Along the Infinite Sea

by Beatriz Williams

  Johann had been the one to suggest, two nights ago, that I leave Florian at home and go into Berlin for the day. We had converted a box room adjacent to our bedroom into a small nursery, and I was there in my dressing gown, nursing Florian inside a pink haze of bliss. I had looked up, bewildered, and said, “Go into Berlin? But what about the baby?”

  “He will be looked after well. The housekeeper knows what to do. He has a father who adores him, and brothers who tolerate him without too much complaint.”

  “But his milk!”

  “We have some bottles. And he is eating now.” He knelt down next to the chair and touched my hand. “Annabelle, Liebling, you are a wonderful and devoted mother, but you must learn to leave him a little, too. He is six months old. The doctor says you should not even be nursing him still, or he will get a complex.”

  “That’s nonsense. You and Lady Alice and your complexes. I know my son far better than old Périgault. Look at him, he’s perfectly healthy.”

  “It is not a question of physical health. It is his attachment to you. We do not want our fine strapping son to become a mama’s boy, do we?”

  Yes, we do, I thought passionately. I gazed down at Florian’s working mouth, his inquisitive dark eyes, and my arms ached around him.

  Johann went on. “The two of you, you are like a closed link, and nobody else comes inside. But we all need you, meine Frau. Our girls need you, and our boys. And you know how desperately I need you, your poor lonely husband.”

  He had chosen his tactics well, like the general he was, and he knew I couldn’t resist an appeal like that. So here I sat in the monumental Daimler, rushing into the center of Berlin, heart bleeding out into the seats, discussing Florian’s new tooth with my stepdaughters.

  “Does it hurt?” Marthe asked practically. “The tooth, I mean, when you feed him.”

  “Not really. He’s very good.”

  Frieda said, “He is. He is the most darling baby. I can’t wait until you have another.”

  I laughed again. We were just turning the corner of Leipziger Platz, and the crowds thickened at once, a mass of woolen coats and hats, the steady buzz of humanity. “One baby at a time, sweetheart. Look, we’re almost there. Where shall we start?”

  “Wertheim, of course!” Frieda said.

  Marthe frowned and looked out the window.

  Berlin’s largest department store was predictably packed, from its ground floor overflowing with hats and scarves and haberdashery to its monumental staircases like the channels of an ant farm. We shouldered through the entrance into a warm draft of perfume-scented air. Frieda exclaimed with joy at every display. Though she lived in Paris, in the heart of the fashionable district, we hardly ever went shopping. I was too occupied with Florian, and Johann disliked the idea of letting her roam free among the shops and streets. It is nothing but material excess, he said, nothing but decadence.

  Marthe seemed to share her father’s opinion. She trailed behind us with her arms folded across the chest of her red woolen coat. She was a beautiful girl, almost a young lady, who (like Frieda) wore her spun-gold hair in a thick braid around her head like a crown, a few shades richer than her father’s. Her large blue eyes were set in a perfect oval face that Johann said was an exact replica of her mother’s, down to the picturesque freckles on her nose. Her school reports were uniformly excellent; Johann was immensely proud of her. Of the two sisters, she was the more reserved, although she had a lovely singing voice and often joined me in the evenings, after dinner, when Johann encouraged his wife and children to come together and play Christmas hymns. Just now, however, her pink mouth was turned down at the corners and tight in the middle, not festive at all.

  I fell back and took her arm. “Is something the matter, darling?”

  She pulled the arm away. “No, Mother.”

  Frieda picked out a cashmere scarf for her father and leather gloves for the older boys. We went upstairs to the children’s department, where she found a pretty blue woolen hat for Florian. She paid for everything herself from a carefully husbanded allowance, and watched with a radiant face as the little packages were wrapped in paper.

  Marthe’s arms were still folded. She tapped her toe against the floorboards and stared somewhere above us, to the tops of the polished shelves.

