by Tessa de Loo
While Grandfather Tak took root between the apple trees and the tobacco plants and dreamed of his dead wife, beneath her photograph pinned up on the wall with a rusty drawing-pin, his daughter and granddaughter were adrift. After rambling from address to address the latter had joined her fiancé, who was in hiding somewhere in the Beemster, and the former arrived in a provocative tailor-made suit one summer evening – from no one knew where – looking for her father. Lotte’s mother smelled trouble instantly. Her husband was defenceless from the first glance. He yielded to Mrs Bohjul’s request to be allowed to stay, no match for the transparent tempting manoeuvres, of which a pouting mouth painted red was the strongest card. She was given a bed in Jet and Lotte’s room. From then on they slept in an atmosphere saturated with cigarette smoke and exotic perfumes. More and different dresses with low-cut décolletés kept being draped around on the beds and chairs, more and different necklaces were conjured out of a jewel case inlaid with mother-of-pearl. If she was deprived of attention she collapsed; she flourished on admiration – everyone was exhausted from having to provide her with more of what she needed for peace and quiet. No one type of pastime could occupy her for longer than five minutes. She walked back and forth like a caged panther; the click of her nail scissors disturbed the others reading, playing cards, doing crossword puzzles. It was unbelievable that she was the daughter of the man in the orchard, who smoked his pipe in meditative tranquillity and grew cress in a narrow strip along the sagging terrace.
In the evenings when the horsehair curtains had been closed they all came downstairs to eat at two long tables. Lotte’s mother did her best within the restrictions to put kosher meals on the table. Afterwards Max Frinkel sometimes played a virtuosic piece by Paganini; his son took revenge with a melting gypsy song. Flora Bohjul sang a popular American song, exaggeratedly jazzy. Finally all eyes turned to Lotte, as usual, who bit her lip and shook her head. To compensate, Mrs Meyer recited a poem. The favourite was an iambic elegy about a mother who had to sell everything she possessed in order to fill stomachs. The only thing left to pawn was the youngest daughter’s doll, which she had with her day and night. The children were crazy about this drama, the adults hoped it would not prove prophetic.
They listened to Radio Orange and the BBC. Since May, when all radio sets had had to be handed in, they managed with a receiver improvised by Lotte’s father without external casing but with very sharp reception. They could hear the Queen breathing during her broadcasts in London. There was a constant hunger for reliable information. Illegal newspapers and pamphlets went from hand to hand, someone read a bit out of an article now and then. ‘What’s this …’ said Koen in amazement, ‘listen …’ Without thinking he read out a piece from Het Parool that mentioned the existence of gas chambers where ‘captive opponents’ were driven inside naked and gassed under the impression that they were entering a bathroom. The capacity of those gas chambers would soon be increased from two hundred to a thousand persons. Mrs Meyer burst out in desperate sobbing; Ruben leaned over her and squeezed her hands fiercely in a clumsy attempt to comfort her. Lotte’s mother cast a devastating look at Koen, who slowly realized what he had done. The news was immediately made light of. Of course it was no more than a sensational story from the overactive journalists’ distorted fantasies. Bram Frinkel threw his napkin on the table and went to the door, his head lowered between his shoulders. With the handle in his hand he turned round and said to Koen with a grin, ‘Perhaps you’ll want to be the chosen people for the next two thousand years.’
