The Foreigner

by P. G. Glynn

  She sighed. “I hope this is one letter that will never need posting. Hand me my writing-case though, will you, Hugo … and give your old Omama a big kiss before you go.”

  +++++

  When she had written the letter Marta sent for Dora, asking her: “How long is your memory?”

  “As long as it needs to be,” cook said comfortably.

  “So you remember the Vlasov girl?”

  “As if I could forget her! I’ll never forget her, madam - nor what you did. There are precious few who would have done it.”

  Smiling briefly Marta said: “You will understand, then, that I have … certain regrets.”

  “Ah yes! I hope I’m not speaking out of turn, madam, but it has often been a wonder to me that you haven’t … ”

  “Never mind that. I like to think, Dora, that we’re friends as well as employer and employee. Are we?”

  Dora beamed. “We have been, these many years, it seems to me. I’ve been in your employ since I was fifteen and now I’m close on seventy.”

  “You are? Jesus Maria, time flies by, doesn’t it? And in all that time you’ve been a loyal and dutiful servant: one whom I trust implicitly. Which is why I’m now asking you to do something of the utmost importance for me. You see this letter? It is to Ludwig, but I don’t intend sending it to him. Instead I wish to place it in your safekeeping. You may tell Frau Otto of its existence – and its whereabouts – but nobody else.”

  “What’s the good of it, if Herr Ludwig doesn’t know it exists?”

  “I’m not altogether sure, Dora. All I am sure of is that it had to be written, as a kind of insurance … and that there might dawn a day when Ludwig will need to read it. I very much hope that such a day will never dawn, but if it should I think you are the person to recognise the letter’s importance. Are you that person, Dora?”

  “I am, madam … and I think I follow your drift. What’s wrong, though, with you giving it to him, if it ever needs giving?”

  “Nothing … except that I am older than you are, and,” Marta sighed, “might not have long to live.”

  Dora had feared as much but hated the hearing of it. “Doctors are often wrong,” she said.

  “They are – yes, even dear old Theodor – but he’s right this time and I’m almost ready to die.”

  Accepting the sealed letter with tears in her eyes Dora said: “I thought, back then, and still think, that you are a saint.”

  Marta smiled faintly. “That’s good to hear. But you were, and are, mistaken, my dear. It isn’t a saint by any means who will be leaving her offspring to stand on their own feet but, regrettably, just another sinner.”

  +++++

  Needing to conserve her strength, Marta waited until the following morning and then saw Rudolf and Ferdinand together. She was sorry that there would not be time to become better acquainted with Ferdi, who had his father’s dark eyes and a fine, upright bearing as well as an air about him of knowing where he was going. It was to be hoped that he would not have to go to war before he had a chance to make his mark in his chosen field.

  She saw her son and grandson in her study, having dredged up the energy to dress and busy herself at her desk. As a rule she felt better in the mornings than she did in the afternoons. “Sit down, do,” she invited them. “Don’t stand there looking as if I’m about to chop off your heads!” Once they were seated she said: “It has meant much to me, meeting Ferdi finally and seeing what a personable young man he has turned out to be. I am sad that … circumstances prevented an earlier meeting but, since they did, there’s nothing to be done about it. There is something I can do, though, to show you both that I acknowledge the Berger blood flowing in Ferdinand’s veins – depending, of course, upon his own inclinations.” Now she addressed her grandson: “Is your heart set in a particular direction after you graduate next year?”

  “I shall go into finance,” Ferdi responded promptly. “Banking or, possibly, accountancy.”

  “As you will see,” Rudolf observed drily, “he doesn’t take after me.”

  “Music was never my forte,” his son agreed.

  “But you have a real talent for figures, I understand.”

  “I wouldn’t describe myself as talented … ” he began.

  “As you will also see,” Rudolf butted in, “Ferdi lacks my immodesty. Whereas I without cause describe myself as a maestro, he … ”

  “Let him speak for himself, please,” Marta said crisply. “How would you describe yourself, Ferdi?”

  “As someone who is at his happiest tackling knotty problems, especially ones linked with balance sheets … or chessmen,” he finished with a grin. “Though now that Hugo has beaten me at chess I shan’t necessarily be happy if he beats me again.”

  “So you don’t resent his win, or his … privileges?”

  Ferdinand enlightened her: “His win was well deserved. He was determined to get through my defences and ultimately did. As for his position as heir to Schloss Berger and all that goes with it, why should I resent this or envy him? Hugo has his path through life and I have mine. I have never felt any wish to swap paths and, to be honest, would not want the responsibility of a huge inheritance.”

  Marta believed him since there was no disbelieving such an innately honest young man. It was not solely Ferdi’s honesty that shone from him. There was integrity, too, in his attitude toward Hugo … and toward Anna, whom he treated with deference as well as with unfailing courtesy. Yet it could not have been easy for him to come here and meet his father’s wife, leaving his mother behind. That had taken strength of character and it now struck Marta that Ferdi was very strong … and that he would be an asset to any establishment. In fact, his future employer would be fortunate indeed to have him on the payroll. “Forgive me,” she said, “for asking the question. I should probably not have asked it. But I did so for a reason. You see, Hugo has put a proposal to me and I needed to see where you stood before I in turn put it to you. You spoke earlier of going into finance after graduation – banking or whatever. Would you instead be prepared to consider an opening in … industry?”

