A House on the Rhine

by Frances Faviell

  At the thought of his strong limbs and the violence of his love-making she was exultant and at the same time filled with distaste for the man lying there in the bed. Ach! What did that dead lump of clay know of love like hers and Rudi’s? Rudi took her away to a world of pleasure which in all these years of childbearing she had never known existed. She looked at the man in the bed now as if he were a stranger and went silently from the room.

  XI

  THEY were all in the kitchen when the flowers came. They had assembled for the midday meal and were arguing whether or not the table should be carried out into the garden. The day had turned hot and sultry, and although the door into the yard was wide open there was no air.

  The girls stood holding the dishes of food while the boys, having over-ruled Moe, were lifting the table to take it out when Robert, who had been swinging on the garden gate, came rushing in followed by a youth. “Flowers! Flowers! Look, just look! For Krista for her birthday.”

  The youth held out a great flat basket tied with ribbons and covered with cellophane. He also held out a book for Krista to sign.

  When she saw the flowers Krista’s heart gave such a jump that she dropped the dish of beans. It crashed to the floor, but so great was the excitement and interest over the flowers that no one said a word. The beans lay amongst their feet and the pieces of broken dish.

  “Sign the book, Krista, the boy’s waiting.”

  “Fancy delivering flowers on a Sunday,” cried Anna. “I know who sent those.”

  “Special order, special delivery,” grinned the youth, mounting his bicycle which he had left against the fence, “and Happy Birthday, Miss.”

  Tremblingly she signed her name and, urged by the excited family, ripped off the cellophane covering. She was speechless at the beauty and magnificence of the flowers. They lay in a gold basket—masses of exquisite bluish-pink roses and pale creamy-coloured carnations. None of them had ever seen such a basket of flowers except in the windows of the great florists in the town.

  “There’s a letter—look!” shrieked Robert. “Open the letter, Krista.” But the small white envelope contained only a card. “Happy birthday to Krista. Paul.”

  It was seized avidly and handed round the family from one to another. Katie looked scornful but the others were delighted.

  “I told you so!” cried Anna. “He means it seriously, Krista. Aren’t you lucky? Oh, I’d love someone to send me flowers like this.” She buried her face in the fragrant blooms. “I’ve never seen such a lovely basket.”

  Krista stood silent. She couldn’t speak. Her heart was thumping again and such a wave of happiness enveloped her that the dirty yard and the dusty garden with the group of curious faces vanished. She saw only Paul’s face when she had told him how Pa had found her on his birthday, and that they had given her that same day for her own birthday. He had sent her these wonderful flowers, arranged for them to be delivered specially on a Sunday because it was her birthday.

  She could not bear the ring of interested female eyes, the curious stares of the boys. She wanted to be alone with the flowers.

  She bent down to begin retrieving the mess of beans to hide her emotion. When she looked up again Pa was there.

  He stood staring at the flowers.

  “Who sent them?” His voice was harsh.

  “Krista’s American,” said Moe quietly. She was overcome herself by the magnificence of the golden basket and the quantity of flowers. She handed the card to Joseph.

  Krista went on clearing up the broken dish and fetched a brush to sweep up the beans.

  “Krista!” She looked up, startled by the voice.

  “Throw them in the dustbin.”

  There was a gasp of amazement from the children. Then Moe said angrily, “This is too much. Throw them away! You must be mad, Joseph. What’s wrong with Krista getting some flowers on her birthday? It’s the proper gift for a birthday—especially for a young girl. Take them indoors, Krista, out of the sun. Put them in the shade somewhere until we’ve had our meal.”

  “Throw them in the dustbin,” repeated Joseph, his eyes on Krista.

  She went very white, then gathered up the basket in her arms.

  “No, Pa, I can’t do that, they’re too beautiful—it would be wicked.” Her voice was only a whisper. “I’ll take them away—I’ll give them away—but I can’t throw them in the dustbin.”

