A House on the Rhine

by Frances Faviell

  Krista was unaware of this. She considered that Katie had been unfortunate. That Belgian had behaved shamefully in seducing her, and then going away leaving her to bear the consequences. Krista was sorry for Katie, endured all her spite and willingly looked after Peppi for her. That Katie was so often snappy and spiteful puzzled her, and that she went out on these night outings alarmed her. She knew that Leo was Katie’s boy. She was terrified of him. Since he had flung himself upon her in the grass that evening she had for ever a vision of his cruel smiling face as he had pinioned her hands.

  She had been trying vainly to put Paul out of her mind. Since that evening when Pa had behaved so terribly to him she had scarcely dared to think of him. She had been so unhappy at work that the nice chief supervisor had spoken to her. She had said just a little about Paul. The supervisor knew him by sight. He was talked about in the factory. He was too good-looking to escape notice when he leaned against the wall waiting for Krista.

  The supervisor had said that Krista was wrong to think that she must give up Paul. She should have more courage and she would find things would come right for her.

  But Krista wasn’t comforted. Pa had scarcely spoken to her since that terrible evening when he had upset the table and ordered Paul away. She longed to regain the old intimacy, but he rebuffed all her advances. Paul had written to her to the factory:

  Krista, my darling,

  It’s no use saying how sorry I am. Nothing matters to me but your happiness. Write to me, please. You haven’t promised not to write, have you darling? I think of your beauty in everything lovely that I see. You are always with me, working, sleeping, and waking—because I love you.

  Paul.

  She read the letter alone on the tow-path where they had so often met. Her hand shook so much that she could scarcely open it, while her heart seemed to explode with the violence of its beating. Why should she feel so lonely amongst all those crowds in the town just because one person was not there? But she did. Every day when she came out of the factory her eyes had gone to that piece of wall against which he leaned until he saw her coming. She knew perfectly well that he wouldn’t be there. He was away—hadn’t she herself begged him not to come—and yet she couldn’t prevent herself from looking for him. “It’s the same world,” she thought, looking at the familiar square and the Cathedral, the bridge and the river, “but it’s as if I were dead. A piece of me died when Paul went away.”

  She sat down on a stone under the bridge and wept with his letter in her hand. No one took any notice of her. The war and its aftermath had made people blind to suffering—blind or indifferent. There were always trails of refugees on the roads and at the big station. Krista watched them with their bundles and their tense strained faces. Even the children looked old; no one took any notice of them either.

  Presently she got up, dipped her handkerchief in the river which was still abnormally high from the melted snows, and bathed her tear-stained face. She put the letter between her breasts, folding it into a small square so that it would not crackle. There was no privacy at home. Robert and Franz Joseph shared her small room, and the entire family rifled each other’s possessions.

  When she got home Katie spoke rather anxiously to her, asking her to take Peppi into her bed that night. As she agreed willingly, for she was always sorry for Katie who missed so much fun because of her child, she felt the letter next to her heart. The words in it burned. “I think of your beauty in everything lovely that I see.” Paul thought her beautiful . . . he thought she was beautiful!

  When Katie had gone out she went into Moe’s room where there was a mirror. The other rooms had only a tiny square of looking-glass. Moe’s had a full-length one which she had removed from the room she had formerly shared with Joseph. Krista stood there looking at herself just as Moe had done on the day when Joseph had come unexpectedly early.

  Was she beautiful? The grey eyes stared back unblinkingly at her. She could not see anything attractive in the reflection. In the mirror she caught sight of Moe’s amused face. “Well, well, having a look at ourself, are we?” She laughed good-naturedly. She had just come from Rudi, happy in their reunion. She laughed at the girl’s embarrassment at being caught looking in the mirror.

  XXI

  IN THE house next door the little English boy had come home for the summer holidays. He had another boy with him and the two played a strange game in the garden with a wooden bat and a ball. First they stuck some sticks in the lawn at each end and then hurled the ball at each other, taking it in turns to ward it off with the wooden bat.

  Sometimes the Englishwoman played too, and even the father in the evenings. And sometimes a whole lot of British children came out in cars from other places and then they all played this strange game. Robert, Karl and Franz Joseph were fascinated by it. They watched from the top of the fence and asked what game it was. It was apparently called cricket, a name they had never heard before.

  The English boys invited them to come and play too, and they jumped down from the fence and soon were quite efficient at fielding the ball and in time Robert and Karl learned to use the bat.

  When Hank heard that they had been playing with the British children he beat the two boys unmercifully. “Next time,” he said, “you’ll get something much more lasting than a beating to make you remember what I say.”

  When Moe was told what had happened she was for once very angry with Hank.

  “I can’t help it if they are Occupation,” she said firmly; “she is good to Carola and that’s enough for me. She takes me to the hospital in her car and gives me things for Carola. What do I care if people are foreigners? It’s their hearts that matter. Not one person from this village has ever given me anything for Carola, let alone inquire after her. Deeds speak more than words. You lay off, Hank. If the kids want to play next door, let them.”

  Hank knew better than to argue. One did not argue with Moe. She got into a tearing rage and flung things at you. He had his own way of getting things done.

