very welcome and even sometimes essential under the circumstances. Nor can I any longer put on a happy tone in response to your stories about the children and Wolf’s marvellous ingenuities. Now I have to be truthful and write simply that every day is very very hard here, every day I think about you and Wolf, Ettie and the children, and I worry day and night that last year’s declaration will by now have extended its effects into your distant valley. Please write and tell me that all is well.
I ask for that reassurance because here in the town all has not been well for some months. Indeed this last year has been very hard for us on account of hostility towards those whose names unambiguously declare them to be enemy aliens. The name von Welden has been among the least ambiguous it would seem on account of the ‘von’. ‘Where are you von?’ is the cruel taunt to which Greta has been subjected at school. Wohnsiedler the butcher’s son had to board up his shop, his dear old father was so kind to us when times were hard. I remember the pork bones and trotters he would add to our parcel. Papa Hein’s old friend from the wharf, Heinrich Reepen, was pushed into the Hutt River where he was fishing, for God’s sake a harmless man in his seventies who you will remember was fond of singing German songs after a drink or two at the Verein. He died of pneumonia from the cold water.
My most important news is that Hugo was removed from his position at the university college last month because of an expedient law banning what it called Alien Enemy Teachers. This happened despite interventions on his behalf by the university council, and this week he was taken away and sent to that prison island in the harbour. It is possible he was unwise in conversation or overconfident in his views on matters of interest, as you Mutti know very well the dear silly man can be, though what danger could be expected to result from his ill-considered or too hasty opinions I cannot imagine, as my poor Hugo is not by any stretch of the imagination a sabre-rattling militarist or a sabre-slashing duellist, let alone a spy of some sort, what a comical idea!
I too am no longer permitted to teach at the High School though the principal Mary McLean argued on my behalf as having been brought up here since childhood. However, my married name and the fact that I can speak German are enough to put me beyond the pale. Worst of all, Greta continues to be bullied with the ‘von’ since the declaration and so I am hoping to send her to you at Wolf’s place so long as you can reassure me that the loyal patriotic enthusiasm of the town is not directed at children in your remote place of safety. Please let me know as soon as possible that this will be all right and if Wolf and Ettie are willing to take yet another child into their expanding fold.
It is for Greta’s sake that I ask this as I fear for her state of mind here in the town. She quite often wakes in the night in terror of being murdered, and comes into my bed trembling and startling at sounds outside the house, even a dog barking. I would love very much to come up to the Valley myself, as I have such blissful memories of our visits these past summers and especially of lying in the cool river and letting the current wash my cares away. However I must remain here for Hugo’s sake and to take care of the house in anticipation of his return. Dear Mrs Tilley left some time ago, she said it was not because of us but because of what her friends thought of her working in a German house. That was just as well, as there is no longer money to pay her. The university college gave Hugo a severance payment when he was dismissed but his other funds have been frozen by the government.
And so I am commissioning you, Mutti, to
approach Wolf and Ettie about Greta on my behalf, as I know very well that they would just say yes if I were to ask them directly. If it will be too much of a burden then you must tell me honestly and of course if that is the case then Greta will stay here and we will work together with those who are not thoughtlessly vindictive towards any person deemed to be an enemy and especially a child.
Fortunately such thoughtful people do exist, for example the admirable Miss McLean who has arranged for me to take private lessons at home. The payments for these will not come through the High School as that is now forbidden, but through the goodwill of those who would like to help us and their own children, though not in learning the German language needless to say, nor the best ways in which to get an understanding of the sufferings of Young Werther!
If Greta is able to come to the Valley for a time, please take care always to use the surname Hansen as I’m sure that will relieve her anxiety and will not attract the bigoted attention of those who God forbid may have been infected with anti-Hun sentiment. I too will take steps to return to my maiden name if that can be done under the present circumstances, and will begin to use it as a matter of course in any case.
My dear Mutti, it must be hard for you to imagine what may be the fates of your nephews there in the north at Kiel by the naval base or wherever Tante Elke’s five boys have ended up, even though you have never met them and now will not have the possibility of writing to anyone there. Of course those who live on the Danish side of the water in Sønderborg will be all right, including that cousin Finn whom I cannot remember except through the stories you told me, for example one about a giant fish that frightened him with its huge mouth and bulging eyes. I wish all memories of terror could be as innocent as that one. I think sometimes these days of the stories you told me about your grandfather and uncles who lost their lives up at the Danish borders near where Tante Greta lives, and how your grandmother said they had been bewitched by the shiny new Prussian guns. God help us if such terrible enchantments should reach into the minds of boys in your peaceful valley.
I will send this letter directly on the train in Wolf’s returned provisions crate with his details on it well known to his good friends at Raurimu station, together with some things you may find useful such as some bedding that I saw the house was lacking last time I visited, for example the good winter quilt that I no longer need here. Alas I am unable to send any substantial amount of paper for the children to write and draw on as it is rationed, but I will send such odds and ends of fabric that I have and some garments that can be unpicked, as well as such things as buttons and other fasteners if they too can be found. I will also send some English books. Here they sit on their shelves wondering what is wrong with them and why no one will ask them to dance.
I am not sending this letter by post as it would surely be read before it reached you and includes what I have chosen not to write about until now. So it may be some time before you hear from me again, unless that is you return the provisions crate as our faithful courier, perhaps with some more of Wolf’s honey and some eggs and those huge cabbages! Then my letter to you could once again be a passenger on the return trip to the Valley, with whatever useful things I can put together.
