The Moonlit Garden

by Bomann, Corina

  “Same here.”

  The door of the room stood open, and as they entered they saw a nurse bending over her mother’s arm, taking a blood sample.

  “Wait a moment,” she said as she saw the visitors. “Are you Jennifer Nicklaus’s daughters?”

  “I’m her daughter, and this is my friend Ellen,” Lilly said.

  “That’s fine. You can come in now; I’ve finished.”

  She patted her patient’s arm a final time and drew out the needle.

  “Lilly, darling.” Her mother held out her arms for a hug. The hospital bed made her look fragile, but despite all the tubes she seemed much better. “It’s lovely to see you. And you’ve brought Ellen!”

  Ellen smiled, then offered her hand. “I’m pleased to see you’re getting better, Mrs. Nicklaus. When Lilly called to tell me you were in the hospital, I was shocked, I can tell you.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine. It was only appendicitis. Lilly must have made it out to be worse than it was.”

  “People only go to the hospital when it’s bad, Mama,” Lilly said defensively.

  “It’s nothing to worry about. Appendicitis isn’t dangerous these days.” She turned back to Ellen. “You look really grown up now, if I may say so. The last time I saw you, you’d just turned twenty, and you’d met that nice young man. Dean, isn’t it?”

  Ellen gave her a big smile. “That’s right, Dean.”

  “How long have you been married now? It must be almost twenty years.”

  “Fifteen years,” Ellen corrected her. “We lived in sin the rest of the time.”

  “It’s half an age, anyway. Marriages that last that long are all too rare these days. But I’m sure you haven’t come here to listen to me rambling about the state of marriage today. What’s on your mind, Lilly? The fact that you’ve brought Ellen suggests that it must be something important. You always have her with you when you want to tell me something important.”

  Lilly smiled, a little embarrassed, but it was true. If ever she didn’t trust herself to own up to her mother, she had taken Ellen along for moral support.

  “I wanted to show you a video. That’s the real reason I came to Hamburg.”

  “Not to see your old mother? You’ve hurt my feelings.”

  “But, Mama—”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I was only pulling your leg. Show me, then!”

  Lilly got out the laptop and booted it up.

  “A few weeks ago a man came into my shop and gave me something,” Lilly explained briefly.

  “What was that?”

  “A violin. He said it belonged to me. But he didn’t tell me why, what his name was, how he came to that conclusion, or anything. I wanted to ask you if you recognized him. Of course it could have been someone from Peter’s family, but I only want to go down that road if you’re sure you don’t know him.”

  She started the video. There was no sound, but the man could clearly be seen as could she. At the point where the old man gave Lilly the violin, her mother suddenly turned pale.

  When Lilly noticed, she quickly stopped the video. “Are you OK, Mama? Is something up?”

  “No, no,” she replied, sounding a little bewildered. “I’m fine. It’s just . . . ” She fell silent.

  Lilly looked helplessly at Ellen, toying with the idea of ringing for the nurse, but her mother roused herself from her paralysis. As she looked at them, it seemed as though she had returned from a trip far back down memory lane.

  “I do know that man,” her mother said after a long pause.

  “Are you sure? Do you want to see the clip again?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, I don’t think that’s necessary. I met him many years ago, when you were still a little girl. He was much younger then, as I was.”

  “So how did he get the idea that the violin belongs to me?”

  “I can’t tell you, since I sent him away back then. But he gave me his name and his address.”

  “You sent him away?” Lilly looked at Ellen in confusion, but she clearly had no more idea herself.

  “Yes, I sent him away. I didn’t want to know about it. How could the violin have done me any good? I had a husband and a daughter, and I was afraid of finding something out that could shake my world to the core. Sometimes it’s better to let ghosts rest in peace.”

  Was that really true? Lilly wondered. If so, then it was too late for her, as the ghosts had already been set free, and she already knew the secrets of some of them. What else was she about to discover?

  “Do you remember the address?” Ellen asked.

  Lilly’s mother nodded. “Even though I didn’t want to accept what the man was offering me, I never forgot his name.”

  32

  The thatched house in a suburb of Hamburg was in need of renovation, and at first sight it gave the impression that the owner was not at home. Sprays of forsythia by the wall bloomed in bright yellow magnificence, and in the front garden snowdrops nodded their heads, and purple crocuses peered cheekily out from among the thin grass.

  Lilly opened the garden gate a little hesitantly, but she hardly dared to step onto the flagstone path.

  “What if he isn’t in?” she asked.

  “Then we’ll come back another time,” Ellen replied. “Come on now. You want to know whether it’s him, don’t you?”

  As they walked up the path, Lilly saw a magnolia tree in full bloom in the backyard. The pale pink flowers were also part of the Berlin landscape, but they had a special meaning for her now. Magnolias also grew on Sumatra . . .

  On the front door hung a weathered blue-and-white wreath. Lilly pressed the bell, her heart thumping, and felt for Ellen’s hand. She squeezed it briefly and gave Lilly an encouraging nod. It felt like an eternity before anything happened. At last they heard footsteps. Ellen let go Lilly’s hand as if to tell her, This is up to you, and you can do it.