  “No, no, don’t throw them away!” There was a chorus of horrified protest from everyone—even Hank.

  Krista took the basket into the house. She put it in the dark cool parlour, knelt down by it on the floor and buried her face in the flowers. Tears flowed down on to the roses. She couldn’t stop them. When urgent voices summoned her to come and eat she wiped them hurriedly with her hand and went out into the garden.

  The family were all round the table. At the head two places were marked for her and Joseph. Their chairs were decorated with green boughs and marigolds, their names formed on the table-cloth with tiny rosebuds from the rambler rose in the garden.

  Joseph was already in his place. He looked unhappy and out of the picture as Krista took her seat beside him. He avoided her smile. His face had a hurt, surprised look. She put her hand timidly on his arm but he brushed it away.

  “Bring the food,” he said impatiently, “let’s get on with it.” The boys poured out the wine, bought by them for the occasion. They raised their glasses—even Franz Joseph and Peppi were given some—“To Pa and Krista, Happy Birthday!” they toasted them.

  Krista smiled tremulously and thanked them. As she raised her glass she saw only Paul’s face, Paul’s eyes, and heard only Paul’s voice. “Happy Birthday to Krista! Happy Birthday to Krista!”

  But Joseph ate in silence, barely acknowledging the toast in his honour and glowering at each child in turn as they committed some small misdemeanour or other until Moe could stand it no longer. He was wearing the new suit. Twice he had taken it off and put it on again. The children had commented on the way it fitted him. They were delighted.

  “I must say, you’re a nice person to toast,” she burst out. “Not a ‘thank you’ or a smile, not a word for the suit. Not many fathers have children earning enough to give them a present like that—it cost a small fortune.”

  “It would have been better to put it towards a home,” he said sullenly. “What are we going to do when the Peace Treaty is signed? And those flowers, they must have cost a fortune too. It’s not right—so much spending, spending . . .” He looked round the table. At the bread, the butter . . . butter was terribly expensive . . . at the meat, the wine and the fruit. He couldn’t understand it. In his home in Bavaria meat had been a luxury seldom enjoyed, wine almost never. Pastries and sweets such as those on the table today had been something far beyond his mother’s budget. Before the war he and Moe had been very poor. There had been only his pay and all those mouths to feed. They had lived chiefly on bread, potatoes and onions, and had never thought of anything better. Then there had been unemployment—and hunger—until he had joined the army. During the war the children had known little else but hunger. Now they got meat frequently; and all kinds of small luxuries, not once, but often. They paid their share towards the food and they wanted these things. They were no longer content with bread and potatoes and onions. These still formed their staple diet but they wanted and got additions in the form of meat, fish, sausage, fruit and cakes.

  “Eat while we have it,” Moe would say. “Who knows when we’ll have to go without again?”

  “Spend while you have it,” was another of her bits of advice. “It’s no good saving—you’ll only lose it all as thousands have done.”

  Joseph looked at her now. She was eating apple strudel which she had not made herself as his mother would have done, but which she had fetched from the baker’s early this morning. She was piling whipped cream on it, as were the girls. The bowl of cream was in the middle of the table and everyone helped himself from it with his spoon. He watched her smack her lip
s over the goodness of it, saw her encourage the little ones to take more.

  “Eat more, eat some more,” she would urge them; “who knows what’ll happen tomorrow?” The last bit would be solemnly divided into so many tiny portions. Nothing was ever left on the plates. If one child could not have a second helping on Sunday then he was the first to get it on Monday. Moe was scrupulously fair. The children knew this and appreciated it. Everyone got his or her share. She saw to that. Joseph thought of his sister’s family starving in the East Zone.

  Hank was stuffing himself with cream too. The children seemed to Joseph to be like animals as they seized this, snatched that, and talked with their mouths full. Had they always been like this, or had he only just noticed it? He thumped on the table suddenly.

