The Moonlit Garden

by Bomann, Corina

  “Perhaps we’ll enjoy it so much we’ll want to do it again.”

  “It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “It’s possible.” Gabriel looked at her intently, then leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Good night, Lilly.”

  “Good night, Gabriel. Safe journey home.”

  “No worries. I don’t want to miss that dinner.” He went over to his car and climbed in with a wave.

  19

  Padang, 1910

  Helen loved to hide. When she sat beneath the bushes behind the house, certain that no one could find her, she would tell herself the wildest stories—stories of princes and rajahs, of demons and wonderful princesses. Sometimes she would hide from her mother, sometimes also from Miss Hadeland, her Dutch music teacher.

  “Helen!” came her mother’s voice from the house, but the girl ignored her.

  She ran farther around the house, toward the garden gate, where the thick shrubbery hid the garden from the street. There was a particular spot where the branches had formed a kind of sheltering dome, which was a wonderful hiding place for Helen.

  Normally she was alone when she came here—until her mother found her—but this time she saw outside the garden gate a tall, dark-haired lady wearing a pretty, dark blue dress. She was looking expectantly along the path, as if waiting for someone. She had clearly not yet seen Helen. The girl thought for a moment. Should she speak to the lady? Her mother didn’t like her to talk to strangers, but did that apply to someone who looked perfectly harmless? She finally plucked up courage and came out from behind the high stone gateposts.

  “Hello,” she said to the lady, who stepped back in surprise, looking at Helen with wide eyes. Since when had a small girl been able to frighten a grown woman?

  “Who are you, then?” Helen asked, and smiled in the hope that the stranger would look a little less scared.

  “I . . . ” the lady began, still looking rather afraid.

  “You must have a name,” Helen insisted, wondering whether or not to ask the lady in. The cook would by now have prepared the scones they always had for afternoon tea. Served with cream, they were simply delicious, and this lady would be sure to like them.

  “Yes, I have a name,” the lady said, a little more confidently. She crouched down in front of Helen, who now saw that there were tears in her eyes.

  “Why are you crying?” she asked, reaching out her hand to the lady. How pretty she was! She had never seen such a beautiful lady. Even her mama wasn’t as beautiful as this.

  “I’m crying because I’m so happy to see you,” the lady said. She closed her eyes as the girl touched her cheek. Helen felt the lady begin to tremble. A tear ran over her fingertips.

  “But you shouldn’t be crying if you’re happy.” Helen withdrew her hand and stared in amazement at the tears that looked like dewdrops.

  “Sometimes people cry when they’re happy, too,” the lady replied. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed it beneath her eyes. Then she gazed at Helen wistfully for a while.

  “You have a wonderful garden here,” she said then, pointing over Helen’s shoulder. “Do you know what all those flowers are called?”

  Helen shook her head. “No, not all of them. But I know what roses are, and fangi . . . fragi . . . ”

  “Frangipani,” the lady suggested helpfully.

  “Yes, that’s it—frangi . . . pani.” If Helen spoke slowly, she could master the word. “And orchids and jasmine.”

  The lady laughed briefly. “You do know a lot of flowers! The most important ones, I’d say.”

  “But we have lots more,” Helen replied. “Would you like to see them?”

  “Later, perhaps.”

  The lady jumped as she heard Helen’s mother calling.

  “I think I ought to go now,” she said and tucked the handkerchief back into her sleeve. Her voice sounded suddenly softer, as if she meant to whisper.

  “Will you come to visit me again?” Helen asked, listening to her mother approaching.

  “Yes, I’ll visit you,” the stranger promised. “But please don’t tell your mother. She mustn’t know I was here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a secret.”

  “A secret?”

  “Yes, a secret. And if you keep it to yourself, I’ll bring you something lovely next time.”

  “What?” Helen asked, but the lady glanced over her shoulder and saw Helen’s mother striding toward the gate.

  “You’ll see. I’ll be back soon.” With that she turned and hurried away.

  A moment later her mother appeared behind her. “Helen, there you are! I’ve been calling you all this time!”

  Helen knew, but she could hardly tell her mother that she had not wanted to answer.

  “Who was that woman you were talking to?” Helen’s mother asked as she craned her neck in an attempt to see her. But the lady had already disappeared.

  “I don’t know,” Helen answered, sensing that she shouldn’t tell her mother any more if she wanted to find out what the present was that the lady would bring her.

  “What did she want from you?”

  Helen bit her bottom lip. What should she say? She wouldn’t dream of lying to her mother, but she mustn’t betray that pretty, mysterious lady, who might be a princess or a good fairy.

  “She said that we have a beautiful garden.”

  It seemed the right thing to say, since the lady had indeed praised the garden. Helen’s mother smiled and swung her up into her arms.

  “Ah well, I hope you were polite enough to thank her.”

  Helen nodded again. “Yes, I did, and I also asked if she wanted to come in, but she didn’t. Then she said good-bye.”

  Ivy Carter pressed a kiss to her daughter’s brow as the worry lines between her eyebrows deepened, which always made her look thoughtful or cross.

  “Have I done something wrong?” asked Helen, who knew this expression only too well. It was the same one her mother wore when Helen had been naughty.

