He tried haltingly to explain his feelings, trying to show her that what she saw every day in that family was not real love. But she cut him short. How did he know? He had never lived in a family. They did love each other. They did. He was exasperated but blundered patiently on, and the intent anxiety on her face made him very gentle. She was only a kid. He felt much older than his actual years when with her. He meant Moe and Rudi, he explained. Pa and Moe, Katie and Leo. And all the time that he was searching for words he felt how superfluous it all was when he could have taken her in his arms and shown her what he meant. And her eyes, troubled and searching, upset him. She was sure that her foster-parents had once loved each other—that they still did in spite of everything.
“It’s not always the same,” he said hesitantly. “The love’s there all the time, but things hide it, blot it out like clouds do the sun—but it’s there, it must be.”
But what had happened to her foster-parents? Suppose the same thing happened to this feeling she and Paul had for one another? What then?
“We have to take that risk,” he said decisively. “It’s the same for everyone. If you’re not game to take a chance, then love is not for you—or me . . . And now do you understand what I’m trying to tell you? That I love you, Krista, more than anything in the world? Aren’t you willing to take a chance?”
But now, as always, she jumped to her feet. It was late. She must go. It would take them hours to get back. She must be home by ten o’clock. Paul took her in a strong hold and forced her to face him.
“Are you going to marry me?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” she said miserably. “It all depends on Pa.”
With an abrupt gesture he released her.
“Paul. Wait a little. Please. It’ll all come right if only you’ll wait a little. Don’t speak to Pa. Not yet.”
“All right, if that’s the way you want it,” he agreed grudgingly. “But don’t let it be too long. I’m not as patient as those donkeys down there.”
“It won’t be long,” she promised. She took his arm in a new trusting way which delighted him. It was the first time she had done so.
“It’s lovely here,” she said, her eyes on the beauty around them. “It’s like being out of the world, above it all. Why can’t we live on the top of a mountain?”
“Because no one would carry up the necessities of life,” laughed Paul, kissing her. They began the long descent of the great hill. All the way down they passed young lovers in the evening sun. Far below them lay the river; and on it the white steamer waiting to carry them back to the world.
X
“HOHE zoll Er leben, Hohe zoll Er leben,” sang the lusty voices of the children under Joseph’s window on the morning of his birthday. He had slept heavily, exhausted by his mental conflict. At first he thought that it was still very early and was preparing to shout at the singers to cease their noise when he realized that what they were singing was a traditional birthday greeting.
The watch by his bedside said eight o’clock. The shutters were closed but the window was open, and through the slats the long shafts of yellow light were making a pattern over his unshaven face. As he caught sight of himself in the mirror hanging crookedly on the opposite wall, he was struck with the effect of the sunlight and shadow. He looked like a striped creature—a zebra or a tiger. He was amused with his discovery and moved from side to side to get the effect from every angle.
Moe, coming in with a tray, was struck with his extraordinary postures and wondered if he were going mad. In the mirror he saw her reflection and stopped moving as if he had been caught doing something shameful. She wore a striped print dress and it struck him as funny that while he was watching the stripes of sunlight and shadow she should come in wearing a striped dress. He burst out laughing. She was so startled that she almost dropped the tray. Her hair had been washed for the birthdays and shone with an extraordinary brilliance.
Putting down the tray, she flung open the shutters revealing the twins, Robert and Franz Joseph singing lustily while Anna, Karl, Hank and Katie accompanied them on mouth organs. Krista, celebrating her birthday too, was not taking part.
“There!” said Moe gaily, “look at them wishing you a happy birthday. And I wish you one too, Joseph.”
Joseph grunted. He could not bring himself to thank her for the luxury of breakfast in bed or her good wishes. He did not see how he could avoid speaking to her if he accepted these birthday celebrations. He found it hard to be gracious to the children. They trailed off somewhat feebly when they saw his taciturn face.
“Happy birthday, Pa,” they chanted when their song was finished.
“Thank you,” was all he could get out. He had an insane desire to fling the tray at their round open mouths. To see them all staring at him through the window was too much. He felt suddenly as that lion must have felt with all those silly spectators gazing at him. As he had felt when his guards had stared at him through the wire cage of the prison camp.
“That’s enough, shut the window!” he said sharply. Moe saw that he was still in a bad mood, and slamming the windows, told the boys to go away and went out of the room.
“Keep quiet for a while; maybe he’ll be more amiable later. He certainly isn’t much like a birthday boy,” she grumbled to them.
Joseph had been drinking again the previous evening, and the children assumed that his bad temper was due to that. The twins sniggered and imitated the swallowing of a glass of liquid, but Robert slunk away to find Krista. He had painted her a picture for her birthday. It was a picture of the two angels in the church, and above them he had made a picture of Krista herself. All three had the same face, and all three had halos. Only the two angels had wings, however. He showed it to Moe apprehensively. She was quite astonished.
“Did you do this all by yourself?” she asked. He nodded. He had done it at school and one of the boys had lent him his paintbox to colour it. Moe determined that this Robert should have a paint-box of his own. She thought this painting remarkable.
