She could not. Instead she was grateful that she and her son bore an English surname, so those who met them assumed their background was English, and they now were ‘dinkum Aussies, through and through’.
Yet she was happy, she told herself, watching the young people shove their glasses into the sink, listening to the clatter as George and Mud ran upstairs to get their towels and swimming costumes for an afternoon at the beach. She had her house, which she loved, even if ten years ago she would have been shocked at a house so small, in such a poor district, with not even a single servant.
She had friends, not just the Wolchekis and the Schmidts, but Australian women she had met at church, as well as a stubborn old woman down the street who had given her geranium and hydrangea cuttings the first week she had moved here, and then arrived with a plate of hot scones to make sure she had planted them properly.
She and old Mrs O’Connel had shared many scones and memories since then, but Frau Marks had made sure that her conversation never hinted that Germany might be a place of good people, that fascism had been a disease that had infected many nations, and some Australians too. Mrs O’Connel’s son and grandson had died in Egypt, fighting Rommel. Frau Marks could not even say that General Rommel had given his own life because he tried to remove Hitler and his madness from his homeland.
Mostly her joy grew from watching George, how every day he grew more to manhood, and not just that, but becoming a man she liked, respected and admired. It was so good to have a son you admired as well as loved. And Mud with her fierce love and laughter was a gift and blessing. She loved Mud like a daughter, and Johannes and Helga too.
No, that wasn’t right. She did not love them quite in the way she loved her son. But the love was deep and true.
Yes, she was lucky. Blessed, thought Frau Marks as she automatically began to wash the dishes and plan what to feed the horde for dinner. A roast leg of mutton, perhaps, cooked long and slowly to make it tender, as Thelma Peaslake had shown her, with roast potatoes and roast pumpkin — back home, pumpkin was given only to the pigs, but here it was essential to make the copious gravy Australians, including her son, expected. A plum tart for dessert, using her mother’s recipe for almond pastry?
She was happy, Frau Marks repeated to herself as she picked up the tea towel. And if sometimes she felt she bore a wound that she could never quite identify, she managed to ignore it. Surely happiness was enough.
Chapter 39
JOHANNES
AUSTRALIA, 1951
Days had routines now. Routine was good. Routine might not keep soldiers from knocking at the window or prevent the bombs from falling, even atomic bombs like the ones dropped on Japan that the Americans and the Russians threatened each other with now, as if they could not bear to say goodbye to war, but must quickly build another.
But routine meant things mostly happened as expected. Breakfast, walking to school past Helga’s house, to walk the rest of the way with her. Sitting with Helga at lunchtime discussing physics, or an interesting article in one of his parents’ medical journals, even if the other students thought it strange for a boy and girl to sit together, much less talk about new vaccination techniques.
Helga could not play sport either, because of her limp. But no one teased them. Johannes suspected that one of the nuns had talked to the other students about concentration camps and DP camps and being kind to them, and not mentioning Helga’s birthmark or limp either . . . which was . . . good . . . but embarrassing. And not as good as having friends.
But it had been a long time since he’d had any friends, except for Helga. He thought he had probably forgotten how to make them.
They had had Christmas. A strange Australian Christmas, down at Mud’s parents’ farm, three tables put together and covered with four tablecloths, and straggly home-made decorations and the poorest Christmas tree Johannes had ever seen — not a proper fir tree but one called a she-oak, dropping needles and drooping in the heat, with cotton wool for snow and the decorations mostly kids’ drawings, and no candles.
‘You’ll start a bushfire!’ said Mud’s mum, shocked, when Johannes suggested candles on the tree. ‘I never heard the like!’
No roast pork but two giant hams, with two roast turkeys and three roast chickens, all stuffed with lemon and herb stuffing. No apple sauce but lots of gravy, and plum puddings with cream and custard, which after the shock of strange flavours and textures were delicious, and Christmas cake, which was even better, and beer instead of wine for the men, and carols around the piano, Mud with a voice like a bullfrog but singing anyway, and church that was neither Catholic nor Lutheran but fitted the purpose of the day.
Mud’s dad gave Johannes and Helga bicycles — not new ones, of course, for factories weren’t making luxuries yet, but old ones repaired and newly painted. They could ride them to school, to libraries further away from home that had more books, even to the beach. Mrs Schmidt made clothes for everyone, out of new cloth now it was no longer rationed, with a sewing machine she had traded for in Italy and carted to Australia; and Mutti and Vati gave books and books and more books; and Helga gave everyone scarves she had knitted; and, even though St Nicholas hadn’t come, a man called Santa Claus did, in a rusty ute with Santa in the back, giving bags of what Australians called ‘lollies’ to everyone, even Mud and George.
Strange shelled creatures called cicadas sang, and even stranger birds called kookaburras laughed, and in the afternoon they flew kites so high and with so much laughter that Johannes thought they must surely be free of the ogre now.
But at night, when dreams ate him, he knew the ogre was still there.
Chapter 40
FRAU MARKS
AUSTRALIA, APRIL 1951
Frau Marks watched Mud flop down in one of the shabby armchairs next to George. ‘The whole psychology class had to visit the maternity ward today. There’s a woman there who’s had twelve children in fifteen years. Twelve! No wonder she has postnatal depression. Plus all of us gawking at her.’
