Paving the New Road

by Sulari Gentill

  “Is anything the matter, Fräulein Eva?” he asked. “You are very quiet this afternoon.”

  At first she would not look at him, and then the words burst out tearfully. “You will not be able to finish my painting, will you? With your injured arm? I hate the SA!”

  Rowland nearly laughed, surprised that such a thing would trouble her so. There was something very childlike about Eva, an honest and open self-preoccupation. He found it amusing.

  “Not at all,” he said. “I can use my left hand as well as my right…sometimes better.”

  “Really?” she said, her eyes wide. “How can that be?”

  “I was born left-handed. I learned to use my right hand when I was at school but I didn’t forget how to use my left.”

  “So you will not abandon my painting?”

  “No…I will finish it when we get back to Munich. When I am happy with it, you may have it, if you like.”

  Eva’s eyes shone, and she beamed. “Naturally, yes, I would like it. I will give it to Herr Wolf to hang in his bedroom.” She giggled. “Do you think it might keep him awake?”

  “Quite possibly,” Rowland murmured, wondering what Herr Wolf’s wife would make of it. “But perhaps you shall find another gentleman to give it to…one who has more time for you.”

  “There is only Herr Wolf,” she said earnestly. “I live only for him. Surely you understand, Herr Negus.”

  Rowland shook his head. “No, I’m not sure I do.”

  “You are in love with Fräulein Greenway…I see the way you look at her…always.”

  Rowland was caught off guard.

  “She treats you like a brother,” Eva said. Her voice was sympathetic but firm, as if she were explaining something he had somehow missed. “And still, you look at her as if she is the world itself. Could you stop loving Fräulein Greenway, Herr Negus?”

  Rowland stopped. “Eva…”

  Eva pressed into him, her arm entwined in his and her head against his shoulder as she whispered. “You see, I understand, Herr Negus. We are both enslaved to a love which is greater than us, beyond our will. We have no choice, you and I, whatever anguish it causes us. However much we may wish we did not love, the fact is that we do.”

  Rowland faltered, unsure of quite what to say. Eva seemed determined to cast him as a fellow romantic martyr. As melodramatically as she put them, her accusations were not entirely untrue. He bit his lip, embarrassed. He had not realised his feelings for Edna were so obvious.

  “Have I offended you, Herr Negus?” Eva sounded frightened now. “I do not mean to. You have been so kind…I am too forward…improper. Herr Wolf has often said so.”

  “Damn!” Rowland’s eyes were focussed over her shoulder. A half dozen Brownshirts walked briskly towards them. Tensely, Rowland pulled Eva behind him with his good arm.

  The group slowed as it approached them. Rowland held off panic. It was not the same group from that morning. He held his ground. The troop leader stopped in front of them, studying them both openly. Eva clutched Rowland’s arm and gazed back defiantly. The Brownshirt nodded slowly and then silently moved on.

  They went back to the lakehouse after that, finding Edna standing on a stool while Richter modified the hem of her dress. “When you come back to Munich, I shall make you a gown,” Richter promised. “A woman as beautiful as you, Miss Greenway, should not be buttoned into such dowdy, unimaginative styles. Do you like feathers, my dear? I think I shall use feathers…and the neckline shall be low, for your décolletage is exquisite! And a train…it must have a train…perhaps even a bustle.”

  “He’s going to make her a chicken costume,” Clyde whispered, as he handed Rowland a drink.

  “Better her than us, old boy.”

  “Don’t you worry,” Clyde snorted. “If it looks as ridiculous as it sounds, Milt will want one too.”

  It was hard to know whether Edna was just being polite, or whether she really did like the idea of Richter’s feathered creation. Eva, too, seemed cheered by the talk of frocks and told Richter of her various carnival costumes. Of course, Rowland didn’t need to translate for Richter, who advised the young German woman of the fashions he predicted would prevail for the next year’s festival. As the afternoon became evening, the visiting tailor stood reluctantly, to return to Munich. He told them again how happy he was to be able to repay his debt of friendship to Peter Bothwell through his young relative, and promised to prepare great things for their arrival.