  The next time he caught Robert playing with the British boys he called him peremptorily back, tied him to a post at the bottom of the garden and with a pen knife carved the word “Traitor” on his back. He had first taken the precaution of tying a handkerchief round the child’s mouth to prevent his screams from being heard.

  When Krista was helping the boys to bed that night Robert did not want to remove his shirt. She saw that it was bloodstained and stuck in places to his skin. Horrified, she fetched Moe.

  Moe stood looking at the word which Hank had carved on the boy’s back. It had been cut fairly deep. Robert, white-faced and still shivering from pain and shock, was almost unintelligible. It was obvious that he was too frightened to reveal the source of his torture. Krista had elicited that Hank had caught him playing with the little boy next door.

  “Don’t let Pa see this,” was all Moe said as she gently covered the place with some ointment and disinfectant. She knew that Hank was cruel but this shocked her inexpressibly. When she hit out herself it was always in the heat of temper or annoyance, and the children knew it. This was carefully planned and considered brutality.

  To Robert she said, “Why d’you like going there so much?”

  He whispered that he liked the little boy and that the lady was kind to him and always welcomed him.

  “It’s natural enough that he should want to go there when they invite him,” she said angrily. “Hank will hear something about this from me.” She told Robert to keep away and stay in their own garden.

  When Hank came in she attacked him immediately. The tortures which he had inflicted on the dog and any animal on which he could lay hands had left her unmoved. An animal was an animal—a child, and his own brother at that, was different. Not that she sympathized with Robert. She had no use for weaklings, but when Hank accused her of going next door and making up to the Englishwoman for what she could get out of her for Carola, her fury knew no bounds. She picked up the zinc bathtub and with her strong arms
held it aloft and flung the filthy potato-water over him.

  Drenched and livid he caught her, and his great hands gripped her throat. The maniacal look in his eyes left her unmoved. Her own bold steady ones did not flinch before his, and very slowly his hands released their hold.

  “So!” she said shakily. “You would manhandle your own mother!”

  “It’s your fault,” he mumbled, shaking the water from his drenched clothes.

  “Leave the children alone,” she said more calmly. “It’s your father’s place to chastise them.”

  Hank spat in contempt. “He’s about as much use as a sodden potato.”

  She did not reprove him. She saw in his eyes his contempt for her. He knew perfectly well that she had resumed her relations with Rudi. He held the whip-hand again. She had known fear when he had caught her by the throat and his great hands had gripped her neck, although she had not shown it.

  She took the suit she had soiled with the dirty water and spent an hour cleaning and pressing it, but as she ironed, she began to wonder about Hank. Cruel things which he had done even as a small child came back to her. Horrible things. She had assumed that all boys were cruel—they all teased and tortured animals and smaller children—but some of Hank’s recent doings had shocked her.

  She had known several foreigners since the Occupation had come. She liked them herself, they were far more friendly to her than the villagers were. Joseph liked them too—provided they were not after Krista, as that young American was. Hank hated them all. He had got his violent ideas from the gang of boys in the village. Moe knew they were the ones who were dropping the notes in every British letter-box at night. The notes told the Occupation to go home and free a house for the people to whom it really belonged. She knew it was his gang who had painted some of the huge notices on the railway embankments and bridges. “Tommy, go home,” they said, and on others, “Go home, Yankee.”

  If he did these things, what else did he do when out at night? She was frightened and the thought of Rudi made her keep silent: she knew that if she opened her mouth to Joseph, Hank would immediately tell him of her visits to the house where Rudi now lodged and she could not forget those threats to the children.

  Robert’s back did not heal. In two days the whole area was septic. The knife which Hank had used had cut up some worms beforehand. It was Anna who insisted on taking the boy to the doctor, in spite of Moe’s begging her to wait a little.

  The doctor made little comment as he dressed the now inflamed and swollen back. He asked Robert who had done it. The word was quite clear in spite of the inflammation. The boy wouldn’t say. His obvious terror reminded the doctor of the girl Leila who had refused to tell the truth about her arm.

  Anna kept silent too. She had brought Robert because she was innately kind, and she could not bear to see him in pain, but she did not want any trouble and was upset when the doctor insisted on driving them home. He wanted to see Joseph, he said.

  Shocked and amazed, Joseph looked in horror at his son’s back and asked him sternly who had done it. The child would not answer. Joseph gazed round the circle of closed faces of his family. No one would risk incurring Hank’s displeasure for fear of similar treatment. It was Franz Joseph who supplied the answer.

  “Hank did that,” he said calmly, “I watched him cutting. The skin was tough, and he said the knife wasn’t sharp enough.”

  “Let me get my hands on him,” growled the doctor furiously. “You’d better see what’s going on here, Joseph, there’s something I don’t like . . .” and with that he had slammed out after telling Robert to lie on his stomach that night.

  “If anyone attempts to touch your back again I will bring the police here, he threatened. And come to me tomorrow morning so that I can see for myself.”

  He went next door. He knew the British family there. When he told the Englishwoman about Robert’s back he thought she was going to faint.