“But Krista shouldn’t have a halo,” she protested. “Only angels and the Holy Family have those.”
“Krista is holy!” insisted the child. “So I gave her a halo too. She looked sort of naked without one.”
Moe laughed heartily, flinging back her hair and whooping with joy. The idea that a halo could make one less naked delighted her. Robert was affronted, but she assured him that she thought the picture lovely and that he’d better find Krista and give it her.
Krista and Anna were busy with the bedding which they were hanging out of the windows to air. It was a beautiful morning, and Moe was not in the least upset that the neighbours would be scandalized by their doing this on a Sunday.
Normally, Hank would still have been in bed, for he was now over eighteen and considered that he could do as he liked because he earned more than his father did, but he had got up to join in the birthday serenade. He was so furious at his father’s lack of appreciation that he considered going back to bed again. He looked round the garden, heard the birds in the trees and went to find his catapult. He was hoping to get an air rifle soon. He would not be satisfied until he had killed every bird in the place.
Joseph couldn’t understand how a lad of his age could be earning such high wages. He earned more than a skilled workman like himself. Even the twins were getting what was in Joseph’s estimation a very high wage. They worked in the big rubber factory further along the river. Anna and Krista both worked longer hours and for much smaller wages than the lads, but they were getting far more money that Joseph’s father had ever earned.
It was all an enigma to him. Here were these striplings, inexperienced and callow, able to buy all the luxuries which he, Joseph, had never been able to afford. They would not hear of saving, and resented the amount which he insisted each one should contribute weekly towards building a new home. No, they were not going to save! They knew what had happened to two generations of savings. They were going to spend thei
rs. Moe encouraged them in this. She could never forget her little sum reduced to infinitesimal value with the advent of Currency Reform. Much better if she had bought a piano with the money as she had always wanted to do. Moe saw no reason why the children should not buy themselves clothes, bicycles, and musical instruments with their own money. Joseph, still supporting the younger ones, never seemed to have money for anything, and yet he worked far longer hours than they did. It was something which his mind just couldn’t take in. Where did all their money come from? For they spent it and yet always seemed to have plenty. The whole river trip and celebrations today, as well as the royal feast they were to have, had been paid for by the children. Hank had supplied most of the money, it seemed.
He looked without appetite at the tray before him in honour of his birthday. In a miniature vase was one huge red rose. He held it to his nostrils and the exquisite perfume held a nostalgia which was unbearable. Such roses as these, big, dark red, like cabbages, had grown in his mother’s garden in the Bavarian village. For years he hadn’t thought about his mother, and in the last few days she had come several times into his mind. Was he getting old? He was fifty today. A landmark in a man’s life. More than seven years of it wasted by the war. Wasted, he thought bitterly.
He couldn’t eat the food on the tray. It nauseated him this morning. When Krista, sent in by Moe to see how the wind was blowing, wished him a happy birthday and kissed him affectionately, he pointed to the rose.
“From you?” he asked gruffly.
She nodded. He had often told her about those roses in his mother’s garden. What had made her find just such a bloom for today? He knew where she had obtained it. Robert went sometimes to help a young market gardener who was experimenting. They said he was a wizard at growing things. The river soil was good and he was making his land pay.
Krista had bought Joseph a tie. She gave it him now very shyly.
“Come here,” he said.
“You must never leave me, Krista. You hear? Never, never. I can’t spare you . . . you must stay with me.” His voice was quite excited and the girl was frightened.
“It’s our birthday today. Give me your promise that you’ll finish with this young American.”
“But, father, I promised you only two nights ago,” she faltered. She had been trying to pluck up courage to tell him that Paul wanted to marry her.
“But I want to hear it again,” he said violently. “There’s no hope for me if you go . . . I am damned . . . damned. . . .”
“Father, father,” she cried, bewildered by his strangeness. “What do you mean? You’re good, you’re not damned . . .” She began to shake and could not stop herself. Her foster-father was looking at her with eyes that were so unhappy that they were indeed those of one in torment. She couldn’t withstand that look and sank weeping by the bed.
“All right, Father,” she said between sobs, “I’ll say good-bye to Paul.”
“You’re a good girl,” he said again, “too good for all of us. Bless you, child.”
“Eat your breakfast. Moe will be upset if you leave it,” she begged, and at that moment Moe entered the room. She looked from Krista’s wet eyes to Joseph.
“The children have bought you a present,” she said. “They’re coming to give it you.”
She went to the door and motioned to the boys outside. With a flourish of mouth organs they marched in carrying between them a brand new black Sunday suit, which they laid on their father’s bed.
Joseph was stupefied. He had never managed to save enough for a suit since he’d come home after the war. His old clothes had been destroyed with his home, and he had made do with his uniform dyed, and one suit he had bought second-hand which he wore on Sundays. Where had they got it?
“We had your old suit copied,” they said gleefully, “and if it doesn’t fit anywhere the tailor will soon alter it for you.”
“But the money?” he urged. “How did you get so much money?” Suits were an exorbitant price. He couldn’t understand it. He fingered the fine black material, noting the silk lining, and the fine finish of the thing. He could never have afforded such a suit himself. He thrust it away.
