In Search of Anna

by Valerie Volk

  CHAPTER 4

  Lewin, Silesia, 1866

  Today I watched Johanna as she tottered across the room to where the crib stands. Although almost two years old, her walk is still unsteady, and it tugs at my heartstrings when I see her sturdy little body.

  She is her father’s daughter. There could be no doubt about this child. She has his dark and curling hair, and I think when her face has passed babyhood she will have the nose that has been part of his family for generations. Her body is solid, her temperament his. Already she likes to take control, and I foresee a time when she will clash with her father.

  Otto dotes upon this child as if there has been no other. She is his first thought each evening when he returns from the fields, and during his times away in Glatz she wanders the house searching for her beloved Vati. His name, Vati, Daddy, was the first word she tried to say, and her joy each time he comes back is lovely to behold. At last I feel I have brought happiness into his life.

  In character I think she will have something of me. While she is not a dreamer, she loves stories, and the books carefully stored from my times at the Chateau give her great pleasure. I read to her in the evenings, and story is one of the clear demands she makes.

  Otto is not happy that this is her liking. He is fiercely protective of her, and I think he fears that she may become attached to me. I do not resent her love of him. In a way I feel I owe him this. But at times a wistful sadness fills me, and I wonder if he, the other, might have been more mine than this little one will ever be.

  Perhaps the new one? For once again my belly is swollen, and this child is not like Johanna, who kicked fiercely and strongly in my womb almost as soon as I became aware of her. This one is more considerate, and at times I am filled with fear. If I do not feel him move—for I tell myself this is another boy—I panic lest he too should not survive the womb.

  This child will be mine, I have decided. Otto can have Johanna, whom we named for my mother, but this one I will call Kurt, even if Otto insists that the first name must be his. In my heart he will be Kurt, and Otto need never know why. I shall ask Lydia to stand as godmother at the baptismal font, and only she will understand what lies behind the choice of name. I will talk to him as Kurt, because Otto will understand that there cannot be two Ottos in our small household. Kurt Werner—a fine name for this babe who moves within me.

  I still go to the Chateau, for the Graf has asked me to keep it in order for the times when he comes with his new wife and his hunting parties. I know them all, the maids and the gardeners, so it is little trouble to oversee the house. There are times when I do not feel that I have earned the coins he provides for me.

  It is a longer journey than when we lived in Rauschwitz, when I was young and free, but even big with child I am happy to go. We now have a horse, an old staid beast that pulls the little cart that Otto has made for us, and I can take Johanna with me. Most importantly, I can find books in the library to bring back and to hide myself away, lost in other worlds.

  But the languages the Countess taught us so carefully are fading. How could it be otherwise when there is no chance to converse? I try to teach my little daughter some English, and she giggles when we lay out the stones on the path.

  ‘One … two … three.’ But I tell her it is our secret. I do not think Otto would approve. It is not a game she enjoys, and soon she is off, chasing the hens through the dust of our small yard. She is not a student. That is already clear. It will be different with the new one. With him I will talk in English, very quietly, so that some of the things I have learned can be passed on.

  I know that this is important, for the child’s early years can form the man he is to become. The Countess impressed this on us, for she had read deeply the works of Friedrich Fröbel and how with this method of educating small children a vast impact could be seen. I had listened in wonder as she told of the new institution he had started and the happy name he had given it … the kindergarten … and the way these children’s gardens had flourished throughout Germany.

  I have tried to talk to Otto about this, but he refused to listen. ‘Socialist nonsense’ was all he said, and bade me get on with serving his dinner.

  Fröbel had his enemies, though no one could understand why the Prussian government had forbidden his infant schools for almost ten years. It seems that new thinking must always arouse opposition. But I hear that five years ago they relented and the ban was lifted. As it should have been. Other countries are now establishing these kindergartens and I have read the Chateau’s copy of his most famous work, The Education of Man. It makes good sense to me. But poor man, I think the ban on his work may have killed him; he died the year after it was imposed, and never saw how his work would grow.