  “Yes,” he said, his gaze very direct, “except that there are all too few openings at present.”

  “If there was one in linen, do you think you could put your heart into it?”

  “I could put my heart into anything with sums for me to do.”

  “Onkel Franz might be a wizard with figures,” Rudolf put in eagerly, “but, believe me, Ferdi is too!”

  “I do believe you … and Franz is getting old. We need some young blood to learn from him before he goes. If the blood should have Berger cells in it, so much the better and Ferdinand has shown himself to be very much a member of our family. How would you feel, Ferdi, about meeting my brother and seeing our factory with a view to a future with J.A. Berger & Sons?”

  “That depends,” her grandson said steadily.

  “What does it depend on?” Marta asked, slightly shocked.

  “I’m sorry to have to say this, but I’d need to know from the beginning where … Ludwig fitted into the scheme of things. Isn’t he responsible for the overseeing of the linen factory?”

  “He was,” she answered, “but isn’t any longer. Are you saying that you wouldn’t wish to work with him?”

  “I’d refuse to work with anyone who had a down on Jews. Half of Prague is Jewish and, to my mind, nobody has the right to treat his fellow humans with contempt. I only agreed to visit Schloss Berger after checking that Ludwig wouldn’t be here.”

  “I see. So it is thanks to Ludwig’s absence as well as to Anna’s big-heartedness that you and I have met at last?”

  “Now I have offended you.”

  “On the contrary – I am impressed. Speaking of Anna,” Mama now turned her attention to Rudolf, “do you ever worry about her?”

  “You should know by now that I am not a worrier – besides which, why should I be worried?”

  “It isn’t a question of ‘should’ – more of wheth
er she ever enters your head when you’re away from her, or when you’re with her, for that matter. You sometimes seem … oblivious to her, almost as if she didn’t exist.”

  “Are you accusing me of neglecting her, Mama?”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m simply asking how much you consider her and her needs.”

  “She has every luxury, as well as … plenty of food to eat.”

  “So you assume that she’s happy?”

  “She is happy … isn’t she?”

  “You shouldn’t have to ask me. I’m your mother, not your wife’s keeper – although I do keep her and this whole family in fine style, don’t I? But in my opinion we all tend to take Anna for granted. She is so good-natured and so anxious to please that it’s all too easy to forget to ask oneself what would please her. Sadly, she strikes people as a lonely figure, probably because she’s so often alone. And, perhaps because we as a family are such strong characters, when we’re together nobody seems to notice her. It wouldn’t hurt any of us to notice her more … and to throw her more than crumbs as we go about our business. Anna is exceptionally giving and I feel we’re each guilty of forgetting that she deserves better than the little we’re in the habit of giving back. I understand – and I think Anna understands – that your heart is in Prague and now that I’ve met Ferdinand I can see why it is, but be unselfish enough to spare some compassion for the woman who couldn’t give you the son you had longed for – the woman who accepts him nevertheless and who uncomplainingly accepts the fact that you spend more and more time in Prague and less and less with her in Herrlichbach.”

  “I’ll try to be more compassionate toward Anna,” Rudolf said happily, glad that Mama’s lecture seemed to be over, “although if Ferdi comes here to live, it’s Marinka who’ll be seeing less of me in future, isn’t it?”

  +++++

  Marta had asked Otto to drive her to the foot of the Schneekoppe so that she could look up at the mountain for perhaps the last time. She was glad to know she was dying rather than have death take her by surprise. Knowing, she could plan things and set her affairs in order, instead of leaving disorder behind. She could also say whatever needed saying and take extra pleasure in every moment left to her. Moments with loved ones became doubly precious once one stood at the door to the hereafter. This drive through Bohemia’s incomparable countryside, seated beside Otto in his smart new car, was as close to heaven as she had come thus far. In due course she would come still closer, she hoped – assuming that heaven was where she was destined. Meanwhile it was wonderful to have her beloved son all to herself.

  “Mama?” said Otto, puzzled by his mother’s prolonged silence. “Was this where you wanted me to stop?”

  “Yes … it was.” Marta had prepared carefully for her trip to the Schneekoppe, telling herself to be strong and feeling stronger as a consequence. She was wearing her favourite pale blue dress and had made up her face so that rouge put a faint bloom on to increasingly sallow cheeks. Now she smiled at Otto, telling him: “It’s all just what I wanted … to be close to my mountain again and to have your undivided attention.”

  “Nothing’s wrong?”

  “Wrong – with such a vista spread before us?” In the foreground were meadows filled with the blues, pinks and whites of columbines and with the deeper blue of the Storchschnabel, which belonged to the geranium family. Beyond these, rising triumphantly against an almost clear sky, its slopes soft and velvety with grass and evergreen trees between outcrops of rock, was Marta’s Schneekoppe. It had seemed to be hers ever since she first came to Herrlichbach and found the Giant Mountains surrounding her as well as echoing away into the distance. It was hers in the sense that she had adopted it during her short span on earth. “Nothing can ever be wrong while we have this to gaze upon.”