  After he’d gone they sat in the garden, enjoying the lake at sunset. When Eva retired, they talked of politics again, the SA and their intention to burn books to honour their Chancellor’s strange, uncompromising sense of morality.

  “They’re probably printing another edition of Das Kapital just so they have enough books to burn,” Milton said bitterly. “Bloody idiotic…Do they really think we’ll become good little fascists because we don’t have anything to read?”

  “I’d like to go back to Munich the day after tomorrow,” Rowland said tentatively. “I know we only just got here, but I’d like to see if we can’t find this journalist liaison of Bothwell’s before Blanshard and Campbell get back. What do you say?”

  Clyde shrugged. “I can’t paint anymore without blue anyway.”

  “Don’t be so traditional, Clyde,” Edna chided, smiling. “Hans would paint the lake and sky with red or yellow. You must let go of the rules.”

  “Hans?…Oh, von Eidelsöhn. He’s an idiot. I like the rules.”

  Edna poked him. “Hans is an artistic genius.”

  “Often goes together.”

  Milton laughed. “We’d better go then, Rowly, before you’re both forced to become Dadaists because you’ve run out of paint.”

  They spent the final day at the Starnberger See like holiday-makers. Eva managed to cajole Edna into going swimming with her. Milton had never learned to swim and both Rowland and Clyde flatly refused, preferring instead to watch and laugh as Edna shrieked in the icy water. Rowland tossed her a towel when she ran out blue and shivering, while Eva splashed and dived from the rocks. It was several minutes before Edna had warmed enough to talk.

  “That was horrible,” she stuttered. “Germans are utterly mad.”

  “Warned you,” Milton said smugly, offering her steaming tea from a large Bakelite thermos which Frau Engels had packed in the picnic basket.

  Edna pulled off her swimming cap, allowing her damp auburn tresses to fall loose before she grabbed the tea with both hands. “How can she not feel how cold the water is?” She glanced incredulously at Eva, who was stroking languidly to shore.

  “You were a good sport to go in with her, Ed,” Rowland murmured, as he lay back. “Completely daft, but a good sport.”

  Eva walked up to the picnic blanket, drying her hair with a towel. She laughed at Edna, and sat down. “Kalt?”

  “Sehr kalt,” Edna replied, the triumphant smile fading from her lips as Eva launched into a more complex sentence.

  “Eva thinks we should stay a few days longer,” Rowland said lazily. “She’s sure you’ll become accustomed to the temperature of the water soon.” He turned his head to respond in German. “I’m sorry, Fräulein, but we do need to get back.”

  Eva swallowed. “Life will be lonely and unbearable again.”

  Rowland didn’t translate. “It can’t be that bad, Eva.”

  “It is. In Munich, Herr Wolf is everywhere…I cannot stop thinking about him even for a moment.” She rubbed her neck, anxiously fingering the scar on her throat.

  Rowland propped himself up on one elbow. “What happened to your neck, Eva?” There was a strange public privacy to the fact that the others could not understand them.

  She stared at him mutely for a moment. “It got too much last year. I was so lonely, and I knew that loving him was evil and wrong, that God would not forgive me, but I could not help i
t. I was so desperate and tired…I took my father’s gun and shot myself.”

  Rowland sat up.

  Though Edna understood nothing of what had been said, the anguish in Eva’s voice and the horror on Rowland’s face were enough. She placed her arm around Eva’s shoulders.

  “Oh, Eva,” was all Rowland could manage.

  She smiled, though she was crying now. “I did not do it properly, you see, and they found me in time. And Herr Wolf was so kind, so concerned. He said he loved me.”

  Clyde and Milton had moved away discreetly now, leaving Rowland and Edna with the distraught girl.

  “Eva, if you are this unhappy, perhaps…”

  She shook her head vigorously. “I have no choice. He is everything to me. And yet I know I should not love him. I have given my soul to a monster and I will never have it back. Perhaps that is why I put the gun to my throat.”

  Rowland’s face darkened. Eva was immature, but her pain was real. He handed her his handkerchief.