  Why is this of such interest to me? My child will have all that this movement can offer. We may not have a kindergarten in Lewin, but I have access to all Fröbel’s theories—even to his songbook for mothers and teachers, his Mother Play and Nursery Songs. Did I not mention that he believed that women are natural teachers, and were employed in his infant schools? A shocking idea, I admit, but one that gives me confidence to teach my own children.

  In another life I might have trained to be one of these women teachers, and perhaps even started a children’s garden in Lewin. Dreams, dreams. I had never imagined that my life would turn out like this. Who can see ahead where choices will take us? If I had not walked into the pine forests with Kurt, if I had not lain with him under the dark trees, would I now be planning to educate Otto’s child the way I believe Kurt would have wanted our son to be taught?

  It will be soon, I think. Frau Schmidt looked at me yesterday and asked if I had things ready for the birthing. I know she remembers that poor dead infant she laid on my breast. This time it will be different. This time Otto can go to the inn and boast he has a son—of this I am sure. But I am also sure that this child will be my son, from the moment that he leaves the safety of my womb. I have wondered if Johanna senses my love for this child. She came to me yesterday while I was reading.

  ‘Mutti!’ Her small face was wide-eyed, considering.

  ‘Yes, child?’

  ‘Mutti. Baby there?’ pointing to my swollen middle under the loose smock I was wearing.

  I nodded, only half hearing her words. Then I looked up as she spoke again.

  Her little face, Otto’s face, was considering the matter.

  ‘Baby stay there,’ she announced, and I realised she did not view this birth with pleasure. This is not uncommon. A child who has had sole care from two parents is, of course, not going to be enthusiastic about sharing the attention. And the affection. Though I am sure that Johanna’s place in Otto’s heart is firmly fixed. About my own I was not so certain.

  I spoke as lovingly as I could. No child should feel threatened by a newcomer. Even Johanna, a contrary little miss, and often disobedient. Sometimes cheeky, especially when she realised that it amused her father to hear her flout my authority. When I told her to do something I would hear ‘Vati won’t make me’.

  And she was right. Rarely did he support me. More often he encouraged her with a smile and a wink of his eye as she ran to him for protection. If she was like this at such a tender age, I feared for the future. Did she love me, I wondered. Her feeling for Otto was clear. She would nestle on his knee, and play with his hair, or pat his hand in an almost maternal way. It was comical to watch. Not so with me. When I picked her up to cuddle her, her little body would stiffen.

  I tried to talk to my mother about it.

  ‘Your little namesake is so unloving,’ I told her one day. ‘I fear she will never feel for me the way she feels for her father.’

  My mother only looked at me curiously. ‘But what do you feel for her?’

  I stared at her, quite taken aback.

  ‘Why, I love her, of course.’

  ‘Sometimes I have wondered. When you hold her, it is more as if this is something you must do, but your heart is not in it.’

  I w
as offended, and, yes, hurt by her comment.

  ‘You are quite wrong.’

  She did not look convinced. ‘Think about what I say. But I know how it hurts to feel that your child does not love you, that she loves someone else more.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Remember the Countess. You idolised her, and always wanted to be there, to be with her. I always felt second-best in your eyes. Whatever she said, that was what counted.’

  I felt a hot flush burn my cheeks. ‘But she was your friend too. She was so kind to us both.’

  My mother sighed. ‘Do you not understand, my child, that one can admire, even love, someone, and yet be jealous of them? You and she were so close, and she was so good to you, but there were times I almost hated her. You gave her the love that should have been mine.’

  What could I say? Her words had cut me to the quick, because I knew that they were true. I had given only little affection to my mother, the woman who had borne me and cared for me—and had encouraged and protected my place at the Chateau when my father would have stopped it. She had been generous.