  “No, you’ve done nothing wrong, my darling,” her mother replied. “It was very polite of you to ask her in, but you should always tell me first. You never can tell what people are like.”

  “But she was really friendly!” Helen said with raised eyebrows.

  Her mother sighed and looked sad for a moment.

  “Very well. Now come in. The scones are ready, and I’m sure you’re dying to try one.”

  Helen nodded eagerly and skipped behind her mother into the house.

  That night, Helen lay awake for a long time, watching the shadows play on her bedroom ceiling. The outlines of the windows and the trees swaying in the wind from the sea used to seem eerie to her, but now she knew they were only trees, not demons.

  That discovery had left her a little disappointed, as she loved fairy tales. She had especially liked the shadow puppet play that her father had taken her to recently. Together with her friend Antje Zwaneweg she had talked for days about the beautiful, sometimes creepy puppets that had moved so wonderfully behind the illuminated screen.

  From then on, when she looked at the shadows on her bedroom ceiling, which had previously scared her deliciously, she knew that the trees really were only trees. And the shadows flitting by were night birds out looking for food.

  But now she had a real secret! Would the mystery lady come back tomorrow? She had said “soon,” but Helen knew that wasn’t a precise time. When she told her mother she would have her room tidy soon, it usually took at least a day or two before she had finished. How long would it be until the mystery lady returned?

  The next morning, sitting with her mother in the classroom, where she was supposed to be practicing her letters, all Helen could think about was when the mystery lady would come. She was afraid that she might appear by the fence when Helen was not there. If she did, maybe she would think Helen didn’t want to keep her promise.

  She felt like running outside that very moment and looking for her, but s
he knew her mother would not allow her out until she had finished her rows of letters.

  “Helen, are you listening to me?”

  The girl jumped. She had heard her mother saying something, but she had taken no notice of the words.

  “Helen, what’s the matter with you today?” her mother asked with concern, setting her book to one side. “Your thoughts are miles away.”

  Ashamed, Helen looked down at the desk in front of her. What should she say? She didn’t enjoy her lessons with Miss Hadeland, but she liked learning with her mother, because she had promised Helen that one day she would send her to a really nice school, one where she could read lots of books and play music.

  Getting no reply from Helen, her mother came over to her, crouched in front of her, and gently stroked a lock of hair from her face.

  “Are you tired, darling? Did you sleep badly?”

  Helen found it simplest to nod, although in fact she hadn’t slept much. But she couldn’t, no, she shouldn’t admit that she was so absentminded because she could only think about when the lady would appear with her present. If only she had named a day and a time!

  For now, her mother let it be and continued with the lesson, but without demanding too much participation from her daughter. Helen knew, however, that things couldn’t carry on for much longer like this. How could she distract herself from thoughts of the beautiful mystery lady?

  During the days that followed, Helen would run down to the gate whenever her mother was not there, to keep an eye out for her mysterious visitor. Of course she was not alone in the house—there were the cook and the maid, but when the mistress of the house was away, they just sat together in the kitchen, chatting over a cup of tea.

  Helen was all the more pleased now that no one was interested in her and they all assumed she was up in her room doing her homework like a good girl.

  Thoughts of the mystery lady and her promised gift filled Helen’s mind from the moment she opened her eyes in the morning. At breakfast she toyed listlessly with her porridge, and she was unable to concentrate during her lessons. Her gaze wandered again and again to the window, and her thoughts kept turning to the gift the lady wanted to give her. What would it be? A bracelet? A bouquet of flowers? No, there was no need to make a great secret of either of those. Perhaps it was a wooden box containing a precious jewel? Or something much more exciting, like a book of spells or a talking doll?

  As she stood at the gate and waited, she went through all the things she knew of, and as she ran out of familiar items, she invented new ones.

  She never allowed herself to be disheartened by the idea that she was waiting in vain. When her mother fetched her from the gate with a look of bemusement and asked her why she was standing there, she quickly thought of a suitable answer before saying she’d be back there the next day.

  One day she had a music lesson with Miss Hadeland. Helen called her Miss, even though she was Dutch, as she found it difficult to get her tongue around the Dutch word for Miss. Miss Hadeland didn’t seem to mind, so long as Helen practiced the piano regularly.

  Recently Miss Hadeland had become a little dissatisfied with her. Once, Helen had overheard her saying to her mother: “She doesn’t seem to be making any progress. The child plays, but she doesn’t seem to be enjoying it.”

  “That may well be the case,” her mother had replied. “Would it be an idea for her to try playing a different instrument?”

  “The piano is one of the easiest instruments to master, especially for women! If she can’t master that, how can she be expected to learn another instrument?”

  “Give her a little time; she’s only seven. Her hands are still growing. She’ll get more dexterous as she gets older.”

  “Mozart could play whole sonatas when he was only six!”

  “Our Helen is no child prodigy, and nor should she be! I only want her to have a good ear for music and to get pleasure from playing. Be a little more lenient with her.”

  But Miss Hadeland was not lenient with her. As if possessed with the idea of making a child prodigy out of her, like Mozart, whose compositions Helen had to play, she urged her pupil ever onward. She often rapped her knuckles, once so badly that Helen ran to her mother in tears.