6
The beneficial effects of the peat treatments, carbonated baths and underwater massages were gradually becoming apparent. During the first week of the cure guests usually had to struggle with an unfathomable weariness bordering on depression, caused by the release of obstructions in the joints and poisonous materials stored up in the adipose tissues. For the two sisters there were, in addition, the toxins released during their talks, alongside the obstructions in their relationship and their memories, which were being put to severe test. But usually a turning point was reached half-way through the treatment. As each movement was no longer plagued by pain, patients moved more easily, the blood flowed more freely, breathing became deeper. Anna and Lotte experienced some of this effect too. They were both reviving physically; only their spirits were lagging behind, but then they were undergoing a quite different cure, the therapeutic effect of which was much less certain. They went out of the Thermal Institute after a morning of intensive bathing; before commencing the risky descent of the steps, they looked at the sky, which was sheer blue over the green dome of the Heures Claires hotel. The snow had melted to a grey slush. The two stone female figures that had been guarding the entrance to the Institute since its construction in 1864 – one with a staff in her hand and a fish at her feet, the other with a small harp and a fallen pitcher at her feet, with water flowing out of it – jumped off their plinths, dawdled nimbly down the steps and crossed the road to the Place Royale. They stood with amusement next to a fin-de-siècle-style square kiosk. One raised her staff and pointed it at one of the four sides, on which was written:
Quand il est midi à Spa il est:
13 heures à Berlin, Rome, Kinshasa
14 heures à Moscou, Ankara, Lumumbashi
15 heures à Bagdad
19 heures à Singapore
7 heures à New York
The other played a few chords on her harp and sang in a hoarse voice, ‘… the mystery of simultaneity, when one lunches in Rome, one dines in Singapore … while bombs rain on Berlin, breakfast is being prepared in New York …’ The words became soap bubbles that drifted over the Place Royale. Spring water flowed out of the pitcher, or was it melted water? – it flowed away over the Rue Royale and Avenue Reine Astrid. Lotte and Anna took each other’s arm as they crossed the wet road, the water lapping inside their shoes. They passed a simple restaurant and decided to go in – when one breakfasted in New York one lunched in Spa.
Martin’s company had been recalled from Russia to construct the air defences round Berlin. From then on he spent the weekends with Anna – something like married life was under way at last. She watched out longingly for the first signs of pregnancy. In early autumn she had had an operation; it now remained to be seen whether they had succeeded in correcting the damage done at an earlier stage by hauling muck carts and pig feed. A child seemed the only thing, the most important thing she had been missing up to now. She herself would be born again with the birth of a child; the youth of her child would cleanse away her own youth. Her child would lack nothing. A child would also replace her lost sister. A child would reconcile her with everything that had gone wrong.
There was an extensive lake in the wood. On the banks were rowing boats in bright Viking colours, with which to go over to an oval island. Hidden there, behind the willows and grey birches, was a wooden house with a pitched roof that had belonged to the castle for centuries, just like the lake and wood. Frau von Garlitz gave Anna the key. In sunny weather she strolled to the lake with Martin. They tied the boats together and rowed to the island towing the whole fleet so that they would not be disturbed by unexpected visits. They swam, lay in the sun in the tall grass, slept in the house that smelled of sun-baked wood and marsh spirits who, when the wind rose at night, moaned and creaked between the planks. The war was far away and unreal. Wind, the gabbling of geese, croaking frogs, instead of air raid sirens and the Volksempfänger blaring. At night as she listened to his breathing, it seemed miraculous that he was lying beside her. An invisible hand had led him through Russia to safety three times and had guarded him from stealthy murderers, freezing, fatal illness, because he had to be preserved for her. Their being together on this island in space and time seemed something sacrosanct to her, a form of being chosen. Through the window she saw the moon reflected in the water behind swaying willow branches – the island was drifting in the lake and time stood still. On Sunday afternoons the fleet returned in the opposite di
rection again. The walk back through the wood was the last thing they shared; Martin went to the barracks, Anna stepped through the gate into her old life.
At the castle they took in five housekeeping students, on behalf of the state, who had to be trained. They were placed in Anna’s charge. Frau von Garlitz had had limitless faith in her since the castle and housekeeping had undergone a metamorphosis under her direction. And again Martin was to everyone’s taste – when he stayed at the castle the trainees put on their best aprons. Anna was beside herself when she realized that their preening coincided with his visits. ‘Those aprons,’ she cried, ‘are only for serving in. We haven’t got enough soap powder to wash them if you wear them meanwhile.’ Sniggering – with their female instinct they had correctly seen through her motive – they changed out of the aprons. From the kitchen window one Sunday Anna saw Martin give one of the girls a present in the garden before he left. ‘What was it?’ she asked, after she had waved him goodbye, ‘that you received from my husband?’ The girl gave her a brief guilty look. ‘Well?’ Anna insisted, grabbing her by the shoulder. ‘I can’t let on.’ ‘Tell me …’ ‘It is a present for you for Christmas.’ ‘Now? In August?’ She nodded. ‘In case your husband is stationed somewhere else at Christmas and can’t come over for you …’ Anna looked at her in disbelief. In the girl’s eyes she saw indignation and contempt because she had forced her to divulge the secret and because of the insinuation that lay behind it. She walked away piqued, leaving Anna alone with her authority – dispensed in shame and emotion, which the shame magnified: that Martin, now, in the middle of summer, was already attending to how he could comfort her in six months, at Christmas.