  And I had rarely given anything to her; I had preferred another. So perhaps there was a justice here, that now my own daughter was following in my footsteps.

  I looked at my mother where she sat, her aging hands for once idle, no longer working at the stockings that she still made for the little extra money they brought. Work-roughened hands, not the Countess’ slender white fingers I had so admired. Even now, I made comparisons. Penitent and regretful, I could only say, ‘I am sorry.’

  But when the child heard the sound of Otto at the door, and ran eagerly from us, crying, ‘Vati, Vati!’ my mother looked at me and smiled. We both knew that the wheel had come full circle.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lewin, Silesia, 1871

  Such a year this has been. Even here, in tiny Lewin, we have followed the events with passionate interest. For Otto, his new hero has triumphed, a man of iron who can fulfil all his own wishes for power.

  ‘Even my name,’ he exclaimed with a sort of passionate pride. ‘Otto von Bismarck!’

  Little did I think, in the days Kurt talked to me of the changes that would come to our land, that I would live to see it come about. Now I remember him talking (so often I recall those days with Kurt), telling me of the way he and his companions idolised this man who, they foresaw, would unite our separate kingdoms.

  Who would have believed it could be achieved so rapidly? Even my Otto, who so admires the man, shakes his head in wonder.

  ‘Eight years!’ he says, marvelling.

  Yes, well. Eight years of wars, and no mother can feel pleasure in her country at war. Yet, even I could feel my heart swell with pride when news came of victories. First the war in the far north against Denmark that brought the Duchy of Schleswig to Prussia. Now it is all Prussia, Prussia, Prussia, and we in the southern kingdoms could see that the Prussian Junkers, those powerful landowners who controlled the Parliament, were the ones who had vision for the future.

  What a strategist the man is. I blessed the Countess yet again for the reading she had encouraged, for I could follow the events of these tumultuous years—even my Otto at times would listen to what I said. Reluctantly—for I was a woman—and what do women know of the world of politics and warfare?

  My world is the world that women have always known, here in the home we have made. When Otto is away in Glatz I can escape into the books I love, and teach the children, though already Hanna goes daily to the little school near St Michael’s church. I still walk with her each morning, for in spite of her fierce independence she is but a little girl of seven years. Soon she will walk with the other children from this part, but for now Kurt and I walk with her.

  When we have waved farewell to her (and sometimes she will turn to wave again to us) I will often take Kurt into the big white building next door, although it is a Catholic church and we are not of that faith. Yet the Countess was a believer, so sometimes I light a candle and pray for her soul, though my strict Lutheran pastor would be angered by this pagan idolatry if he knew.

  The statues intrigue my small son, for he is not used to a church that contains so much to look at.

  ‘Who is this one?’ he asks, as he looks at a side altar with its figure of St Anthony. So I tell him stories of the lives of saints and hope that he will not repeat them to our dour and upright Lutheran pastor. Then, while I pray, Kurt wanders fascinated round St Michael’s, more decorated and colourful than our plain and unadorned place of worship. He gazes in wonder at the statues and the paintings, for in its 500 years this church has seen passing armies and the trade route that has made this little town important. I look at the famous painting of the Madonna that Richter made and pilgrims come to pray to, and wonder at how much she has known. How many supplicants, how many armies. Some of our youths have joined the army that now fights in other lands.

  Five years ago a war with Austria—another master stroke, for here our chancellor, our Iron Duke, began to forge the idea of a separate ‘Germany’ quite apart from the old Hapsburg Empire. Yes, we’d had a German Confederation, but our separate smaller kingdoms would never have given the power that he and the Prussian king craved. Now we were beginning to see what might be achieved if all our Princedoms united.

  But oh, the panic when an assassination attempt on our leader’s life was reported. (For by now we saw Bismarck as our leader. Even the Prussian king yielded to his words.) Five shots! And at close range! But his injuries were minor, and there was a sense of justice when the assassin suicided in prison.