Dear Mutti, you know there’s no need for me to say I miss you, but even so I will say it, and add what I have not said often enough to your dear face with that special little smile on it, that the chief reason I miss you is that you are my best friend in the world and that I hope to be reunited with you before long.
It often seems to me that the stories we are both living and talking about are like that cross-stich you taught me when I was quite little and still clumsy with my needle, and that as you told me your oma taught you and so on back across our forgetfulness of so much else. The stitch is at once what and how we remember. We go forward and back and across and back and up and back down in the patterns of our lives, and the little patterns go forward and then back again and then forward again around the border of some large event or else they fill in the space of something larger than they can become by themselves. This is something you showed me and of course you know it much better than I do, but it is only now as I watch the hesitant movements of my own dear frightened daughter towards a sensible pattern in her life that I see how well you understood that stitch.
And now of course I can see your little smile that says ‘Oh Catha what nonsense!’ though you have never said the words themselves, that is the way of the mutti I love.
Please fondly kiss Wolf and Ettie and the children for me.
Your loving daughter
Catharina Hansen
Wolf
The small, elegant woman who stepped quickly down from the train into the chilly wind whisking leaves along the platform was no longer as young as she had persisted in his memory of her, though she held herself very upright and tipped her head on one side just as he remembered she always had, and gave a gay little wave with the hat that she had taken off to stop it blowing away, the wave that he also remembered always being her wave, Catha’s wave, with a twirl at the end, and the girl who ran fast with a shrill cry along the platform towards her was no longer a child as she had been when she herself had stepped uncertainly down from the train back then with that frightened look and one thin pale hand up to her mouth, yet the elderly woman who meanwhile held his arm a bit too firmly was not at all old, it seemed to him, with her straight back and sure step and neatly dressed hair, even though he had watched her every day down there in the valley getting carefully older going on almost ten years now.
At that moment his heart began to thud as if from effort. It was as though he was in a space like the empty ones in Ma’s Chinese scroll on the wall of her room down the valley. Time had been emptied from those pale smudged spaces, or rather whatever it was that time measured such as change had been emptied from them, and he peered into the empty spaces on the wall of Ma’s room sometimes knowing what their effect on him would likely be, that thudding in his chest as if air and blood were being drained out of him, as if the air and blood of his body were what time consisted of when it was inside him. Sometimes something like the thudding happened, or a shortness of breath, when he had a chance to sit by himself on the riverbank up beyond the honey house and to look back down the valley the way the water was flowing until the movement of the river’s surface stopped being a movement and became a still pattern, and the windy shaking of scrub leaves along the bank also stopped being a shaking and became a kind of writing or picturing across the shapes of branches and twigs and the shadowy spaces between them. Sometimes if he waited long enough in that space there would also be a kind of hum in his hearing and the sounds of water and leaves and even of the birds would be taken over by the hum. And then when he took some deep breaths and blinked his eyes the sounds and the movements would return. It was both something that just happened to him and something he invited. He was a bloody hopeless dreamer, Ettie thought, but it wasn’t dreaming because he was wide awake, even more wide awake than usual, and if she got annoyed sometimes when he’d stopped paying attention and she asked where did you go, Wolf, what, were you dreaming or what? the answer was that he hadn’t gone anywhere, but he couldn’t say it was time that had gone somewhere else, it was time that had drained out of him and taken away his attention to the present moment, because she would say that was daft and rightly so, it was daft.
But then there was Catha’s head against his chest and her faint scent of lavender that was the same as he remembered, not as it had always been but for as long as he had thought of her as no longer his big sister but as the lightly stepping woman who had held his arm to walk down the aisle on the day of her wedding to Professor Hugo von Welden while behind him in the pews wee Aggie had been mewling like a lost hungry kitten.
But where were all the others, where was the wolf pack, she wanted to know. The pack of little brats? Still within the reach of his arms was Catha with her quick cheeky questions, and Greta was there as well, nearly the same h
eight as her mother now, and Ma was there still with her grip on his arm as if it was him she wanted to hold steady rather than herself.
Why, what she called the little brats were mostly at school where all good children belonged of course, including her ma’s little namesake Josie who’d just started! Except Greta who as she could see was no longer a little brat and just for the day because! And wee Grace, she was with Ettie back at the house, along with Peter. Adam was working over at Denis Badem’s, he was doing early pruning. No more school for that boy.
Of course there were empty places in his roll call that were like the pale smudged emptinesses in Ma’s scroll, three spaces from which time had been emptied out rather than stopped, or they were like chimney smoke that even as it was blowing away was always there, but they were for him to keep in his mind, and Ettie of course, not for Catha to find a place in hers.
And Agatha? That sweet girl?
Aggie was housekeeping down at Smithy’s place.
Perhaps Catha heard his tone, which he hadn’t meant to be obvious. He saw how his clever sister’s eyebrows went deliberately up and down in a moment’s silence, but then she lifted Ma’s old shawl to her face – she had missed ‘dieses alte Dänische Ding’, she said into it, and was both laughing and crying and then peeping up at him with that wicked Catha look, because although the war was over going on six months it was stupid to speak German and she knew it, but who was going to notice here on the little windy platform with only two other people walking away towards the transports and young Smith from the far end of the valley unloading his seed sacks and whistling? Smithy made a grand sweeping wave as if sowing and gave a thumbs-up but the only enemy aliens he had to deal with down there aside from Aggie Wenczel were the blasted ragworts he wasted his time grubbing out of the ailing pasture.