  A woman passed by, pushing a baby in a perambulator. The baby was about Florian’s age, maybe a month or two younger, propped up against his white bedding—it was a boy, wrapped in a pale blue knitted sweater and matching cap—and his curious eyes caught mine. I put my hand against the counter to support myself and thought, Johann is right, it’s healthy to be away for a bit, but I didn’t feel healthy at all. My breasts hurt, my nipples smarted. I felt the milk leak eagerly into my brassiere and was glad for my thick coat, my tweed jacket beneath it, the practical cotton shirt from which such stains could easily be washed.

  The packages were wrapped and bound in string for a delighted Frieda. We edged our way through the hot crowd to the stairs. “Are you all right, Mother?” asked Frieda, slipping her hand into mine, and I said of course I was all right, I just needed a bit of air; it was so warm in here with all the people.

  We started down the stairs. Marthe trailed a step or two behind. Ahead of us in the crowd was a man wearing a navy blue hat above a neat navy blue suit; a line of dark curling hair showed below the brim of the hat, against a strong white neck.

  There was something so familiar about that neck, that hair. The carriage of his head.

  No, it’s impossible, I thought. Of course it was impossible. Germany was a very large country, and Stefan was supposed to be in Frankfurt; he was in Frankfurt when he spoke to Nick Greenwald.

  But I could not look away from that dark hair. I thought I could discern every strand. I stretched my neck in an effort to catch the man’s profile, the line of his jaw, the shape of his nose. My heartbeat thudded in my neck and fingertips. The hat disappeared for an instant, and I sidled past a pair of women, pulling Frieda along with me, wheeling around the corner for the next flight. “Wait, Mother!” Frieda said, and I stumbled downward, running my eyes feverishly over the mass of identical hats seething before me.

  “Mother!” called Marthe from behind, and at the same second her voice reached my ears, I caught sight once more of the familiar neck, the familiar dark hair, and I darted down, feet flying, fingertips thudding, like a woman holding a single ticket in a sweepstakes, who knows the odds are impossibly against her, who didn’t until this moment realize that she wanted so badly to win, who knows in her heart that she can’t win. But she still thinks, as the number is drawn among millions, that it will be hers.

  I let go of Frieda’s hand to take the man’s navy wool elbow, and I shouted, Stefan!

  I realized, as I turned, that the man was at least two inches too short. My cheeks already burned by the time I saw the shape of his nose (too large) and the line of his jaw (too narrow).

  “Es tut mir leid, es muss ein Irrtum sein,” he said. There must be some mistake. The girls assembled at my elbows. Frieda had dropped her packages on the stairs. The man helped her pick them up, while the other shoppers flowed around us, grumbling, like a river parting around an unwelcome obstruction.

  Marthe turned to me, still frowning. “Who is Stefan?” she said.

  2.

  We had lunch in a small restaurant nearby: tea and sandwiches and hot cabbage soup. I wasn’t very hungry. “Mother, it is so hot in here. Why don’t you take off your coat?” asked Frieda, and I opened the top two buttons and said I would be fine. My hands were still clumsy as I operated my spoon. I set my teacup carefully in its saucer so it wouldn’t shake.

  We talked very little. I paid the bill and walked out the door behind the girls, and as I turned to close the door behind us I noticed a sign in the window I hadn’t seen on the way in:

  JUDEN NICHT WILKOMMEN

  3.


  We visited a few more shops and found the chauffeur parked on the corner of Wilhelmstrasse, as we had arranged, at three o’clock. The light was already starting to fade. Marthe was still quiet as we started off through the streets of Berlin. She kept her arms folded across her chest and looked out the window, at the passing buildings, while Frieda exclaimed about all the goods in the shops.

  “And that hat for Florian,” she said, turning to me. “Won’t he look just sweet wearing that hat?”

  I opened my mouth to say, Yes, of course, we would take a photograph of him wearing it on Christmas morning.