  The church bells rang out in joy when news came that our leader lived. And last year the final momentous events were set in train. War with France. All the traditional hostilities and distrusts were brought to the fore, and no matter which princedom people lived in, we were happy to join behind Prussia and the Northern Federation in the war that showed the French that they could not insult our Fatherland.

  As the war came to an end we rejoiced in the news that the Prussian King, Wilhelm, had been crowned Emperor of a united Germany. The sweetness of crowning our Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors in the Chateau at Versailles. What a stroke of genius. No wonder when Otto von Bismarck returned to Berlin some months ago, as our first Chancellor of the new Empire, there was an outpouring of adoration for the man who had made our country great.

  Otto felt he had been involved—hanging on the great man’s coat-tails, perhaps. A pity he did not also follow the Chancellor’s religion, for his deep pietism was well-known, and the Lutheran faith that he and his wife espoused was an important part of their lives.

  Not ours. Otto had little time for religion and made his feelings clear. So our Sundays, when little Hanna and Kurt and I set off for services in the white church in Lewin, are days that also separate our paths. As I tied the ribbons on my bonnet over my lace cap, in keeping with the old ways, he would laugh and swing our little girl high in the air.

  ‘Stop, Otto! She is too big for such play! She is seven now.’

  But Hanna would laugh. ‘Higher, Vati, higher!’

  ‘Now you,’ as he turned to Kurt.

  Trapped, the child would look at me, his eyes wide and fearful. But there was nothing I could do, and so he would advance hesitantly towards the huge figure of his father. It was the sort of rough-house play he dreaded, and Otto’s face would flush with fury.

  ‘Bah! You have made the boy into a milksop. He’s fit only for reading your books and singing hymns in your church. Is he indeed my son?’

  As he raised the child high in the air, I could see the panic on the small face, and my heart ached for my son. I could also see the small smile on Hanna’s, and I knew that she triumphed in her father’s favour.

  If Kurt had been more like his father, would things have been easier for him? I doubt it, for I had kept my resolution that this child would be mine. He was dark, yes, as both Otto and I were, but his build was slighter, more like me, and his face was my face.<
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  Hanna’s old days of ‘Story, Mutti!’ were truly over. I think her father’s scorn had withered away even that slight bond between us, and now she makes it clear that my role in her life is limited to providing for her daily needs. If she has others, she does not let me see them.

  With Kurt it was so different. From babyhood on, his face would light up when he saw me, and all his first stumbled words were for me. I cradled and sang to him, and he nestled against me in a way that his sister had never done.

  I look at the way this has been captured for all time in the pictures that have just come to us. Such pictures reveal truths that we may otherwise be able to ignore, and then forget.

  It has been the talk of the place in these last weeks, an event to make even the most miserly open their purse strings. A travelling photographer came to Lewin with his horse and hooded cart and, like many of our neighbours, we took our children, all of us dressed in our best clothes, to the small studio he had established. There was much discussion of the new methods that were being developed, for the days of the daguerreotype were passing and new methods of paper printing and glass negatives had captured public fancy.

  To my surprise Otto wanted this. I think he was anxious to show off his new high-collared shirt which, I had to admit, looked fine with its new fashion wide tie and waistcoat under his coat. He was putting aside the old dress for our region and taking on the new ways. He tells us this is common in Glatz, that few there will wear the traditional clothes our small town still favours, and that Glatz has several of these new photographic studios.

  So there we stood, carefully posed by the dapper Frenchman setting up a business for a time in our town. Otto was seated and looking most impressive, while I stood, in my new magenta gown with its broad skirts and long puffed sleeves and many petticoats. Thankfully the days of the crinoline are passing, though it seems that the material is now to be drawn to the back. I have heard talk of a new fashion—a silly word, a bustle, for an even sillier idea. Such a travesty of nature to poke out at the back like this, I feel, for who can believe there is beauty in a protruding lump behind the body.