Activity picked up at the castle. The refurbished rooms were continuously filled with guests – highly placed officers came there to have a breathing space between missions. After dinner they retired to the library, leaving the ladies behind in the salon in the care of Frau von Garlitz, who was friendly, as always, elegant and entertaining, as though the war and her husband’s promiscuity had no claim on her. In the corridors it was whispered that he had had an affair with Petra von Willersleben, the daughter of an industrialist who had had a meteoric career in the army. Since he had dislocated his knee in the Polish campaign, von Garlitz occupied a vague staff function, for which he regularly had to go to Brussels. Anna could not imagine that this society figure could be trusted in the army with an important function, since he ran his factory in Cologne by galloping round it like a hussar – this smart alec who could not actually do anything and was no good for anything but constantly gave the impression that he was terrific. Mysteriously, he seemed to succeed in maintaining high-level contacts. Lineage and money, she muttered to herself, that’s how you get on in the world instead of working hard.
Recklessly, von Garlitz officially invited his lover to a dinner. She infiltrated herself into his house under the camouflage of her weighty father. She wore a provocative dress to intimidate his wife. Anna served at table with her trainees. Among the guests she only knew Frau Ketteler, an aunt of Herr von Garlitz, who lived in the district and visited regularly. A woman of indefinite age, never married, she lived with a handful of staff in a villa that was hidden from view by tall spruces. Before the war she had had a stable full of sleek thoroughbreds, the cleaning women related; she loved to make the woods unsafe by riding a black stallion through there at a gallop, a hunting rifle on a leather strap on her back. Since the horses had been requisitioned, she indulged in long walks with her dog, a sturdy sheepdog who obeyed only her. It seemed that she had given her fallow maternal instinct full vent on her nephew since his birth – she adored him, blind to his shortcomings, and still tried to mother him from the sidelines.
Anna followed the developments at table in snatches as she went to and fro with crockery and glasses. Herr von Garlitz, as Fräulein von Willersleben’s host, concerned himself courteously with her. The conversation dealt with painting: the nudes by Adolph Ziegler and Ivo Saliger. She seemed to have studied art history in Berlin; he feigned surprise and amazement, asking her innumerable questions, to give his wife on the other side of the table the impression that his table companion was a perfect stranger to him. The latter nimbly played along with the game – she got them both excited, it was almost as though they were making love, via painting, in front of Frau von Garlitz’s eyes. She observed the performance coolly for a while, having been in the picture about the affair for a long time, as everyone was, until she had had enough of the role of naïve, deceived wife and spectator that had been imposed on her in the presence of a table full of guests. With control she stood up, raised the glass of red wine that Anna had just refilled, as though she were going to make a speech, and flung the contents in her husband’s face. Fräulein von Willersleben jumped up with shocked cries, worried that something had got onto her own dress. At the same time Frau Ketteler rushed round from the other side of the table to dab her nephew’s face with her napkin in order to wipe out the scandal as quickly as possible. Anna breathed again. The exasperated tension she had felt, because von Garlitz apparently did not find it sufficient to cheat on his wife, but also created further perverse pleasure in belittling and provoking her, flowed away. She slipped out of the dining-room with an empty dish, laughing at the grotesque helpfulness of his aunt.