George grinned at her. ‘So we’re not going to have twelve kids then?’
‘Ha,’ said Mud. ‘Two. If you’re lucky, mate.’
Frau Marks looked from George to Mud. They were so young . . .
George saw her glance. He leaped up and hugged her, fast and affectionate. ‘Don’t worry, Mum. I haven’t even asked Mud to marry me yet. I’ll let you know when I do.’
‘I’ll let you know when I say yes. If I say yes,’ said Mud. ‘Come on, lazybones,’ she added to George, ‘I need a swim to wash away the smell of hospital. Do you want to come down to the beach too, Aunt Mutti?’
Aunt Mutti. Auntie Mummy. A strange name, but a strange relationship too. And she liked the sound of it.
Frau Marks shook her head. The two young people would feel they had to stay with her and talk on the beach, instead of surfing. ‘I have some work to catch up on.’ She had suddenly decided on New Year’s Day to do the entrance exam for the university. She was old, of course, older even than her age, after the years of war. But she had a deep feeling it was time for another beginning, a life of her own, not just watching the changing life of her son and his companions. Perhaps university would give it to her.
‘I forgot. There’s a letter for you,’ added George. ‘I put it on the kitchen table.’ He clattered upstairs to get his swimming costume.
Probably from Gudrun, thought Frau Marks. Gudrun wrote once a month, enclosing a money order, rent for her house. She cashed the money orders, but ripped up the letters without reading them.
Lately the money order had been bigger. She had read the letter that had come with the first larger amount. Her sister had written that they had a house of their own now, that they had arranged for her house to be rented to others at a higher rent, and that she would make sure they took good care of it. That once again she was sorry . . .
Frau Marks had thrown the letter away.
This letter lay on the table. Strange, how a small piece of paper could c
arry so much emotion across the world. She looked at it more closely. The writing was not Gudrun’s.
Had something happened to her sister? For the first time a small prickle of what she had once felt for Gudrun broke through the wall she had built so carefully in her mind. She picked up the envelope and opened it.
Dear Frau Marks,
I write to you with sad news, and with glad. My aunt, whom you knew as Sister Columba, died two weeks ago, the day after we had news through the Red Cross that you had survived, and somehow made your way to Australia to be united with your son.
Guilt froze her fingers, so the letter almost dropped from her hand. Sister Columba had survived! Had been alive for more than six years since she had seen her. How long had she been helpless, in the travesty of a post-war hospital? And now she had died. Shock warred with guilt, grief and joy.
As soon as she had gone to London, she had asked Miriam to use her contacts to try to find Sister Columba, but she had not been listed in any of the DP camps or by the Red Cross. Frau Marks had assumed that her friend had died. She had seemed so very close to death the day she and Dr Wolcheki had been forced to leave the camp.
I should have looked harder, she thought. Looked again! For sometimes it took years for people to get the precious papers that gave them a legal, registered existence. But she had not known that then.
Frau Marks forced herself to keep reading.
My aunt was unable to speak towards the end, but she smiled when I told her you had been found, and pressed my hand, so I am sure she understood. She remained weak in body ever since the war, cared for at the Mother House, but strong in spirit and in love. She often spoke of you when she was stronger, and it was her dearest wish that you should be happy and your life be filled with love. Perhaps she refused to die until she knew that you were safe.
Although we have never met, I feel I know you, from the stories of my aunt, as she felt she knew your son from the stories you told her of him. If you are able, it would mean so much to me to know what your life is now. Perhaps I could leave that letter on my aunt’s grave, with the flowers we take to her each week. It is strange, but each time I do so I know I should cry, but instead I feel joy. The sky is always just a little brighter when I think of my aunt, whose prayers were so often for you, as mine are for you too.
Yours,
Frau Clementine
She sat at the kitchen table, and she cried. She who had not cried for so long, because there comes a time when there are not tears enough to be shed, sobbed now.
She had thought she had become a woman of love when she found her George. She had been wrong. It took Sister Columba to show her how.
She found paper, a pen, ink, managed to stop her hands trembling as she wrote:
My dear Gudrun,
Thank you for the letters, for the rent for the house and for all the care you take of my property now.
I am sorry for all the letters I have not answered, for all I have not said, for all the years of sisterhood I have not given.
I understand. You loved your family, and could not risk them. You loved your country, and so its enemies had to be yours. Please forgive the hardness of my heart that has kept us apart these last years.
I do not think I can ever return to visit Germany. You might find Australia rough and a little uncultured, but it is also beautiful and kind. Your children would love its beaches. I hope, one day, you might visit us here, that our children may meet and know their cousins and that we can embrace again, as sisters.
With love, always,
Marlene
Chapter 41
JOHANNES
AUSTRALIA, JUNE 1951
‘What do you want to do?’ asked Johannes. He and Helga had caught a bus to the Botanic Garden by the harbour before his violin lesson, to watch the ships come in, the seagulls flash above the water, to sit on the short grass and talk.
