The Foreigner

by P. G. Glynn

  “If his room’s next to ours, which the thuds suggest is the case, then we’re his neighbours, for heaven’s sake! Were the intruders real or imaginary?”

  “If he’s hearing them again now I doubt they were real unless, of course, people are on the prowl here in the castle.”

  “So he really is bonkers?”

  “That’s a bit strong!”

  “For someone who talks to his dead sister and wakes us up chucking things at imaginary prowlers?”

  “Emil didn’t wake me up: you did.”

  “Stop it or I’ll believe you’re as potty as he is.”

  “He isn’t so much potty as … different. I must make that distinction since I don’t want you thinking too badly of my family. Emil has always been unusual. He used to try and tempt us with poisonous fungi as children, but I’m sure he meant no harm.”

  “You are?” Marie was aghast. “I don’t see him as harmless. I see him as … bananas. If you think I can be persuaded to stay on here, among a bunch of mad relations, you’re very much mistaken. Whatever Ludwig’s done, we must have enough money to leave Bohemia and reach London next month – surely we must!” A sudden thought struck her: “If you haven’t enough, impossible though that is to credit, I have.”

  “That’s that, then,” Otto said, skilfully easing her back down between the sheets. “If you can afford to keep me, we can both go back to sleep.”

  +++++

  Anna had taken to her new sister-in-law from the moment she saw how Marie dealt with Lenka. Anna could never have done as she did. Firstly she was scared of slugs and secondly Lenka scared her.

  From the moment Lenka arrived here, just before the war, life had changed in Schloss Berger and not for the better. She behaved as if she owned the place and was all too conscious of her status as wife of the eldest brother. Why, it was as if she saw herself already as the castle’s matriarch and her haughty ways had everyone – especially her husband – running in circles around her. Ludwig was forever trying to please Lenka and forever failing, it seemed to Anna. She felt almost sorry for him, since he obviously loved his wife and wanted to do right in her eyes. She sometimes had the impression that he too was scared of Lenka, or at the very least in awe of her. Rudolf said that Anna should simply stand up to her sister-in-law and that if she did, instead of always bowing to her wishes, Lenka would respect her for it and treat her better. But it was easy for him to talk. He was seldom here … and tended to forget she was the sort who would sooner run from a goose than say ‘boo’ to it. Anna blamed her timidity on Teplitz.

  That was where she was born – the first and only daughter in a family where there were already six sons - and where life revolved around the mines. Their town – a mountainous frontier region in Northern Bohemia – was famed first for its glass industry and then for its spa, being the nearest of the Bohemian spas to the German Reich, but in Anna’s home Teplitz meant lignite. Its smell was still with her, though she had been married now for nine years, and she doubted she would ever rid herself of it altogether. She also doubted whether it would ever cease to be a novelty to be waited on hand and foot instead of having to wait on her menfolk.

  Especially after Mutti died Anna’s role had been to look after her father and brothers. She had cooked and cleaned and cleared up after them – and oh, the clothes they gave her to wash and iron! Lignite-ingrained these were, as was the men’s skin. Anna had despaired of ever seeing a line of truly white washing.

  Then Rudolf had come along. He came to Teplitz to drink the waters and play in a string ensemble. Back in those days music had been Anna’s sole pleasure in life and one night she had been in the audience when he played. It had been a very small audience because they were playing in a very small hall and she had liked the look of the violinist, whose eyes had been kind and had seemed – in a piece by Dvorak – to lock with her eyes. After that the miracle had happened. Rudolf had courted her and subsequently decided to make her his wife. Then he had brought her here, where lines of snow-white washing were an unremarkable sight and where she was treated like a lady instead of a skivvy.

  From having far too much to do Anna now had too little, which was no cause for complaint but she knew it had made her lazy. Eating had become her chief pastime and she was all too conscious of her ever-expanding waistline. Fortunately Rudolf loved large ladies and encouraged her to become bigger and bigger, saying that the more there was of her the more there was for him to love. She had gathered over the years that he did not confine his loving to her but it was Anna he had married and she consoled herself with that.