  Marthe’s head turned. “It’s un-German,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The Warenhausen, they’re un-German. We should not have gone there, to Wertheim.”

  “Un-German?” I said, astonished. “How could Wertheim possibly be any more German?”

  “They are owned by the Jews, these department stores. Good German businesses suffer because of them.” Her mouth compressed in a belligerent line.

  “But that’s nonsense. Who told you this?”

  “It’s not nonsense. We have been learning it all at school. The Warenhausen are like great leeches set on the cities. They sell cheap goods, and all the money goes to make the Jews richer. Wertheim is the worst of all.”

  Frieda was quiet, her lips parted in a small round hole of astonishment. I stared at Marthe’s profile, stern and blond. Through the window, I saw a few flakes of snow shooting behind her, like distant meteors.

  I said quietly, “Have you talked to your father about this?”

  “He feels the same way.”

  “I find it difficult to believe that the man I married is a bigot,” I said, “and I am disappointed beyond words to find this true of my daughter.”

  She turned to the window and muttered something in German. I couldn’t quite pick out the words—I was still learning the language—but Frieda gasped and looked at me. I took her hand and shook my head.

  Frieda leaned toward Marthe and whispered in her ear. Marthe went on staring at the shooting snowflakes, the bleak brown winter suburbs, and didn’t reply.

  I leaned my head back against the cloth seat. Under my skin, in the cavity around my heart, I could still feel the splinters of shock from my flight down the stairs. If I closed my eyes, I could still see that line of dark hair against a white neck, and it really did belong to Stefan, even though it hadn’t; I thought I could feel him move in my head and lay a soothing hand on my splintering skin. I thought, What should I say, Stefan? What do I say to her? What do I do?

  And he said back, You know what to do, Annabelle.

  Frieda’s body was warm and lithe next to mine, new and untried. I drew her against me and put my arm around her shoulders. “It was lovely shopping with you today, girls, but I confess I can’t wait to be back in our nice warm house with your father and the boys.”

  4.

  Before we even entered the house, I could hear Florian’s cries. “He wouldn’t take the bottle,” Johann said, haggard, almost tossing the baby into my arms.

  “Thank God,” I muttered, because I was ready to burst. I collapsed into the chair and ripped open my blouse. He nursed furiously for half an hour before falling unconscious against my skin, trailing a thin line of contented milk from the corner of his mouth, and I kissed the top of his dark head and promised him I wouldn’t go away like that again.

  “Perhaps we should consider weaning him,” said Johann. He stood at the window, watching the lines of snow cross the glass and disappear into the black night.

  I moved Florian carefully to my shoulder. “Not yet.”

  “But soon, perhaps,” said Johann, so softly that I looked up in surprise. His face was dark against the window, and golden with lamplight on the other side. One pale eye regarded us. He let the curtain fall back and said, “I would like to have more children.”

  “Of course we’ll have more children. But he’s still a baby, and there’s plenty of time.”

  “I will be forty years old next month.”

  I smiled. “But I’m only just twenty-one. Anyway, you’ve got plenty of children to occupy you for now. How many does one man need, really?”

  “I miss you.”

  “Johann, I’m right here. I sleep next to you every night.”

  “We have not made love since he was born.”

  “I didn’t realize you wanted to.” Florian burped against my shirt. I picked up a cloth, dabbed my shoulder, and brought him back into the cradle of my arms. His eyes were closed, and the sight of his cheeks brought the splinters back to my skin.

  “Of course I want to make love to you, Annabelle. I am only a man, after all. But it is for you to decide when you’re ready to have another baby.”

  Again I looked up in surprise. “But we don’t have to make a baby. There are many ways to prevent conception.”

  He frowned. “What do you know of these?”

  “Lady Alice.”

  He brought his fist against the window, making it rattle through the curtain, and pushed himself away to cross the room. “A man does not wear a sheath with his wife, Annabelle. They are for whores and mistresses.”

  “Nonsense,” I said crisply.