  She wiped her face. “I am silly and selfish. Herr Wolf has other responsibilities. I am not the only one who loves him, who needs him.”

  Rowland shook his head, angry now. Adulterers were not uncommon, but how could this man carry on, knowing Eva was so emotionally fragile? It was indecent and cruel. She was only twenty-one, for pity’s sake. “I think perhaps you should introduce me to this Herr Wolf of yours,” he said finally.

  She looked at him, shocked. “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t understand…he would not approve.”

  “I hardly think he’s in any position to approve or not.”

  “But he is,” Eva said firmly. “He is. I am sorry. I did not mean to make you think badly of him. I am lucky for whatever time he can spare me.”

  Rowland glanced at Edna, wishing she could speak German or Eva, English. Eva needed to talk to a woman; she needed to talk to Edna.

  “Eva, you can’t—”

  “Enough!” Eva gave him back his sodden handkerchief. “I have spoiled our lovely day.” She smiled with determination. “We will speak of my silliness no more.” She stood and, committed now to proving all was well, plunged back into the water.

  Edna moved to sit beside Rowland. Quietly he told her what Eva had said, angry and frustrated by her refusal to be helped.

  Edna took his hand. “I’m so glad you invited her to come with us, Rowly,” she whispered as they watched Clyde help Eva up onto the rocks. “Perhaps the company of real men will make her see sense.”

  Rowland shook his head. “I doubt it, Ed. She seems almost obsessed with this fellow, Wolf. If I knew who he was, I’d deck the useless bastard.”

  “Oh, Rowly.” Edna ruffled his hair fondly. “I don’t think that would help. Eva’s only twenty-one, but she is twenty-one. She’s got to decide for herself.”

  Rowland’s jaw tensed. “She’s making rather a mess of it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  WEDDING

  “BARGAINS”

  Hitler Scheme Popular

  German registry offices presented on July 13 the appearance of shops besieged by bargain hunters on the opening day of the spring sales. And, in fact there were bargains going in plenty—no fewer than 300,000 of them. For July 15 was the last day of handing in applications for the Hitler marriage dowry.

  This scheme—by giving loans of 300 to 1,000 marks to German couples about to marry—aims at bringing the German woman back into what the Hitler Government considers her right place, the home, and back to her right job—the bearing of children, writes the ‘Daily Express’ Berlin correspondent. Long queues of excited young men and women were waiting from eight o’clock in the morning in the streets outside the registry offices, and the augmented staff were hardly able to cope with the bombardment of questions, the stacks of forms, and the number of instructions to put up the banns. The loan is given, not in cash, but in the form of certificates which will be accepted by furniture dealers and stores in payment for household requirements of different kinds and then cashed by the Government. It is to be repaid at the rate of 1 percent a month, but for every child born within the first eight years, a quarter of the loan will be remitted. Those couples who have four children will repay nothing at all. It is estimated that by the end of Hitler’s four-year-plan no fewer than a million situations will have been vacated by women and filled by men. The cost of the scheme—estimated at £5,000,000 a year—will be met by a tax on all bachelors.

  —The Central Queensland Herald, 1933

  After the morning’s revelations, they all paid particular and gentle attention to Eva, filling the hours with cards and music and dancing. Still, her gloom prevailed. Finally, Edna persuaded the unhappy girl to join her in taking photographs. After snapping the obligatory pictures of the lake, they had experimented with bizarre angles, climbing up on stools and on tables. For a while they lay on the floor, shooting Clyde upwards from his toes. The men learned to step over them, and Eva seemed to find solace or at least distraction through the lens.

  They departed for Munich after breakfast the following morning. Rowland had telephoned Alois Richter to warn him that they were returning earlier than expected. The tailor had seemed glad to hear it.

  Rowland’s unfinished painting was packed carefully into Richter’s Mercedes, along with Clyde’s landscapes. They thanked Frau Engels and, armed with a basket of her ginger cake, left for the city.

  They drove Eva home first.