  Men in any event were different from women in more ways than the obvious. It seemed to her that they were all boys who never grew up and needed treating as such. And how men could sulk! Unless they were given their own way they could sulk for days and try a saint’s patience. Anna was no saint and blamed mothers for mollycoddling their sons while bringing up their daughters to do all the donkeywork. She laid the blame from observation and not from bearing her own children. Her union had not yet been blessed with offspring.

  Perhaps, if it had, Rudolf would not stray as he did. Or perhaps, on the other hand, he was simply a straying sort of man. As long as he kept on coming home to Anna she would not complain. Rudolf had told her, often, that he soon grew bored with women who complained.

  Anna would like to have a child but was not distressed as the months came and went with no sign of a pregnancy. If God did not mean her to be a mother then it was no use getting upset with Him. He had His reasons and she accepted these without question.

  It was different for Lenka. She wanted a baby so badly that the lack of one seemed to be tormenting her. She would speak, in fact, of needing a baby, claiming that unless she conceived she would go crackers. Mama had told her, in front of Anna, that she must try to relax. Babies were choosy about whom they were born to and looked for mothers who would be calm with them rather than frantic. In a relaxed mood, perhaps with music playing in their room, Lenka and Ludwig could take their time about it … and sooner or later would click. Mama seemed sure of this. Did she not know that were Lenka to fall for a baby it would most likely not be Ludwig’s? She must know, being far from stupid. Lenka was so careless in covering her tracks that Anna had concluded she saw no need to keep her dalliances secret. Why, she had even slept with the factory foreman, telling Anna how much better than Ludwig he was in bed! She had also said that Karel Kafka had the right looks and a good pair of legs. Was she selecting a father for her baby by his features and limbs? If so, what would happen in the event of her giving birth to a child who looked nothing like Ludwig? Lenka probably wasn’t bothered. When she wanted something she didn’t stop at wanting it. She didn’t rest until it was hers … and wouldn’t be concerned about possible consequences.

  Before Marie arrived here Anna had frequently felt alone in Schloss Berger. She usually tried to avoid Lenka and more often than not Mama was busy so, what with Onkel Emil being a little odd and Rudolf and Ludwig having been away for so long during the war, it had been impossible not to feel lonely. There were the servants, of course, but Lenka was so scathing about her fraternising with them that Anna had latterly kept more and more to herself. So Marie’s arrival had been very welcome – especially because she wasn’t in awe of Lenka! Anna felt that in Marie she had found a friend.

  She felt this despite their not speaking the same language. Anna had taken it upon herself to teach her new sister some German words. Currently seated with Marie on the Rosenzimmer balcony while Rudolf and Otto were out for a walk, the afternoon being unseasonably warm, Anna pointed to the sun saying: “Sonne … schoen!”

  “Ja,” Marie agreed, knowing that Anna meant well but wondering why she had been singled out for so much attention. Rudolf’s wife was beginning to seem like her shadow and was given to sudden gestures and bouts of smiling and nodding. Marie often found herself to her own astonishment gesturing and nodding similarly. Would she, heaven forbid, soon behave like a bona fide m
ember of this bizarre family? “Sun,” she translated. “You say ‘Sonne’ – I say ‘sun’.”

  Anna beamed, her round features spreading and lifting, her brown eyes bright with pleasure. She reached across from her cushioned wicker chair and tentatively touched Marie’s hair. “Haare,” she said, “schoene, schoene Haare!”

  Wearying, Marie nodded. She must talk again to Otto about going home, refusing to be fobbed off when he spouted nonsense about finances. They had been here a fortnight now and must leave before the family regarded them as permanent fixtures. She did not expect to leave quite yet. There was something to be said for having a rest and with the weather so warm for October their balcony was proving a godsend. It was theirs, rather than a communal area, and so sheltered that the sun seemed to shine just for them. But it was hard to relax in Schloss Berger, given the constantly aired bad feeling between Otto and Ludwig and the fact of Otto’s reluctance to set a departure date. Marie must see that he was not lulled into a false sense of security, reminding him of his past promises and of her wish to have her baby in Britain.