  The door opened and Lilly was in no doubt that this was the man who had brought her the violin. His surprise lasted for only a moment.

  “Mrs. Kaiser!”

  “Mr. Hinrichs? My mother gave me your address.”

  A smile flickered across the man’s face.

  “I wondered when you’d turn up here,” he said and stepped aside. “Do come in.”

  “This is my friend Ellen Morris. She’s been helping me to reconstruct the history of the violin.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you. Morris sounds English. Is that where you’re from?”

  “My husband’s English. I’m from Hamburg myself.”

  “So you know something about violins?”

  Ellen grinned. “A little.”

  “Come in to the best room.”

  Karl Hinrichs’s house looked like a set from a historical seafaring movie. The blue-painted walls with white skirtings were hung with oil paintings of old ships, and shelves contained various ships in bottles and ancient measuring equipment. The grandfather clock by the window, which Lilly estimated to be at least one hundred and fifty years old, ticked away leisurely. When the pendulum swung to the left, it was caught by a ray of sunlight that made it shine momentarily.

  “You must want to know how I came by the violin,” he said after leading them to a living room set that, like much in the house, must have been at least fifty years old.

  “I’m even more interested in why you think I should have the violin,” Lilly replied. “And why you shot off so quickly without explaining anything.”

  “Well, it’s a long story.” An enigmatic smile creased his weather-beaten face. “What about a cup of tea? I’ve just made a fresh pot, and you have to admit that it’s a great accompaniment to any conversation.”

  “Yes, please,” Lilly said after an affirmative nod from Ellen.

  The old man disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Lilly and Ellen to look at their surroundings. Lilly was really glad her friend was with her. This is the last piece of the jigsaw, she thought.

  After a few minutes Hinrichs returned wi
th the tea. The white porcelain cups reminded Lilly of a tea service her parents-in-law used to own.

  “I was a fresh-faced young sailor when I signed up on a merchant ship sailing the Indian Ocean to avoid conscription,” he began after pouring the tea. “In 1945, shortly before the German capitulation, there was a Japanese attack on a passenger steamer heading for Sumatra. We hurried to their aid but could only watch as the ship sank. Among the few who were saved were two children, two girls, one of them nine years old, the other only two. The older one was holding on to a violin case.”

  Lilly felt her hands go cold.

  “They said their mother and father had been with them on the ship, but even after an extended search, their parents were never found. Their family name was Rodenbach, though their mother was also known by her stage name, Helen Carter, and the two girls were called Miriam and Jennifer.”

  Lilly looked at Ellen, who seemed to be able to guess what she wanted to say. They both stayed silent and let the old man continue.

  “The two girls were taken in by a Christian mission. I kept the violin, intending to give it back to them, but they vanished before I got a chance. I couldn’t rest, so I did some research and found that, after the end of the war, the girls had been brought to Germany.

  “Little Jennifer went to the Paulsen family in Hamburg, and Miriam to a family called Pauly.”

  “That’s impossible!” said Ellen, who had turned as white as chalk.

  “It’s true,” the old man replied with a smile. “After adoption, Jennifer and Miriam Rodenbach became Jennifer Paulsen and Miriam Pauly.”

  Lilly and Ellen looked at one another in amazement. Miriam Pauly. Lilly had not heard that name for a long time. She had never really associated it with a person, but she knew the name, even though it was that of a ghost. A ghost who was inseparably bound up with her best friend, Ellen.

  She glanced at Ellen, whose gleaming eyes betrayed her emotion. She had many more associations with the name of Pauly. After all, it was her maiden name, since her foster parents had not adopted her. And Miriam . . . Miriam was her mother—her mother who had died in an accident so long ago. Miriam Pauly and Jennifer Paulsen.

  The next moment it struck Lilly like an arrow. If her mother and Ellen’s were sisters, then they were . . . cousins! And descendants of Rose and Helen! It couldn’t be true.

  “A long time ago I tried to find Miriam to give her the violin, which had been lying in my mother’s house for many years,” Hinrichs continued. “I have no idea why the girl hadn’t taken it with her. But in Germany I discovered that Miriam had been killed in an accident a short time before. So I turned my attention to the second girl, Jennifer, who was also married by then. I told her about her sister, which surprised her. She sent me away, swearing up and down that she didn’t have a sister and it was all a mistake. And no wonder, since she was only two when the shipwreck happened, and her adoptive parents had obviously never told her about her sister. I wrote her a letter and tried to tell her all I knew, but I never received a reply. I knew that I was never going to get anywhere with her. I was about to give up once and for all when I found that sheet of music in the lining. And that made me decide to try again—with you, Mrs. Kaiser.”

  Silence followed his words. Each of them appeared to be sunk in their own thoughts.

  “Will you please tell me one more thing,” Lilly began eventually. “Why did you disappear after bringing me the violin? You could have told me the whole story there and then!”

  The man took a drink of tea, then smiled mischievously.

  “People learn from experience,” he said. “I didn’t want to hold on to the violin any longer, and I didn’t want you to give it back to me after I’d gone to so much trouble to find you. So I ran for it. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  Not wanting to go straight home after their conversation with Hinrichs, Lilly and Ellen walked for a while along the banks of the Alster. They were silent at first; then Lilly ventured, “Why do you think our mothers were never in contact with each other?”

