A House on the Rhine
Page 14
“Leo gives her the money—she’s his present fancy. Don’t be silly, Krista, I was only joking.” Anna laughed reassuringly. “They go to some low dive in the town and dance. You know how Katie loves it. You’ve seen the clothes she wears. She takes Hank as a blind, that’s all.”
But something had registered in Anna’s mind even as she reassured Krista. What was it? That Hank was not the sort to be used as anybody’s blind, and that he loathed dancing—could never be coaxed to join in the fun when Pa sometimes taught them Bavarian folk dances in the garden. He always insisted that it was silly and preferred to play or clap for them. She could not really believe that he would even enter such a place as a dive connected in any way with dancing.
Now, again, the panic in Katie’s eyes brought back that paragraph to Anna’s mind. For Krista had talked about the crime—the owner of the house was a friend of one of the owners of the factory. He was frequently there, was actually known to several of the employees. Thus the whole horrible crime had been discussed over the filling, sealing and labelling of the bottles of perfume at the chain-belt table at which Krista was working this month.
Anna looked mistrustfully at Katie. Doubt was beginning to creep into her lazy mind.
Katie saw this. “It was one of the boys. He fell off his motor cycle and cut his leg. I helped to hold the cut together until we had torn up some handkerchiefs to bind it,” she said defiantly.
“With your dirty gloves on?” jeered Anna. “What about our first-aid classes? It was the night that old caretaker was bumped off—sure you weren’t holding him?”
This chance shot produced such an effect that Anna was startled. Katie’s face went even paler; her eyes were frantic as she faced Anna.
“Shut up! Keep your big mouth closed!” she shouted. “Give me that basin.”
“Why, Katie! Whatever’s biting you? You look mad! Here, take your beastly mitts. I don’t want them. They’ve ruined these vests and Moe will be furious.”
“And so I will,” shouted Moe, sweeping in on hearing her name. “Wasting time gossiping here when there’s so much to be done.” She looked from one to another. “What’s all this? You two are always quarrelling. Take after your father, both of you always disagreeable.” She stopped short at the sight of the blood-stained water in which the gloves still lay.
“I just thought I’d do her a good turn by washing her gloves which she left on the window-sill, and look what they’ve done to these vests,” said Anna angrily. “I’m not disagreeable. She is! I asked her what she’d been doing to get all that blood on her hands and she screamed like a wild cat and turned green.”
Moe looked from the gloves to Katie’s agitated face. Into her own face came an expression very like fear.
“Take them and wash them yourself,” she said sharply. “And learn not to talk so loudly. And you’ll wash out all these vests again. They belong to your brat and it’s you who should be doing them, not Anna. You’re dirty as well as lazy. You’re getting worse and worse since you’ve taken up with that good-for-nothing at the repair station. Fancy leaving gloves with blood on them. Why didn’t you put them in water at once?” Moe’s voice was rising and rising in spite of her just having told Katie not to talk so loudly, and she had begun working herself up into one of her rages. They were short-lived but terrifying while they lasted. Now she stamped and shouted round the house, railing at the children, sweeping things out of her path; anyone who crossed it got a swinging blow from her strong arms. A few minutes later she would pick them up and caress them. They never bore her any ill-will—it was just Moe.
Katie bore the brunt of this rage now without a word. She was thankful that her mother’s outburst had taken Anna’s mind off the gloves. She was terrified lest Hank should hear of the affair. He would be furious with her for her carelessness and she would pay dearly for it. She took the gloves, holding them with the tips of her fingers as if they would bite her, and covering them with soap powder began resolutely to rub them. The face of the old caretaker with his wide-open mouth and eyes had never left her since that night. Now, seeing his blood again on her hands, she began to retch.
Anna, returning from a skirmish with Moe, watched her dispassionately.
“If you’re going to have another baby you’d better have it somewhere else,” she observed without emotion. “Pa’s in no mood for any more; he’s turning real queer. Sometimes I think he’s going mad. You’d better watch your step.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Leave me alone!” screamed Katie. As her efforts to overcome the nausea broke down, she pushed her sister violently out of the way, and rushed to lock herself in the bathroom.
