A House on the Rhine

by Frances Faviell

  She stood stolidly in front of her while Krista with a great effort of will controlled her sobbing then, when a passenger got out she took the place beside her.

  “Don’t go on like that,” she said roughly; “they’re not worth it, can’t you see? The only thing for us to do is to get away. You must marry, Krista, and get away. That’s what I want to do. There’s no more fun and games for me. Gabrielle taught me that. I’m going straight. That’s why I won’t have anything to do with their night prowling. I mean to get away from here. There’s someone interested in me just as that young American is interested in you, Krista.” Her voice trailed off as she greeted an acquaintance who had got on to the tram. She saw with relief that Krista’s composure had returned. Her face was calmer and although tear-stains were visible there was no disfiguration of her pale beauty.

  But Krista dared not let herself think. If she did she would weep again. Last night her anguish and horror had been so great that she had run to her favourite place by the river, a little bay with sand by the breakwater, where in summer they bathed and the children paddled. Amongst the tall reeds she had lain and wept and wept. Her child’s world had been shattered and in that one evening she had grown into a woman.

  Marriage . . . marriage . . . marriage. Anna was talking again about marriage. You must marry and get away . . . there’s somebody interested in me just as that young American is interested in you. . . . Paul? Was that what he wanted from her—marriage? Or the thing which Rudi and Moe had been surprised in? Her fingers closed again on her rosary as Anna began to chat with her friend. “Our Father,” she began, “which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name . . .” Thy Name! But her name? What was her name? She didn’t know. Suddenly it seemed to her terribly important that she know her name, although all her life with the family who had adopted her had been one long fear lest she be taken away from them. She had been terrified that her memory would come back and that she would be claimed. For she loved them. That was it. She loved them all. They were her family. She didn’t want to go away from them, she didn’t want to be married, she had no one else but them.

  “Here we are,” said Anna briskly, jumping up as the tram approached the great railway bridge where she had walked with Paul only last evening. “And you haven’t touched the bread. Give it to me if you don’t want it. I can always do with some more. Bye-bye for now, Krista. Don’t worry, it’ll all blow over . . . like it always does.”

  She followed Anna from the tram, her face drawn and serious and began walking quickly in the direction of the perfume factory. On the way one of the young supervisors caught her up. Most of them had been women when Krista had first gone there to work but gradually they were being replaced by men. This one was in the department where the finest face cream had to be hand-mixed.

  His glance went slowly over her. “Getting tired of the cream-mixing?” The hand-mixing department was not popular. It was too messy.

  “No,” she replied quietly, “it’s all in the work.”

  “I can get you shifted if you say the word.” He looked at her slim bare legs as he spoke.

  “It’s all the same to me. I’ll be shifted anyhow next week. I’ll have done my month there, thank you.”

  “As you will,” he said sourly. It was true then what the other young supervisor had told him when he had mentioned Krista. That the girl might be a smasher to look at but she was dumb from the neck upwards, that was what he had said. He looked at the bent neck over which the colour was flooding, at the soft curling hair and the grace of the young body.

  She had something. There was no doubt about that. Well, they said that those who looked so innocent were the worst. He didn’t agree about this one. She was just dumb! Why, there was not another girl in the department who’d have missed an opening such as he’d given her. He felt affronted, and walked ahead of her through the check-gates and into the factory without a word.

  VIII

  THE river divided the village, the bridge had been destroyed in the war; but there was a ferry over to the other side. A path through some waste land led from the main village street to the towpath. Seven poplars stood in a line along the water’s edge and beyond them lay the church. To the right the tow-path wandered through some still lovely wooded country to a wide bend where the ship-repairing yard loomed up stark yet beautiful with its cranes, masts and tall chimneys. There were always numbers of vessels in for repair.

  The little area round the church was a haven amongst the noise and smuts of the side where the factories flourished. The church itself, large, severe and whitewashed inside and out had a big squat dome and a small spire with a weathercock on it. Round its walls were indifferently depicted the Fourteen Stations of the Cross. Behind the altar was a fresco which was far older than the wall paintings. It represented two angels with wings spread, holding aloft two sprays of lilies over the infant Jesus. The colours were fading, but the painting had quality. The angels, as Robert said, resembled Krista. She might have been the model for one of them, the other could have been her twin sister. The windows were of plain but very old glass. The priest’s house was next to the church, the old disused graveyard of which went almost down to the water’s edge. Beyond that was the convent; where the nuns ran a kindergarten for very young children.

  If one wanted peace it could be found further down the tow-path towards the repair station. Beyond the sandy bay beloved of bathers and children, and the little breakwater always occupied by fishermen, a path led off the main one up into thick woodland. Here the silver birch trees met the thick undergrowth of willow weeds and made a screen from all passers-by. One could lie in the willow weeds amongst the cow parsley and the meadowsweet, the blue chicory and the marguerites, and still see the river and the tow-path but not be seen oneself.