He had discovered the Botanic Garden when Mr Mittelfeld took his favourite students to the Conservatorium of Music, which perched on the hill next to the garden. They had been to three concerts and an opera now, and every time the music left him soaring like the seagulls. Sometimes he found his face damp with tears too, which would have been embarrassing, if the others had not sometimes cried as well, and even Mr Mittelfeld.
‘All strong emotion can bring tears,’ explained Mr Mittelfeld. ‘Why should they be given only to sadness? The greatest applause a musician can have is that moment’s silence, when the audience must brush away their tears before they clap.’
It had made him wish, just for a moment, that he could be a professional musician, like Tom or Harriet planned to be, and possibly the others too.
The kids at school had been discussing what they’d do after the Intermediate too. Some would leave school, but neither his parents nor the Schmidts would allow that, even if Helga and Johannes had wanted to. This was a new land, with opportunity, and they must take every opportunity it offered. The blocks of land had been purchased, although no houses stood on them yet.
‘I want to become a doctor,’ said Helga, with no hesitation.
‘Why?’ Helga had joined the Junior Red Cross, and wore a white dress with a red cape and black shoes to school every Wednesday. And on Saturday afternoons when he went to his music lessons with Mr Mittelfeld, she visited hospitals with the other Red Cross girls, handing out posies of flowers wrapped in carefully cut doilies, or facecloths they had hemmed and filled with bath salts or sweet soap they’d bought with money raised by toffee days at school.
They learned first aid at the Red Cross, but Johannes didn’t think Helga had joined for that, nor to make friends, though it had helped. The other girls asked her to their birthday parties now.
He had even made friends himself, with two boys who liked physics and electronics as much as he did. They were saving up to buy the parts to make a wireless set each, like the model in Popular Mechanics.
‘Doctors help people,’ said Helga simply.
‘I want to be a doctor too.’ It was the first time he had admitted it. So boring, to take up the same profession as your parents. But bodies fascinated him. Not just bodies, but how parts of the body fitted together, like molecules and microbes. ‘I’d like to specialise in skin diseases.’
‘I want to go into research, find a cure for a big disease. Something that will save millions of people. Six million. Forty million!’ Her voice was filled with a strange earnestness.
‘You’d be stuck inside a laboratory all day with test tubes. Wouldn’t you rather work with people?’
‘I . . . I’d rather work with children. A paediatrician. But research would be more valuable.’
Johannes had a sudden vision of a thousand children, stumbling in the snow, of small frozen bodies, of every child dead, except for him, as Nurse Stöhlich carried him back to the camp hospital. He had never told Helga about that march, nor had his mother or Frau Marks ever spoken of it to him.
He forced himself back to the present. ‘Fair enough.’ It was an Australian phrase. He was getting good at using Australian expressions now, carefully inserting them wherever he could. He was glad that Helga wanted to do medicine too. It meant that they’d keep studying together.
He stood. ‘How about an ice cream?’ He was not just speaking English now, but Australian English. No one hearing him speak would yell, ‘Reffo!’ these days.
‘Sounds good,’ said Helga, in Australian too. The ice-cream van sat at the top of the garden, outside the Conservatorium of Music. Mr Mittelfeld was going to take his students to the Conservatorium again in a few weeks, to hear a famous visiting violinist. Johannes wondered if he might bring Helga too. She did not play the violin, but Mr Mittelfeld taught him because he loved music, not because he was good at playing it. That love had deepened with every lesson, every concert, every ABC orchestra performance he heard on the wireless, seeping into his soul, even licking at the coals of hate and fear, the hellfire that was always lurking when you still lived in the ogre’s bell
y.
But it was easier to forget the ogre for a while today, with an ice cream in his hand, a double header, and Helga pretty in her flowered dress licking hers beside him. He only noticed her birthmark now when someone commented on it, asking with sympathy if she’d been burned. Frau Marks had offered to cover it with make-up, but for some reason Helga had refused.
Johannes was glad. The make-up might have stopped the awkward questions, but he didn’t want a different Helga. He never would.
They caught the bus back, in time for Helga to change into her Red Cross uniform, and for him to wrap Frau Marks’s almond biscuits in greaseproof paper for Mr Mittelfeld. The biscuits were a gift of love, a gift of thanks. Money was not enough for what Mr Mittelfeld gave his students.
He walked along the streets, carrying his violin case in one hand, the biscuits in the other, then knocked on the door. The coconut was still there, still with No. 5 painted on it.
No answer. He knocked again. This time the door opposite opened. An elderly woman stuck her head out. ‘Are you one of the old man’s students? He’s in the hospital.’
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked in alarm.
‘It’s his lungs, they say. I went to sit with him yesterday and he did look bad. So sad, isn’t it?’
‘Which hospital? Please.’
He didn’t walk. He ran. When you had known the camps, you knew how quickly a life could end.
But not Mr Mittelfeld’s life. He had only just been given a new one! He deserved more time. Much more time, to enjoy it, to eat the cakes and biscuits his students gave him, and the coconuts, to see his best students become famous musicians and play in concert halls around the world . . .
Goodbye, Mr Hitler Page 13