XIII
MOE was dressing herself to visit Carola. Every Tuesday and Friday afternoon she put on her best clothes and went to the hospital which lay outside the town. The nuns who tended the child spoke of her as an exemplary mother. She never missed a visit, and she was never late. For Mass, expeditions, for trains and trams, Moe was never on time, and would arrive untidy and panting; but for Carola she arrived as soon as the great clock boomed out the three strokes which meant that visitors could enter the wards.
Carola would lie with her face turned towards the door through which her mother entered. The nuns would arrange her like that, for she was still paralysed. On the stroke of three Moe would come in, full of smiles and caresses, and with her bag and pockets full of sweets and fruit for the child. Sister Mayella and Sister Ruth loved to watch the little patient’s face as her mother came through the door.
It was for her mother that Carola had first smiled—even her face had been paralysed. It was for Moe that she had recently moved one leg—the smallest fraction, but she had moved it—and the good sisters were convinced that it would be Moe who would make Carola take her first step when her helpless limbs were finally freed from their encasing plaster. They welcomed Moe’s visits, just as Moe loved to come. To the nuns Moe was a good mother and a good woman. She obeyed all the rules and never smuggled forbidden things to her child. She was never upset or allowed herself to appear upset before Carola. The child came first. Always.
As she dressed herself—she always put on her Sunday best for Carola—she called Katie to her. Katie had been out of sorts lately. She neither scolded nor sang, never danced, and she was not eating her food. Moe had overlooked none of these things. The girl came unwillingly at her mother’s insistent call.
Moe, putting on a new hat with feathers in it, looked at Katie in the mirror. Yes, there was no doubt about it. There were the little tell-tale blue shadows under the eyes, her belt was just that much too tight, and her jersey strained over her big breasts.
“Are you pregnant?” Moe asked harshly, and as the revealing colour spread over the girl’s face she turned on her furiously. “Who is it this time? Why can’t you be more careful? We can’t have any more brats here.”
Katie’s flush faded and a white misery took its place. “How far is it?” demanded Moe remorselessly, her eyes sweeping Katie’s body.
“Two months.” The words came unwillingly from the girl’s lips.
“Will he marry you? Or is he tired of you?” came scathingly from Moe. “You don’t know how to keep a man—you never will. You’re all over them like treacle. They’re sated before they’ve begun.”
“Shut up! Shut up!” screamed Katie. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know well enough what Pa will say to you!” retorted Moe sharply. “He’ll tell you to clear out! He’s not as good-natured as he was. He’s turned real sour lately.”
She put the hat on at another angle and prinked at herself in the mirror. Before Rudi was her lover she had never looked in it. Now she wondered all the time if he saw her as the mirror reflected her.
“Like it?” she asked more amiably.
Katie flattered her gratefully. She was frightened at what Moe had just said about Pa turning her out. There would be no mercy from Leo, and who would want her with Peppi and an unborn child?
“What d’you mean?” asked Katie sullenly.
“What I say,” snapped Moe impatiently, spraying herself with some toilet water which came from Krista’s factory. She liked to smell nice for Carola, who always sniffed appreciatively. The child could still smell, and hospital smells were not always agreeable.
Noticing Katie’s woebegone face, she relented. She could never be angry for long. She put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “No use worrying, that won’t get rid of it. You must get him to marry you. Cheer up—I’ll look after you.”
As she went out of the gate she called to her not to forget that she must collect Franz Joseph from the kindergarten. “And see you’re not late or he’ll stray away,” she shouted again, leaving Katie staring into the mirror.
Punctually as the third boom from the clock died away the doors of the hospital were flung open for the visitors and the very first to enter was Moe. At the sight of her mother Carola’s pale face was illuminated with a joy so vibrant that Sister Ruth felt choked. Down the long room came Moe, brave in her new feathered hat, her arms full of packages, flowers and fruit. Perhaps only her lover knew her like this, as with infinite gentleness she put her arms round the little girl and stroked her face with fingers that shook.
“Did you bring Robert?” asked the child, after all the surprises in the parcels had been examined. Robert, nearest in age to Carola, had always been her inseparable playmate.