“Where did the money come from?” he insisted.
Moe chuckled. “Ask the boys!” she said. “They’re all earning big money now, so are the girls. Always a rise, always overtime, they’re on the way to the top. Get rich quick! Why, we’ll own a house like this yet!”
“Not if they spend like this!” retorted Joseph. “Spend, spend. Just look at the bicycles, radios, boots and new clothes—and now this! Why couldn’t you have put the money towards our own house? What’s going to happen when the Peace Treaty’s signed and the owner of this place comes back?”
“They’re giving you their bit towards that,” protested Moe. “This is extra—they’re getting rich, all of them.” Her voice insinuated that he, Joseph, alone of those who earned their living, was not doing the same.
“We saved the money—we did really, Pa,” insisted the twins. “Hurry up and put it on.”
Hank had said nothing. He stood lounging in the doorway looking at his father with a contemptuous smile on his face. He wore a loud-checked red-and-purple shirt, open at the neck, and a pair of very tight pale fawn trousers. He was chewing gum, now a universal habit taught the youngsters by the Occupation troops.
“You can sell the damned thing if you’d rather have the dough,” he said out of the side of his mouth; “he doesn’t like it, boys.”
“Try it on,” urged Moe, who had come in with Katie. Katie’s eyes were as scornful as Hank’s. She knew Joseph had never liked her. She detested him. She was the only one who had not contributed towards the suit. Hank had paid the bulk, but each of them, even Franz Joseph, had given his mite.
But Joseph was looking at the gift in a stunned way. The world was upside down. Parents should give their children clothes, not the children the parents. The suit did something to his pride. He hated it. He looked at his arrogant insolent son lounging there and he knew suddenly that this lad despised him, yes, despised him. When Joseph had come home after more than seven years’ absence broken by only a few rare leaves, this boy had resented him. In him Moe had invested the authority which the father should have had. Joseph sensed that she had done this because of Hank’s great physical strength and his sheer brutality. Hank despised him, Joseph, because he was incapable of keeping control of his family. Despised him above all because of Moe.
They stood grouped there in the doorway now, watching him. He looked at them as if they were strangers. How had he come to have all these children? Begotten without thought, without love. Were they just the results of lust? The thought was loathsome to him and yet . . . why did it have to be like this? One was lonely . . . got married . . . and suddenly there were all these growing people belonging to you. Why had he never realized them as persons? For now they were and they terrified him. He had brought all these people into this world—a world which was already upside down—and he knew nothing about them at all. What were they thinking of him as they waited for him to thank them for their gift?
He hated the suit. Hated it. He swallowed hard trying to say something, then, seeing the anxious expectancy on their faces, the breathless apprehension in Robert’s, who sensed that his father was not pleased with the present, he managed to thank them in a heavy stilted way. It was no use, he could not find any pleasure in their gift, but rather shame—shame that these striplings could give him such a thing. It was all wrong. The world was mad, utterly mad when children could and did earn more than their parents.
He saw the disappointment on the younger ones’ faces and hated himself for his mean inability to be grateful. From Hank’s contempt to Moe’s secretive smile, from Krista’s anxiety and Robert’s almost agonized expectancy, he looked from one to another and he just could not say the words they were waiting to hear.
“Get out, all of you, if you want to see me in it,” he shouted at last; and, relieved, they all w
ithdrew.
But Moe was muttering angrily to herself. Was he going to keep up this battle indefinitely? She had said she was sorry. She had abased herself to him. She had sent her lover away. True, he was only a few doors away down the road, but she hadn’t as yet made any attempt to resume her illicit relations with Rudi. Had Joseph been decent and forgiven her she might have given him up for good. She had been frightened by Joseph’s violence, not for herself but for her lover. Hank’s threats had frightened her for the children. But this belly-aching misery had been going on long enough. Moe could never keep up a quarrel or anger for long. She couldn’t live like this. He was like a great dead whale now. Ever since that day when he had surprised her with Rudi he had been like this.
Looking at him now in the bed, she realized with a shock that he was already old. He looked spineless and lifeless on this, his birthday. He might at least make an effort to enjoy the day for which the children had planned so much. Lifeless, that was the word. Well, and didn’t she know that? She wanted to pull him from the bed and force some of her own tremendous energy into his sapless veins. She was suddenly frenzied with rage at him. The great miserable lump! She made up her mind suddenly. She would not give up her lover—and she would make no secret of it.
What did it matter to her if Joseph taunted her with the fact that Rudi could almost be her son? That was their own business. Rudi had young girls enough to choose from; he was a good-looking fellow and he was earning big money. God knew there were superfluous women enough in the town, but he had chosen her, Moe. She corrected herself, not “Moe” to Rudi. He never used the loathed shortened form of the maternal term. He called her by her Christian name, Margarethe, which Joseph had never used since the birth of their first child. To Joseph and the family she was “Moe”; the name she resented rang in her ears all day for a thousand things. To Rudi she was Margarethe, not just wife or mother, but a person. When he spoke her name softly, the years fell away and she was young again, an eager flame of a girl.
A House on the Rhine Page 11