  “You eat like pigs!” he shouted. “Like pigs; and in the East Zone there are thousands of people starving.”

  They stared open-mouthed at him. Was Pa really going mad? They laid down their spoons. His was untouched, as was his apple strudel.

  “Go on eating, children,” said Moe. “Your father’s not feeling well . . .”

  Hank got up. He flung the wine in his glass over his shoulder on to the ground.

  “That’s to your damned birthday,” he jeered. “Happy Birthday indeed. You’re a misery! Come on boys, let’s forget it and go down the river.” He went off with the slouching gait of one of his favourite film stars.

  Krista sat pale and miserable. She could not swallow her food. It was the flowers which had upset Pa. She knew that. Paul’s lovely roses and carnations had brought misery to this birthday.

  But it was not of the flowers that Joseph was thinking as he sat at the birthday table. He was thinking of the suit which was indeed as the shirt of Nessus to him. He hated it, hated it.

  When they were all seated in the motor-coach the suit seemed to Joseph to burn into his flesh. It was not only that he disliked all formal clothes—it was something far deeper.

  It had taken the family a long time to persuade him to go through with the day’s planned festivities. A deep brooding had fallen on their father, evident to all of them. He had been like this sometimes in the evenings ever since he came home from the prisoner-of-war camp in France. He would sit there thinking; and when they spoke to him he just didn’t hear. Sometimes he would mutter to himself; and the word “shame” was one they frequently caught over and over again.

  “It’s just the war,” Moe would say. “As if we didn’t have enough to put up with. Why, he never saw a bomb in that last French camp and we were being glutted with them all day and all night. Supposing I just sat and thought about all those deafening, screaming bombs, why, I’d never get up again.”

  Hank had taken tickets for the whole family to go on a tour of the river valley to Bonn, the new seat of government. They were to see the Chancellor’s house and the President’s house, and the new colony towns built for the allies. Joseph didn’t want to go. He said he was tired.

  “Tired on your birthday!” jeered the boys. “Snap out of it, Pa; we’ve paid for the tickets.”

  In the end he had been persuaded. Hank had been quite conciliatory. Krista had said that she had never seen the town where the Chancellor lived: she would like to see it with Pa. In their best clothes, the boys with their cycle-club woollen caps gay with large coloured pom-poms, and Moe in a dashing new hat with forget-me-nots on the brim and Joseph in the new suit, they set off in the early afternoon. Katie had to stay behind; someone had to look after Peppi and Franz Joseph, whom Hank had refused to take. Krista offered, but the idea was shouted down. It was her birthday! The motor-coach trip was for her as well as Pa.

  Katie was furious and stood at the gate to see them go. She was so angry that she would not wave. As she turned to go back into the garden she saw the Frenchman opposite beckoning to her. She knew about him. He had no wife and made do with a series of housekeepers. The last one had walked out on him this week. He was going to ask her if she could find him someone. She would like to go herself. She liked something about the way he looked at her.

  “All alone?” he asked her. His pronunciation of her language amused her. She pointed to the children.

  “Come over here and bring them,” he called. She went in and locked up the house, and snatching up Franz Joseph before he could stray, took Peppi and him across the road. The little white house was almost hidden by the weeping willows flowing over it. On his veranda were cane lounging chairs, cushions in gay colours, a gramophone and drinks in long glasses. He had two small puppies.

  “Sit down,” he invited Katie with a smile. He seated her in one of the chairs, put an exciting green drink in her hand and showed Franz Joseph how to work the gramophone. “Play all those,” he explained to the delighted little boy, giving him a pile of records. “He can’t hurt it, it’s so old.”

  Katie lay back.

  “Put up your feet,” said the Frenchman. “And now tell me why such a pretty girl as you hasn’t got married.”

  Katie stared at him. “Pretty? I?” she said, astonished. “With this hair.”