“He’ll come on Sunday with Krista—he had to go to school this afternoon.” Moe thought with a pang that the child’s voice was even weaker today.
She had given up bringing Franz Joseph, in spite of Carola’s pleadings. He had a habit of disappearing and of being found in some ward quite far away where he entertained the patients until forcibly removed by one of the nuns. Franz Joseph’s faculty for disappearance was extraordinary. In spite of his robust and very sturdy little person he could slip away under one’s very nose.
Carola lay with her hand between Moe’s two strong worn ones. She could move all her fingers now, and traced the veins and lines in her mother’s hand lovingly as if she would learn to remember and treasure even those when she was alone again.
“Father Lange came,” she said suddenly.
A shadow passed over Moe’s face.
“He wants me to have my first communion soon.”
“You’re too young,” said Moe firmly. Had she not been with the child she would have said it angrily, but as always, she controlled her voice in her presence.
“I’m nearly eight. Father Lange doesn’t think that’s too young, and the sisters would like that too. So would I . . .”
“But my darling, you can’t get up yet. You must wait until you get stronger.” She did not say “Until you can walk” because in her heart she did not think that her child would ever walk again.
“Father Lange says that the Bishop will come here and do it—there’s another girl and a boy, too . . .”
An ominous pang shot through Moe’s heart. This could surely mean but one thing, that Carola was not going to get better.
She felt furious that, unknown to her, the priest had discussed such things with the child. But then she reflected that she was at present on no terms with him to discuss anything with her—neither was Joseph. The child in the next bed was listening avidly and said now: “Carola won’t go to heaven unless she’s had her first communion—I’ve had mine, so I’m safe.”
“That’s simply not true,” said Moe calmly. “You can ask Father Lange yourself . . . he will tell you that all little children go to heaven.”
The thin, pinched-looking child shook her head. “Oh no,” she said positively. “We are born in sin. Carola and I want to be on the safe side. We confess our sins to each other. We each pretend to be the priest in turn. We do not,” she finished proudly, “give absolution unless we are truly sorry.”
Moe was shocked, but Sister Ruth, coming in at that moment, was quite unperturbed.
“I don’t think they ought to pretend to be the priest,” insisted Moe. “It’s not right.”
“If you had to lie in this room day in and day out for months you would pretend anything,” said Sister Ruth calmly. “And the first person to understand would be the good father.” She patted the little girls’ heads affectionately.
The moment Moe dreaded was the one when she had to steel herself to get up, say good-bye calmly and walk away. It would have been so much easier to walk out without a backward glance at the little figure in the bed whose eyes never left her—so very much easier than to have to keep turning to wave and smile as Carola expected her to do.
None of Moe’s children had ever been ill beyond the usual colds and ailments of childhood. She herself had never been ill in her life, nor had Joseph. In the face of this terrible thing which had fallen on Carola she was helpless. When the child had first been struck down she had been in a fury of anxiety. She never doubted the skill and care of the doctors at the great hospital. She had given all her spare money for prayers for the child’s recovery. She had gone to the Black Madonna whom everyone knew could work miracles, and spent hours on her knees praying for life and energy to be given back to the helpless limbs. Krista had done the same; so had Joseph.
No miracle came, and in place of faith had come anger, anger at God who could strike down an innocent child. Surely of all her children Carola was the most blameless. What was the use of Father Lange rebuking her so sternly for her refusal to accept God’s will? Resentment had taken the place of faith, anger the place of love, for the child had lain in this bed ever since.
Carola had been in hospital for six months when Moe had met Rudi at the Carnival. She had had several chance adventures during the days of the blitz on the town. Joseph had been away, and everyone else did the same. After Joseph came home she had never thought of such things—until she met Rudi.
Rudi had made friends with the family. The extraordinary thing was that they liked him, and he liked them all. He was quiet, slept all day because he was on a night-shift which paid almost double. He was pleasant and he gave no trouble. It was when Moe conceived such a passion for him that she cared for nothing else that all the trouble started. She dominated everyone by her sheer vitality and high animal spirits. She fascinated him as she did many others by her abounding exuberant joy in life, her thrusting vibrant love of life itself. Among other women of her age, tired and worn out by the struggle for existence in a devastated country ravaged by a recent war, she stood out like a great flaming poppy amongst tired marguerites.