  Joseph came out of the church, his mind in a turmoil again. It was Friday evening and he had been to see Father Lange. The priest had urged him to forgive Moe her infidelity, indeed had insisted on it. Why should he? Because he himself hoped for forgiveness, said the priest. But why? Moe was nothing but a disgusting whore who had been fouling her own nest. Why then had he come here, asked the priest—to justify his own attitude? Was Joseph himself so much above reproach? Had he never committed adultery himself, asked Father Lange remorselessly. When Joseph had mumbled that during the war when he’d been abroad there’d been some women, of course, but that was different, the priest had said sternly, in what way different? Adultery was adultery, there were no degrees in it.

  Joseph thought that there were. There had been some excuse for him because he had been away from his wife. Moe had no possible excuse. She had been committing adultery and at the same time living with him, her husband. It was filthy, vile and revolting. He couldn’t forgive her.

  Had she given up her lover? asked Father Lange; and Joseph had been obliged to tell him that he had threatened to break her neck if she didn’t. Father Lange had himself interviewed Moe. He did not tell Joseph this, or that Moe had given him no such promise. She had not been to Mass for a very long time now. Gone were the days when the entire family had walked behind her every Sunday morning, even little Peppi and Franz Joseph. Now she never came; Hank had told the priest that he no longer believed in religion. Joseph came intermittently, as today, for instance. Krista and Anna brought the younger children without fail. Lately the twins had been absent from the party. Krista had told him that they refused to come because their brother Hank had told them that religion was all rubbish, no one believed that stuff in the modern world.

  The village was buzzing with the story of the terrible scene when Joseph had surprised his wife with the lodger. The upstairs tenants of the house had heard everything and had embroidered and spread the story. What about the children? Father Lange had asked. Didn’t Joseph realize his responsibility to them? If Moe had failed in hers, then it was all the more urgent that Joseph should take control. The first step was to find out where his own fault lay.

  Joseph was furious. He left the
church without making his confession. His mind was still filled with hatred of his wife. The past few days had been black, both at work and at home. He had not suffered the taunts and jibes of his mates who were astonished and affronted by his surliness. He usually took a great interest in the midday discussions on politics. The men invariably got on to this when eating their food. The elections were due in the near future and feelings were running high. Would the Federal Chancellor get in again? Joseph was anxious that he should, but many of the men wanted a change. They wanted a man who had been under no influence from the Allies. Notwithstanding the admission that the present Chancellor was putting the country on its feet again there was amongst the workmen a feeling that they should have a man who had never taken part in a Puppet Government. Joseph was known to be a staunch supporter of the Chancellor. Now, when asked by his mates for his opinion, he would answer sullenly that he had nothing to say.

  At home he had scarcely spoken at all, except to order the boys, half-heartedly, about their evening duties when he arrived home to find the usual appalling muddle and mess in the yard and house. Moe, once so proud of her spacious home after the squalor of the bunker for so many years, seemed to be getting more and more indifferent. When any of the children tried to placate him and make him talk he snapped roughly at them. As for Moe, he didn’t know if she were still seeing that unspeakable young man because he had not addressed one word to her since that morning after he had been drunk. He had told her then that she could sleep in future in the room she had given her lover. He did not want her in his. What was the use of Father Lange saying that unless he forgave her he himself could not hope for forgiveness? There was no comparison between his own small lapses and her cold calculated infidelity. She had brought the young man home after the Carnival as a lodger in spite of Joseph’s protests that they were already too large a family and were not allowed lodgers in a requisitioned house. She had brought him and installed him there with one purpose, and one only. His being on night work had made it so easy.

  Joseph could not get over this, or the fact that the lodger was only a few years older than their eldest son, Willi. It was revolting and unforgiveable, yet the priest said that he must love her. He must cast out hate from his heart and replace it with love; until then no one could help him.

  Turning from the church, he stumbled along the tow-path. His head ached, his back ached. He felt for the first time in his life that he was old. Soon he would be fifty—half a century, said the boys admiringly. Pa had lived for half a century! He was ten years older than Moe. He had married her when she was a slip of a girl like Krista. A spitfire, a wild, slim gay thing who had enchanted him. Why had she grown as she was now?

  Krista would celebrate her birthday with his. He had found her on his fortieth birthday, lying on a pile of charred bodies, that night when the town was ablaze. Ten years ago. The family had planned all kinds of celebrations for the joint festivity. He was revolted at the irony of it. There was to be an excursion down the river ending up with fireworks and a sing-song in the garden afterwards. He would tell them tonight that he wouldn’t go. He would go to the hospital and visit Carola. Sunday was visiting day, he knew. He would go there alone, or perhaps with Krista and Robert. He couldn’t bear the proximity of any of the others, they looked too much like Moe. Carola didn’t, nor did Robert. It was then that the thought about Robert struck him. The boy was completely unlike all the others. He was small, slim and his bones were delicate. He had blue eyes and an oval pointed face. All the others were like their mother. Robert had been born the year the war had ended. Some months after. If Moe was unfaithful now, hadn’t she assuredly been so then, when he was away for so long?