  “It’s beautiful,” he said, taking a long strand in his hand. “In France, properly dressed and made up, you’d be a riot!” He contemplated her between quizzical eyes, smoking hard at his cigar. “Tell me, is this child yours?” pointing to Peppi. Katie took a sip of the green drink, choked a little, and began telling him about Henri.

  Presently he asked her about a housekeeper. Did she know anyone for him? She longed to take the job herself, but Moe would never permit it. She needed Katie too much at home.

  “Is it a big house?” she asked, although she knew it was tiny.

  “Come and see for yourself,” he offered. “It’s quite small and a friend who works with me on the Comité des Forges sometimes sleeps here, but I’m alone now since my old housekeeper went back to France.” They went upstairs. Peppi and Franz Joseph were entranced with the gramophone. The records lasted a whole hour. They were still playing them when Katie and the Frenchman came down again.

  The motor-coach sped down the lovely river road through hills and villages gay with flowers and flags for the summer tourists, then up and across the hills and back by another inland way to the water again. When they came to anything new or of any special interest the driver stopped the coach and, standing up with a large megaphone, delivered a short lecture on the subject.

  Down the banks of the ever-widening Rhine they at last reached, after many stops to buy the badges and caps of each small village, the famous Lorelei rock in the middle of the stream where the siren had lured the sailors to their deaths. Here they all got out and listened to a long recitation about the legend. Krista was entranced, so was Moe. They all knew the song about it, and stood there staring at the rock while Hank took photographs of them with it in the background. The road along the river bank was crowded with cars and motor-coaches whose occupants were all doing the same thing. Hank had taken a number of photographs before Joseph noticed that his camera was a new one. He was about to protest at this evidence of further spending when he heard Hank remark that it had cost more than the suit. He was too stupified to say a word. Where did the money come from?

  When they reached Bonn they stood staring at the white residence of the Chancellor. Moe was furious.

  “He’s only got one daughter,” she said angrily. “What does he want with a house that size?” And it was the same when they came to the President’s.

  “We have to pay for it,” sneered Hank. “With our taxes.”

  “Shut up,” snapped Joseph. “Would you have our Government representatives living in hovels? They’ve been put there by the people. It’s their right.”

  When they stood staring in at the windows of the white ugly houses forming the colony of the Allies, some of the occupants came to the windows and drew the curtains across, but one Englishman came out of his house and said sarcastically, “Would you like to come in and see the inside?”

  Sarcasm was unknown to Moe. She accepted g
ratefully. She had an insatiable curiosity about other people’s houses, chiefly because she was never invited into any but the Englishwoman’s next door.

  The man seemed surprised, but he stood aside for her to enter. He seemed astonished when the whole family followed. They tramped up the stairs, and down to the cellar, through the garden, and when there was nothing more to see were obliged to say good-bye. Had the motor-coach horn not been hooting loudly they would have stayed longer, for the Englishman offered them some tea. Moe was so delighted that she could scarcely speak.

  “Go outside and tell the driver he must wait,” she shouted to Hank. “After all, we are nine people! Something to be reckoned with. Tell him he must wait.”

  The Englishman asked if they were all one family. When he heard that there were three more at home and two married ones, he was speechless. Hank came running back to say that the driver would not wait. He had twenty-five other passengers and would not wait for nine. Moe reluctantly got up; she was desolate that she could not stay to tea with the foreigner. He, however, seemed relieved. To find unexpected tea for nine guests would have upset the cook who was upstairs dressing herself to go out.

  He stood at the door of his house laughing heartily as they drove away. It had made his dull Sunday afternoon. They, the Allies, lived like pariahs in this colony of brand-new ugly houses with their own shops, schools, even their own church—it had been fun to be invaded by such an extraordinary family. The mother, with the ridiculous hat and the fine vivid face, had told him the story of the afternoon’s excursion with such gusto that he could still hear her rich throaty voice as she gave her opinions on the size of the President’s house, and still more on the Chancellor’s.