  “Unsere Maenner!” Anna said then, pointing again.

  Marie saw that Otto and Rudolf were emerging from the lime-grove on the western side of the castle. She had not seen Rudolf dressed for outdoors before. Over his customary velvet jacket and breeches he wore a flowing brown cloak that billowed round him and on his head was a big, black floppy-brimmed hat. He seemed a man more of some other world than this one. Well, whichever world he inhabited he was loved by his wife. On sight of him Anna’s face had lit up like a beacon. Marie wondered how it felt to be in love with one’s husband.

  Waves were exchanged and it was not long before Otto was with them on the balcony, Rudolf having gone to put in an hour’s violin practice before tea. After telling them exasperatedly that Ludwig had felled a weeping willow and an orange tree that Otto had planted in his youth he said: “Rain is expected.” He had spoken in English for Marie’s benefit making appropriate gestures for Anna who, nodding vigorously and smiling, put her hands on her head as if to protect it. “She’s obsessive about her hair,” he explained, “and if caught in the rain without an umbrella covers it by bringing her skirt up and over from the rear. Her knickers are now well known in the village and surrounding district … nicht wahr, Anna?”

  As Anna nodded her agreement Marie, thinking that such sparse hair would be a problem to look after, cautioned Otto: “Don’t tease her! She wouldn’t be smiling if she knew you were referring to her knickers.”

  “Wouldn’t she?” he grinned. “Rudolf tells me that she smiles at everything – which of course is very accommodating for him. He does as he pleases and his wife keeps smiling through thick and thin. Speaking of thickness and thinness, she was a pretty little thing at their wedding.”

  “She might be bigger nowadays but she’s still pretty,” Marie told him, “so stop misbehaving and say something nice to her in her own language.”

  After having a brief chat with Anna Otto reverted to English, saying: “I’ve told Rudolf that I’m to be a father, so I think it’s time for us to tell Mama. She’ll be thrilled to know that at last one of her sons has come up trumps and is in the process of making her a grandmama.”

  “You intend taking full credit then?”

  “Yes,” he said, remembering with a fresh sense of shock that he had not in fact fathered Marie’s baby. Charles Brodie had that kudos so Berger blood would not flow in the child’s veins. But how much did it matter when solely he and Marie knew the truth? The baby would be born to a Berger and therefore would be a Berger … especially if he or she were born here. Yes, birth in Bohemia was the answer and, with winter about to set in, it shouldn’t be too hard to win this particular argument. “I assumed you’d want me to pass myself off as the father. You aren’t suggesting my assumption’s wrong?”

  “No … but don’t go assuming too much. We must make it very clear to your mother that my … our baby is to be born in Britain.”

  +++++

  Marta Berger was often as not to be found in the castle’s largest bathroom. This was where she reared her orphans since there was warmth for them in the big airing cupboard and ducklings and goslings could learn to swim in the sunken bath. Today she was nursing a ringdove with a broken wing that she had saved from a cat while out walking. She loved to walk and in her youth had thought nothing of crossing the mountains as far as Erdmannsdorf-Zillerthal, which was in Germany.

  Now she would need to think twice about walking the twenty-eight miles and, besides, her friend Zdenka had died. So there would be no welcome awaiting Marta on the German side. How hard it was, to accept death and the loss of loved ones and friends: far easier to die oneself than say farewell to those who had gone on ahead! However, there’d be many a reunion when she reached heaven eventually – and not only with humans since animals had souls too, so she looked forward as well to seeing all her feathered and furred friends again.