  He turned off the path in his agony of mind and sat down in the thick lush grass where the bank sloped down to a curtain of willows. The boats were already showing lights, their colours reflected in the swift water. The floating raft used for repairing the bridge was alight with twinkling lamps although it was barely dusk. He watched the vessels passing, the ones upstream with a slow painful progress, the ones down, rapid and easy. One should always go down, he thought. If one went against the stream, the currents one encountered were like those of this great river. At work, for instance, it was the same. Do as the others did and you were all right. Decide not to, and you were up against it immediately. Take the Trade Union. They wanted him to join it. He must, they said. There was no alternative. Trades Unions were new to Joseph, something which the British had introduced again into their zone. They had been banished by the Third Reich before the war. Now they were all on the go again. He would have to join. He didn’t like it. Some of the men were going far from his own beliefs, and indeed from their own former ones. They had definite rights now, and they demanded them.

  The tow-path was deserted at this hour. Later, when it was darker, it would be full of lovers in the thick shadows. He sat there watching the flow of water and something of its steady calm power slowly reached him. His mind was less violently perturbed. Strange how things like trees and water could help him. He hadn’t found this help in the church today.

  The evening sun caught a figure coming towards him. Her cloud of hair was lit up like a halo, the edge of her face was rimmed with light, and it seemed to Joseph that she was one of the angels behind the altar come to life as she came slowly towards him. She wore a white jersey and a pale skirt, and in that light the indeterminate colour of her hair and skin were blended together into something so ethereal and unearthly that Joseph could only stare. The grass was so long that lying as he was resting on his arm she could not see him. She passed so close that her skirt almost touched him and there was a look so troubled, so remote and poignant on her face, that for a moment he could not bring himself to utter her name. She went by like a wraith and when he called “Krista” she turned, startled, and her movement revealed the lovely line of hip and breast, unmistakably that of a woman. Joseph, still staring at her beauty, realized with a pang that Krista was no longer a child.

  She sat down beside him in the grass, putting her arm through his with a gesture so utterly confiding that he again felt that pang of something like anguish.

  “Where are you going?” he asked gruffly, to hide his emotion.

  She said simply, “To church—it’s Friday night.”

  “What have you been doing out here?”

  She looked away from him to the river, her face troubled and confused.

  “Well?” he asked gently.

  “I . . . I . . . wasn’t ready to go to church.” She stopped. “I . . .”

  “Is it Moe?” he asked. “Because if so, there’s nothing you can do about that; it lies between her and me.”

  She shook her head and tears began trickling down her face.

  “Not only that, though of course that too. Pa, there is something I want to ask you. Has everything possible been done to discover who I am?”

  Joseph was too startled to answer. That Krista herself should bring up this question astonished him. She had always so obviously disliked the subject that he had invariably ordered it to be dropped when one or other of the family brought it up. He had adopted her chiefly for the reason of her strange terror that she might be taken away from them. When officials had come after the war had ended and order was beginning to be restored, the most searching questions had been put both to him and to the child herself. She had been repeatedly examined by many doctors to try and enable her to remember the smallest clue as to her former life, for she had never recovered from the deep amnesia caused by the blow on her head.

  She had been frantic with anxiety lest she should be taken away. The Child Tracing and Repatriation Officers had questioned Joseph at length as to every detail of his finding her. They had, it seemed, made endless inquiries and efforts to discover her identity without success. Her age and description did not tally with that of any missing child on their lists. That her parents or relatives had been killed on that night with thousands of others seemed obvious. He had been a
llowed to adopt her. There were only too many orphans filling the homes.

  He said slowly, “Why do you ask? You know that everything was done when I applied to adopt you, Krista. Nothing came of the inquiries.”

  “What will happen if I should want to marry? My parents’ name? I mean my name. I’ve no birth certificate?”

  “They’ll issue you a new one in our name, they told me so,” he said shakily. He was so upset that he could scarcely speak. Somehow the thought of Krista marrying had never entered his head. But why not? Of course she would want to marry. She was growing into a beautiful girl, hadn’t he just noticed it?

  He said violently, “Have you some young man, too, like the girls are forever finding? I thought you were different.”

  As always, at any show of anger or violence, she shrank and seemed to withdraw into herself.

  “Well,” he repeated, but more gently, “have you a young man? Out with it!”

  And then she began telling him about Paul, in a stumbling uneven flow of words. She could never talk when she was upset. She told him how she felt whenever she saw the American and that she couldn’t understand why, but she had thought that perhaps it was wrong to feel such a delirious happiness whenever she saw him. She wanted to be with him and at the same time she wanted to fly from him. Why? She was puzzled and frightened. Joseph listened with rising fear and dismay as he watched her usually still face alight with life as she told of Paul and her meetings with him, he felt such a blinding hatred of this young American that in comparison all his other hatreds were as nothing.