  “Jennifer, your mother, was very young at the time. She probably didn’t remember that she had a sister. And Miriam . . . ” Ellen frowned. She bit her bottom lip for a moment, then said, “Perhaps she did try to make contact with her sister.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Your mother and mine were adopted, weren’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps our adoptive grandmothers tried to prevent any contact between them.”

  “What makes you think that? My mother was only two; she wouldn’t have remembered having a sister,” Lilly said.

  “But my mother must have remembered. I wonder if she ever tried to find her sister.”

  “Who knows what her adoptive parents told her. It would have been impossible for a child to look for her sister. The authorities wouldn’t have released any information to her.” Lilly shrugged helplessly. “The best thing would be for us to go back to see my mother tomorrow and ask her. If anyone can answer this final question for us, she’s the one.”

  The next day, Lilly sat by her mother’s hospital bedside, trying to tell the story as calmly as possible, although the questions were boiling inside her. She still could not believe that she and Ellen were cousins.

  Lilly’s mother folded her hands on the sheet and listened in silence as Lilly and Ellen took turns sketching out the story of the two unfortunate musicians. When they had finished, silence hung over them for several long minutes, each of them lost in her own thoughts. Lilly looked at her mother’s familiar face. She had never known her whole story before. Would she reject this story as she had the violin?

  “Did my mother, your sister, ever try to make contact with you?” Ellen said, finally breaking the silence.

  Lilly’s mother sighed and remained silent for a few more moments.

  “Yes, she did,” she replied eventually. “Lilly, when you get home, look in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers in my bedroom. There’s a letter right at the back. Show it to Ellen, would you?”

  Lilly nodded and glanced at Ellen, who was tensely gnawing her bottom lip.

  “Ever since I was very little, I had a certain memory,” her mother continued, her gaze fixed on an empty spot on the opposite wall. “We were on a ship, and my parents and sister were with me. I didn’t remember anything else. I was far too little. It was like a photo I carried around with me, a single snapshot. I don’t remember anything of the attack itself, or anything that followed. Only that I once had a family—father, mother, sister.” She paused briefly before continuing. “Over time I came to believe that my family had been killed. Or that I had merely imagined them. And then one day this old man appeared, claiming that I had a sister. I sent him away because I believed he was crazy. And then I did some research of my own. I’ve never forgotten the words of the letter I received as a result. It was dated August 14, 1973, and it was from the registrar, informing me that I was adopted—and that in fact I had had a sister, who had been put into the care of another foster family.”

  Lilly saw that Ellen had tears in her eyes.

  “My mother died in an accident on February 22, 1973. The road was icy. She skidded and crashed into a tree. My foster parents didn’t tell me until I was sixteen. Apart from that, they had never made a secret of the fact that I’d had another mother.”

  “My parents never told me anything about my background,” Jennifer said. “I confronted them with the letter, which led to a falling-out and us not speaking for over two years. I continued my research, and the outcome was sobering. I was told that Miriam Pauly had died in an accident. I traced her grave and discovered that her little son was buried with her. Since she wasn’t married, I assumed there was no other family. The people who adopted Miriam were no longer alive. Because I believed there was no one else left in my family whom I could ask, I let the matter lie and never told anyone about it. If I’d known that you were my niece . . . ”

  “My mother couldn’t t
ell me that I had an aunt,” Ellen said. “The youth welfare office knew nothing about it and simply put me in the care of foster parents.”

  “No one could have known, Mama,” Lilly said, laying her hand on her mother’s arm. Growing up with Ellen would have been wonderful, but no one sitting around that bed could have done anything to change the situation.

  “I should have looked up this Karl Hinrichs and told him he was right, but I could never bring myself to do it. Although I didn’t know my sister, I grieved for her. Then I looked at you and told myself that, despite everything that had happened, my life hadn’t been in vain. And now, thanks to the two of you, I know the whole story.”

  33

  The call reached Lilly as she was leaving the hospital and on her way to the train. Ellen’s time in Hamburg was unfortunately coming to an end. She was due to leave the following afternoon, to return to Dean and her girls and tell them that their Aunt Lilly really was related to them—a cousin once removed, strictly speaking, but a family member all the same.

  “So, how’s Hamburg?” Gabriel’s voice.

  A smile came to Lilly’s face. “Fine, thanks. And London?”

  “How’s your mother?”

  After returning from their visit to Karl Hinrichs, she had sent Gabriel a long e-mail in which she told him the story of herself, Ellen, and the violin.

  “She’s getting better—even well enough to be making jokes. If all goes well, she’ll be coming out the day after tomorrow. My father’s beside himself. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “I can understand it. I’d be similarly shocked myself.”

  Lilly smiled to herself. It did her good to feel the love growing ever greater in her heart, like a plant sending out shoots and buds. And it was good to know Gabriel felt the same.

  “When will I see you again?” he asked after a comfortable pause.

  “I’d love to say I was flying over to London this minute, but I have to see to the shop first. I can’t keep Sunny there for much longer; she’s already done so much for me.”