  Close in every sense to nature she followed Kneip faithfully, walking barefoot in the snow after a hot bath and using her sons’ bathwater after them when they were young to prolong her youthfulness. She collected edible weeds to supplement the family’s diet and had shown cook how to make an excellent soup from nettles and sorrels and include dandelions, wild hops and couch-grass roots in nourishing salads. Nature had an answer for most things if one lived in harmony with it and Marta tended to think there was no excuse for being sick. She had reached her conclusion after losing three children through miscarriages and resolving in future to work with nature instead of against it.

  During those pregnancies, instead of resting and tuning to the creative force, she had overdone things … failing even to think beautiful thoughts. She had still been rebelling, back then, against Antonin’s seeming inability to be as true to her as she was to him and she felt sure that her rebellion had cost her three babies. It had taken time – and suffering – to see that thoughts directly affected their thinker. Yes, bad thoughts had bad effects and she had despised her husband at times for his inherent unfaithfulness. As for his being unfaithful while she was with child …

  But Marta had taught herself just to dwell on the things she still loved about him and had thus found her equilibrium. Her inner calm had never since been abandoned to the four winds and she had subsequently borne live sons for Antonin.

  As well as the ringdove and a marmalade kitten Marta had with her an abandoned mongrel puppy and a rabbit she had rescued from a snare. She would introduce these to her fox cub and fawn later. Young creatures played together all unaware of the roles that would one day be theirs. A baby ferret had befriended a motherless rat under Marta’s care. Animals that were natural enemies formed friendships here before leaving and learning the ways of the world. Marta sighed at this thought. There were some harsh lessons to be learned out there.

  “Didn’t I tell you that we’d find Mama in here?”

  Marta sighed again, but with pleasure, as Otto and Marie entered. “What a welcome surprise!” she said. “Yes, my babies certainly take up much of my time. Find somewhere to sit and then, if you won’t mind Gaby’s attentions, we can talk to our hearts’ content.”

  The black puppy made an exuberant dash for Marie as she sat near Mama on the wide step edging the large sunken bath and was soon on her lap, happily licking her hand. Otto, lifting a drowsy kitten from a nearby chair and subsequently sitting there, said: “Your family is ever on the increase, I see. Maybe it needs no help from Marie and me.”

  “You mean …?” Looking from her son to Marie and back to him, Marta beamed. “Are you certain? That is … ”

  “You’re thinking that we haven’t been married long enough to know for sure?” Otto prompted. “If you are, then we can reassure you on that score; you see,” he chose his words carefully, “conception preceded the wedding, but I don’t want you to think for one minute that that was my only reason for marrying Marie.”

  “I have eyes,” she told him, still smiling, �
�and can see very clearly with them, despite being a little over the hill. So I have seen the love you feel for your wife.” Silent on the subject of Marie’s feelings, or rather her assessment of these, she said: “It has been confirmed, then … that you are expecting a child?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “We aren’t leading you up the garden path. Tell her, Marie! If Mama hears our news from your lips she might be able to trust in it.”

  Otto understood her so well. Despite his long absence he had an intrinsic understanding of her need for a grandchild and of her inability as yet to grasp the fact that her prayers had finally been answered. After hearing from Marie that the baby was due at the end of March, Marta breathed: “At last!” Having kissed and congratulated the parents-to-be she clasped hands with them both and, her eyes moist, said: “I can’t tell you how happy your news has made me. I pride myself on being able to spot a pregnancy well in advance of others spotting it and must admit to having noticed that Marie has a particular bloom to her … but I had not dared hope that you two would be making a grandmother of me so soon. Oh, my children … this is an unforgettable day! It is far, far too long since Schloss Berger heard the sound of a baby’s cry … and a child’s laughter.” Marie was about to clarify matters when she said: “But before we celebrate with the rest of the family it is my motherly duty to warn you about Lenka … ”

  26

  Lenka could not have heard Mama correctly. Marie simply could not be expecting Otto’s baby already. She felt the blood drain from her face … felt as if, most uncharacteristically, she were about to faint. Then, with the Sekt flowing and dinner due to begin, Ludwig took her hand in his and she heard him say to Otto: “I suppose you’re waiting for me to congratulate you?”