  He muttered something to the carpet.

  “I’m simply not ready for another baby, Johann. I want to wait until Florian is at least a year old before we try again.”

  “A year!”

  “Johann, please. It’s not unreasonable, is it? We can still make love, if you want.”

  “If I want? Don’t you want to make love with me?”

  I looked back down at Florian’s sleeping face. “Of course I do. But we must take precautions, that’s all.”

  He came toward us in two giant strides and knelt next to the chair. “Annabelle, I need you. Look at my two hands. They are aching to touch you again, the way we used to. Don’t you ache for me?”

  I looked at him helplessly. “Of course I do.”

  “No, you do not. Of course you do not.” He closed his eyes. “But you are so good and loyal, Annabelle. That, I could not do without. I could not live without your loyalty. You don’t understand, I think, how much I need you.”

  “Then touch me, Johann. Kiss me.”

  “I cannot. I cannot stop if I do.”

  “I’ll put the baby to bed.”

  He rose and looked down at us both. “No. I don’t wish to disturb you.”

  He walked to the door, and I called after him. “Johann, there’s something I need to speak to you about.”

  He stopped with his hand on the door handle and said, over his shoulder, “So do I, with you. But it is time for dinner, Liebling. It can wait.”

  5.

  At Johann’s house in Westphalia, which his family had owned since the seventeenth century, we dined at a magnificent walnut table in a paneled room, attended by two servants, and we dressed in formal clothes. The wine was always German. After the main course was cleared away and the table stripped for dessert, Johann dabbed his mouth with his napkin and rose to his feet.

  I sat at the other end of the table, with the girls on my right and the boys to my left. I drank the last of my wine and set down the glass. Everyone had turned to Johann, who stood there like a colossus, making even the table seem small. He looked around the room, across the tops of our heads, and I had the feeling he was hesitating.

  “Johann, what’s the matter?” I said.

  “I have a bit of an announcement.” He pressed his fingertips into the edge of the table. “I have been asked to assist the government with a project of great importance in Berlin, which will shortly require us to move to the capital for a certain period.”

  “Move to Berlin?” I said stupidly.

  “Yes, my love. We will live in Berlin, much closer to the children and their school
s, which, among other things, will enable us to raise Florian in his own country with a proper understanding of his home and his native language.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  Frederick spoke up, saying something enthusiastic in German, and Johann stopped him.

  “Speak in English, Frederick, so your mother can understand us.”

  “I’m sorry,” Frederick said, glancing at me with his startling pale eyes, exactly the same shade as his father’s. “It is wonderful news, that’s all. We will be more like a family again.”

  “That is my hope,” Johann said, smiling benignly across the table, as if he had not just laid the perfect ambush and executed it without mercy. “Don’t you agree, my love?”

  My face was hot. Johann’s image blurred in front of me. I laid my napkin on the table and rose.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I believe I’ll go check on the baby.”

  6.

  I had fallen in love with the Kleist family estate at the moment Johann had driven me up the road in his black Mercedes Roadster. The top was up, because it was December, so I couldn’t see the house itself until we had come around the last bend in the graveled drive, and then it appeared, yellow-walled, in perfect proportion, too sober to be called baroque and too exuberant to be classical. In the center grew a small blue dome, decorated with elegant stone scrollwork. The shrubbery outside was covered in sacking against the bitter frost.

  “Oh, it’s lovely!” I had exclaimed, peering forward through the windshield. “Why didn’t you tell me it was so lovely?”

  “Would you have married me sooner if I had?”

  I had turned and kissed his cheek. “I don’t think it would have been possible for me to marry you sooner.”

  He had taken me on a long and thorough tour—You are the baroness now, my love, it is all yours—which had taken most of the afternoon and evening. I had felt disoriented in the profusion of rooms and furniture and artwork, the reek of beeswax and old plaster, and held on firmly to Johann’s elbow, wondering how on earth I could possibly be expected to manage all this.