The same evening Frau von Garlitz had herself taken to the station by horse and carriage. She disappeared without ceremony, leaving the company behind in bewilderment. Von Garlitz was beset with unspoken reproaches. He had to call his spouse, their hostess, the mother of his children, to order – a man at his level, with his background, function – he had to bring his wife to heel. After all, they weren’t gypsies, or Slavs, who dissolutely let themselves be carried away by their emotions. A few days later he fell ill. Hurt pride, remorse, shame? At night the fever crept up high; he lay between the soaking sheets, sweating and delirious. Anna sat by his bed, eagerly adopting the function of avenging goddess over him. She moistened his forehead and temples with wet facecloths; she gave him drinks and whispered him to sleep with soothing words. But when the fever began to subside she told him what a Schwein he was. ‘You can count yourself lucky to have a wife like that,’ she said contemptuously. He had no strength to retort. Like a dying front-line soldier he lay on the pillows, with swollen eyelids and a stubble beard. Mercilessly she continued. ‘A woman with so much style, charm, character! Get it into your head once and for all. You’ve got all the time to do so now.’ He stared at her with the feverish eyes of a sick child being told a cruel fairy-tale, with the difference that he was being accused of identifying with the monster, the dragon, instead of the hero.
After two weeks Frau von Garlitz returned home, a model of aristocratic self-control through which a touch of cynicism shimmered. A sigh of relief was breathed; this was no time for marital conflicts that, however passionate, paled next to that single gigantic conflict in which the whole population was involved. Martin tried all month long to get long leave to take Anna to Vienna, even if it was only for two weeks, to be able to live as husband and wife in their own home, which they only knew from the honeymoon. But his ardent attempts came to nothing. There seemed to be only one possibility for getting long leave: to declare himself prepared to go on a short course of officers’ training. Although the thought of getting promotion in the army disgusted him, he finally succumbed out of longing for Vienna and for a little shred of freedom, just to be able to escape from the military treadmill of total availability and self-denial that had already been going on relentlessly for four years, in the interests of a war that he could do without. He was stationed at a junior officers’ school in Berlin-Spandau. During the course he lived shut off from the outside world. On the day he was discharged, Anna waited for him at the gate, suitcase in hand. ‘Who are you?’ The sentry stepped forward quickly, ‘May I see your papers?’ ‘I’ve come to fetch my husband, Martin Grosalie,’ said Anna, offended at so much suspicion. ‘He goes on leave today.’ The sentry blanc
hed. ‘Oh, God, please don’t go in.’ She put her suitcase down and looked at him affably. ‘They are being punished,’ the soldier whispered, shyly scratching behind his ear. After some hesitation he explained what had happened. The group was already standing in the courtyard, ready to depart, with one foot already outside the gate, as it were. They had to take their leave with an enthusiastic ‘Heil Hitler!’ in unison. In the commandant’s opinion it sounded too weak. ‘Louder!’ he cried. The company repeated the obligatory salute once more without conviction but with more volume. ‘Louder!’ roared the commandant as though his honour was at stake, next to that of his Führer. ‘Heil Hitler’ … it was still too dim, they were exactly like a gramophone record that will not spin at full speed. ‘We’ll just see once more whether you are going to go home today …!’ They had to change, pack the clothes in their lockers, turn the key. Then they were chased outside, left, right, knees bend, crawl on the ground in the mud. One lesson in humiliation and humility that they would remember as long as the war lasted. ‘Please,’ whispered the sentry, ‘come back in an hour and make out as though you don’t know anything about it. They are ashamed, all of them.’ Anna glanced at the emphatically closed gate behind which Martin was crawling in the Berlin mud, mud of the Thousand-Year Reich, for which he had to be prepared to sacrifice his life, which was also her life. She picked up the suitcase and went into a street at random and other random streets, which were neither friendly nor hostile but indifferent. When she got back to the barracks he was already waiting for her, immaculate, glistening, alert – a wonderful tabula rasa. ‘You’re late,’ he said, surprised. He made no mention of the punishment session. They had become well-versed in denying the war in each other’s presence, like superior outsiders, deaf to the drumroll, blind to the lightning.