  Her mother had given the teacher a piece of her mind, and since then the blows had not been so hard or so frequent, but the words she used to plague Helen made up for it.

  So it was on that special day.

  “Even a camel walking over the keyboard wouldn’t sound as clumsy as your fingers!” she shouted, pacing up and down in front of Helen with clicking heels. “It hurts my ears to have to listen to it. Come on, play that passage again!”

  Helen, who had already had enough of playing the passage and who was by now thoroughly nervous, put her hands to the keys and began to play the hated passage again. She thought that this time it was better than before.

  Then it happened. The switch whipped across her fingers before Helen saw it coming. She withdrew her hand in shock, and a dreadful discord filled the room.

  This time she’d had enough! She jumped up, stamped her foot, and cried out, “I’m not playing anymore!”

  Before Miss Hadeland’s anger could reach her, she ran out. Panic caused her heart to thunder in her breast. With one ear she listened behind her, assuming the piano teacher would follow her. She heard nothing, but perhaps it would take Miss Hadeland a moment to get over the surprise.

  Full of rage and a little fear, Helen ran back to the bushes where she waited every day for the lady. At that moment she was not thinking of her but rather was wishing every disease under the sun on her piano teacher. The bubonic plague Antje had told her about came to mind.

  As she reached the bush with its colorful flowers, Helen came to a sudden standstill.

  The mystery lady had appeared like a ghost before her. She stood by the gatepost, as still as if she had been turned to stone by a magic spell. When she saw Helen, a smile crossed her face.

  “You’re here again,” she said softly.

  Helen suddenly forgot the pain in her hand. All these days she had been waiting and now, on a day when Miss Hadeland had been so stupid, this lady had appeared like a good fairy, as if to comfort her after what had happened. Helen moved closer to the gate. The lady stretched out her hand, which felt pleasantly cool against the angry flush on her cheeks. It was then that Helen saw she was holding a long case in her other hand.

  “I’ve been here every day, hoping you’d come back,” Helen said, managing with difficulty to keep back her tears of joy.

  “I’m sorry I made you wait. I . . . I haven’t been too well,” she replied. “And there was something I had to do. But I’m here now, and I’ve brought you your present.”

  The lady pushed the black case between the railings of the gate.

  “What’s in it?” the girl asked in fascination.

  “Something very special. A violin.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. “A violin? For me?”

  “Yes. If you want it, it’s your violin. If you take it, you should learn to play it. I’ve heard you’re learning to play the piano.”

  “How do you know that?” the girl asked. The lady smiled gently.

  “I know a lot about you, Helen. And that’s why I’m giving you the violin. It used to be mine, but I can’t play anymore.”

  “Why not? Have you forgotten how to do it?”

  Helen may not have particularly liked her music lessons, but she could never have forgotten the movements Miss Hadeland had drummed into her.

  “No, there’s another reason.” The lady looked at the girl briefly before asking, “You have a strong heart, don’t you?”

  “Of course I have,” Helen said, although she didn’t really know how the strength of a heart was measured. If it was a matter of how fast it could beat, at that moment she had the strongest heart in the world.

  “Good. Then you’ll be able to play the violin for a very long time.”

  “But how wil
l I learn how to play it? Can you show me?”

  “What’s wrong with the woman who teaches you piano?”

  “She doesn’t like the violin,” Helen replied. “I don’t even know whether she can play one. All she does is tinkle away on our piano and hit me with a stick on my fingers when I make mistakes.”

  “She hits you?” the lady asked in shock.

  “Only when I do something wrong. I don’t do that often.”

  The lady pressed her lips together, then reached through the gate for the girl’s hand and looked at the welts. Then she stroked the back of her hand gently. Again it looked as though tears were gleaming in her eyes.

  “She has no right to hit you! You’d better tell your mother if it happens again. She can scold you when you do something wrong, but she should never hit you.”

  “Oh, it’s not so bad,” Helen said, trying to reassure the mystery lady, who she sensed really cared about her. “It’s a bit of a nuisance, but I can still play. And in my head I call her a silly cow.”

  The lady laughed briefly—or was it a sob? Helen couldn’t quite tell.

  “Anyway, I’ve told Mama, and she had a word with her. And today I simply ran away.”

  “Take good care of your hands, won’t you?” the lady said now, still holding Helen’s hand firmly. “And please will you promise me something?”

  Helen nodded eagerly. For a gift like this she would have promised almost anything, especially to this lady.

  “Promise me that one day you’ll become a truly wonderful musician. A violinist, all right? Provided you come to grips with the instrument.”

  “I promise,” Helen replied, but then she realized it was a bit rash. “But first I have to learn to play it.”

  The lady looked past her, toward the house. Was someone coming? Helen looked around, too, and saw nothing.

  “I can teach you a little about how to play it. But we need a place where we can’t be seen by people on the street or by your mother or your music teacher. I’ll show you how to hold it and sing you the notes the instrument would make. Do you think you can learn in that way?”

  “But how should I practice?” Helen asked in amazement, since she’d never heard of that way of practicing before.