  She said her good-byes cheerfully enough at first, but ran back to the car suddenly to grab Edna’s hands and speak to her in an outburst which was to the sculptress incomprehensible.

  “Fräulein Millicent, you must marry Herr Negus. He loves you and he is free to love you. It is the duty of women to marry and raise beautiful children—you must not neglect it.”

  Rowland stopped, alarmed by the extraordinary plea and glad that Edna could not understand a word of it. He did not translate. It was endearing that Eva would make such an appeal on his behalf, but it was all rather awkward.

  When she’d finally pulled away from Edna, Rowland walked Eva to her door. He decided to just pretend he’d not heard what she’d said. It seemed to him the path of least embarrassment to all concerned. Instead, he thanked her for her company and promised to finish her painting.

  “Will you want me to sit for you again?” she asked quietly, like a child who’d misbehaved and hoped to be forgiven.

  Rowland smiled, assuming she regretted her presumption in proposing for him. “I’ll find you at Hoffman’s,” he said, knowing that she was nervous about him calling at her home. “Herr Richter’s house is on the same street. Perhaps you could join us for dinner sometime.”

  The door to the apartment opened. A young woman with perfectly coiffed dark hair stood in the doorway. Her eyes were accusing and her arms folded reprovingly across her chest. Eva introduced her sister, Gretl. After a polite exchange, Rowland left them to it. As the door slammed shut he could hear the voices raised angrily behind it. He winced. Apparently Eva had some explaining to do.

  “What was that all about?” Milton asked, as Rowland climbed back into the car. “What on Earth was she babbling to Ed about?”

  Rowland shrugged. “Nothing sensible. Poor girl’s still rather distraught about this Wolf chap.”

  “Love will find its way through paths where wolves would fear to prey,” Milton replied sagely.

  Clyde groaned.

  “I’m afraid the old wolf in question has no problem preying on Eva,” Rowland muttered. “That was Byron, by the way.”

  Edna sighed. “Poor Eva. She’s too young to know what she’s doing.”

  “You’d think her parents would put a stop to it,” Clyde growled. “If any of my sisters had even smiled at a married man, my father would have had something to say about it, and my mother…Good Lord…” He shuddered.

  Rowland sm
iled. They had met Mrs. Watson Jones a couple of months earlier. Clyde was not being dramatic.

  “Perhaps her parents don’t know,” Milton suggested.

  “Her sister seems to,” Rowland said, recalling the resentful brunette who had greeted them at the door.

  “How desperately lonely she must have been to shoot herself in the neck,” Edna murmured, her hand moving unconsciously to her own throat.

  Rowland frowned. “I suspect it was more that she was overcome by guilt. She seems to know this affair is wrong, but she can’t bring herself to break it off.”

  “Bet she’s Catholic,” Milton snorted.

  Clyde agreed. “We are rather fond of guilt. It’s the bedrock of the church.”

  “She hasn’t actually broken off the affair,” Rowland reminded them.

  “Definitely Catholic, then,” Milton muttered.

  Richter had spared neither money nor effort to make them feel welcome. The bedrooms had been aired, every vase filled with fresh flowers and he had purchased tickets to operas, plays, and concerts. Each meal was laid on like a banquet and one of the rooms had been cleared and equipped with easels in case Clyde and Rowland should wish to paint. The Australians were quite overwhelmed by the generosity and consideration of Richter’s welcome.

  In Milton, the German tailor found a man who truly appreciated his unusual sense of style, and, though slighter in build, the poet was soon the beneficiary of several items which more closely resembled his preferred mode of dress than the conservative suits organised by the Old Guard.

  Richter had already begun work on the gown he’d promised Edna, and to Rowland’s surprise it was indeed beautiful. An ivory chiffon creation, its hem was lined with soft ostrich plumes and just skimmed the ground. It would be the kind of dress that required a grand occasion.

  Edna was speechless, quite moved by Richter’s gesture, but he would not allow her to thank him. “My daughter would have been your age if she had not died. I think she would have been as beautiful as you. You must indulge me, for I was never able to make a gown for Helena.”