In her new-found happiness she was utterly shameless. As for her religion—something which she had always accepted as a necessary part of life—she didn’t care now about that either. What had God done for her? Allowed the enemies’ bombs to destroy the home for which she and Joseph had striven and worked, and then struck down the most sinless and innocent of her children. Why should Carola have to suffer? Why not Anna, or Katie, or Lise—all three guilty of the sins of the flesh? She gave up the struggle to understand and abandoned herself so wildly to her lover that she lived almost in a dream of desire into which the children and the everyday chores were as bubbles on its surface.
She knew that she was wicked and she didn’t care. It was only here in this quiet ward with the serene-faced nuns and her most loved child that she felt any vestige of guilt. Only this child’s patient resigned little face could give her this feeling. The face of the famous Black Madonna, once the most beautiful thing in the world to her, could not move her to a sense of sin as this child’s could. When Carola spoke of the possibility of her first communion Moe had been overwhelmed with fear; not only because it meant that the doctors might have abandoned hope, but because it meant that she must herself soon come to terms with God. When Joseph had spat at her naked bo
dy she had felt only contempt; but when Carola looked at her with eyes of love she felt more naked than when he had dragged her from her lover’s bed.
XIV
THE ice creams which Robert had enjoyed with Father Lange had elicited for the priest the fact that the child was terrified by his older brothers: by something which went on at night and in which, as far as he could make out, most of Robert’s family seemed to be involved.
The boy’s reluctance to talk was obviously due to fear. Father Lange had no illusions about Hank. He knew him to be a cruel, brutal lad who would hurt any creature smaller and weaker than himself. Katie he knew also as a spiteful, rather mean-natured girl. She was loose, not because she was warm-hearted and could not refuse like so many girls, but because she wanted gain from her body’s favours. The Belgian, for instance, whom she considered to have treated her shamefully, had been extremely good to her in the matter of gifts of food and money, to say nothing of perfumes and cosmetics which he got from Belgium for her. The priest got to know all these things. It was impossible not to know them in such a village. As to her having been seduced at the age of fourteen, had Father Lange not known her real age he himself would have put her down as twenty-five now. At that time she looked quite twenty.
Since this new horrible affair of the lodger, the family no longer came in a bunch to Mass each Sunday. That had been something which the villagers had watched in silence. For say what they would, they were a fine brood of children as, dressed in their Sunday best, they followed their parents through the village street. Even the little ones had been in the flock, shepherded by the older ones. Fifteen of them, and all one family; not many could boast that, certainly none in this village.
Now this solidarity which the priest had applauded was a thing of the past. Now only Anna, Krista and the four little ones came. Willi and Lise were married—both no sooner than they should be—and Carola lay in the hospital.
This family, always a thorn in the flesh to the village, were now rapidly becoming the focus of violent ill-feeling. The villagers here, once ardent Nazis, were proud, arrogant and self-satisfied. One saw that by the way they treated the wretched refugees billeted on them. If they were forced to have them in their homes—every house had to be measured, and where there was extra space after each member of the family had been accounted for, refugees were sent by the housing authorities—the resentful householders had a thousand ways of showing their annoyance. They could, and did, make life a burden for the homeless. Turning off the water, the gas, refusing them access to the bathroom or lavatories, locking the door on them, tying string across the stairs so that they would fall—all these and a thousand other petty miseries were endured constantly. The priest, listening to a daily recital of these examples of man’s inhumanity to man, was sometimes depressed. Often he thought that the bunker family was the most charitable of them all. Moe never complained of her neighbours, and no beggar was ever turned from her door. Since the extra kitchen had been put in upstairs there had been peace. If she resented the contemptuous attitude of her neighbours she never said so. Only when the owner’s wife—the woman who had formerly lived in the big house—sometimes came and abused her, did she shout back, and Moe, when roused, was not to be under-estimated.