  “I shouldn’t encourage the boys to come here,” he said bluntly. “You see what happens.”

  “But the mother comes here, and so does the girl they call Krista.”

  “Ah,” said the old doctor. “Krista now, she’s different, she’s a lily amongst this pig-swill, if I could get her away I would.”

  “But she loves them,” protested their neighbour. “She loves them all.”

  “No one could love that creature they call Hank,” insisted the doctor grimly. “Who else has she but this family?”

  “There’s a young American,” said the Englishwoman, “I’ve seen him with her once or twice. He looks such a nice fellow.”

  “She’ll never get away from her foster-father,” said the doctor thoughtfully. “He dotes on her.”

  At home Joseph had begun an inquisition as soon as the doctor had left. He had suspected for some time that Hank was cruel and brutal with his younger brothers, but it had been much easier to close his eyes to it. Now, shocked by Robert’s back, he started asking questions. No one would answer him except Franz Joseph, an exceptionally intelligent child for his age. From his youngest, Joseph got a fair picture of what had been going on in the house.

  It all came back to the same thing—Moe. Moe and Rudi. No matter what it was, it all came back to that. Moe had left the room during his questioning, but with the candour and horrifying clarity of childhood Franz Joseph supplied him with all the details. Finally, asked where Moe was while all this went on, the child had said simply, “In the bed with Rudi.”

  “Here?” thundered Joseph.

  “At Frau Fischer’s,” was the answer.

  So that was it. She went there now. Joseph got up and without a word went out of the house. They watched him go in silence. Krista was at a church gathering. Moe put Franz Joseph across her knee and spanked him for telling tales.

  “You’re as bad as Hank,” said Anna coldly. She was disgusted. “What’s the difference? Leave the child alone, he only answered his father’s questions.”

  “Keep your large mouth shut,” snapped Moe. She felt ashamed already that she had spanked Franz Joseph. He was regarding her with his black eyes. There was no merriment in them now. He turned shakily away. “I hate you,” he said coldly. “You’re a bad, cruel Moe,” and at the look on his usually mischievous face she was stricken.

  She held out her arms persuasively, but he would not go to her. “I’m going to wait for Krista,” he said with dignity.

  “Watch him—he’ll be off again, and we’ll all be hunting for him,” shouted Katie.

  “I shall be on the gate,” said Franz Joseph quietly. He set his little mouth firmly, put his hands behind his back and marched off.

  Moe went to find Hank. Joseph knew now. She had no more fear of that. He faced her sullenly when she stormed at him about Robert. “The little brat’s a sneak and a spy! He’s got to learn to stick to his own flesh and blood. He’s been spying on us at night.”

  “Hank. You’ve got to tell me what you’re doing. What did you mean when you said you’d drag all of us in?” She caught him by the shoulders and shook him in her anxiety.

  “Oh, nothing. It’s black market—that’s all. Coffee from Belgium—we get it through without tax, but it has to be done at night. It’s child’s play, and easy money. But if any of you start talking the police’ll come down damned hard on us all.”

  “Katie’s in it too?”

  “And your precious twins. So keep your mouth closed.” He picked up his accordion and began to play “Mutterlein,” singing the words with an air of sickening sentimentality and laughing at her concern at what he had just told her. He was amused at the ease with which he had deceived her.

  XXII

  ON THE day after Germany won the international football match Hank and the twins came home drunk from the celebrations held by their cycling club. They were brought home by the policeman from the next village. He had been very decent about it, merely giving the parents a warning. They would overlook it this time because of the football match. Every boy in the distri
ct was wild with joy. Football was the sport on which they were all mad keen nowadays.

  Joseph was furious, and inexpressibly shocked. They were so young, the twins only sixteen and a half. Why, at that age he had seldom tasted beer or wine, and never spirits. Times had changed, said Moe drily, the boys had wine on Sundays and on all special occasions, and as to beer, everyone knew it was mostly water. He was incensed at her anxiety to excuse them and accused her angrily of not caring what they did.

  “If it comes to that,” she shouted “whom do they get their example of drinking from? From you, of course!” and when he did not answer she tried to provoke him to reply. “Well, what have you got to say to that?”

  But he was silent. He saw that it was true and a terrible sense of guilt overwhelmed him. He longed to retort that if the lads took their cue from him what about her? What did she expect from the girls when she flaunted her sordid affair before them? The sight of his sons the worse for drink had brought him up with a violent jerk to what was happening in the home because of this struggle between the parents. They had come home shouting “Up, up with us; and down, down with the Occupation.” They were not helplessly drunk but aggressively. That was dangerous and he had been terrified lest their neighbours should hear them. This small corner of the willow-lined lane, once the most elegant of residential quarters, was now almost an international colony. Next door they had the British, opposite the French. Further along the lane the dentist had a Belgian wife, and in two houses next to that were Americans. It all had to do with the coal. Something connected with this Ruhr-Saar question. Joseph discussed it frequently with the Frenchmen who often gave him a lift now. Supposing they had heard the latest toast in the cafés being bawled out by those drunken lads? They had been wildly excited about the car-racing success and now this.