  “I agree,” he said, surveying the scene appreciatively from his open-topped Mercedes, “but you seem to be … behaving a bit oddly.”

  “That’s because I’m conscious of my mortality.” She saw his anxious glance and went on: “I’m also conscious, Liebchen, here more than anywhere, of my immortality. My body might be ageing but my soul is ageless. Have you noticed the strange phenomenon that though you’re older on the outside than you once were, you feel exactly the same within as you did when you were, say, Hugo’s age?”

  Otto grinned. “And you’re telling me that that’s due to immortality, not to immaturity?”

  “I am.” She smiled at him, adding: “Although in your case it could, I suppose, be due to a bit of both. Incidentally, in respect of Hugo there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you: does he know yet that Ferdi’s his cousin?”

  “No, he doesn’t. Marie’s opposed to his knowing. It’s solely because he and Ferdi have become such friends – and because Anna was in favour of such a step – that she relented enough to let Rudolf’s son come to Herrlichbach.”

  “And do you agree with Marie’s reasoning?”

  “I imagine that’s a tactful way of asking what her reasoning is! It’s rooted, of course, in Marinka’s spilling of the beans about the contract and in what happened to Carla while Marie and I were staying with the Petrofs in Prague. Then there’s the fact that she disapproves of Rudolf’s lifestyle and the effect that has on Anna. She thinks that if Hugo were to know that Anna’s husband is Ferdi’s father, he too would be burdened with the knowledge and with divided loyalties.”

  “I can understand that … but has she considered the possible consequences of Hugo stumbling accidentally on the truth? It would be horrid for him to feel he had been excluded from a family secret everyone else knew.”

  “True,” agreed Otto. “There’s no reason why Hugo should stumble on the facts accidentally, though. Except when the two of them are alone, Ferdi always addresses his father as Rudolf … and until you took him under your wing, introducing him to Onkel Franz and everything, he thought of himself as a Petrof, never a Berger. It suits Marinka and him to be seen as a respectable widow and her son rather than as Rudolf’s mistress and illegitimate offspring.”

  “Well, I mustn’t interfere. I’ve done more than enough interfering … but should warn that in my experience truth has an uncanny habit of manifesting itself when least expected – as it did in Prague long since.” Marta coughed and then, clearing her throat, said: “Has Marie forgiven me, do you think, for luring you back to Bohemia with that contract?”

  “Forgiven but not forgotten,” Otto responded. “She can see from this distance that we both did as we thought best.”

  “Distance does lend perspective! So you and Marie are happy again?”

  “When she isn’t mad at me for some real or imagined misdemeanour! No, seriously, we are happy – that is, I am and she seems to be, mostly.”

  “Losing Carla changed her, as it would change most mothers. Have you never been tempted to give Hugo a new sister, or a brother?”

  “I have, but … ”

  “ … Marie hasn’t?”

  Otto assented, adding: “It sometimes bothers me that Hugo is somewhat … solitary. Being an only child can’t be much fun for him.”

  “There’s still time for you to have other children. Marie’s only thirty-six or seven, isn’t she?”

  “She’s thirty-six … while I’m coming up to forty-three!”

  “Which is hardly over the hill.”

  “I agree. It’s a bit late, though, for us to increase our family – even if Marie were willing, which she isn’t. First it was Schloss Berger that was wrong for an infant and now it’s the whole of Bohemia. Not that I can blame her.”

  “I am to blame,” said Marta. “Not, of course, for the current state of affairs in our homeland but I had misgivings galore about Lenka and ignored them. She even came to your bedroom soon after Carla was born on the pretext of helping Marie with the baby and I now suspect she was up to no good then. There were so many signs that she was unbalanced and yet … ”

  “Don’t torture yourself,” Otto said. “It’s no use
going over old events and wishing we’d done things differently. We did as we did and that’s the end of it. I can see now how I contributed to Lenka’s illness but refuse to lose sleep over my part in the disaster. As for Onkel Emil and our unfounded suspicions of him – has Marie ever mentioned her belief that he saw the future in dreams?” When Mama shook her head he said: “Yes, apparently he told her back in 1920 that a lunatic would come to power in Germany.”

  “He did?” Marta’s eyes misted. “Dear Emil often said things which I can see in retrospect were extraordinarily farsighted and wise. The trouble is that our perception of him was clouded by his rather erratic behaviour latterly. If he knew, though, back then of Hitler’s advent I wonder whether he … ”

  “Whether he what?” Otto prompted when she failed to go on.

  “This will sound silly, but I’ll say it anyway. I wonder whether Emil behaved erratically because he had tuned prematurely into the cosmic wisdom that can mostly only be accessed upon death.” She saw Otto’s astonishment and said: “I believe, you see, that souls can see infinitely – knowing the future just as clearly as the past is known. It is the flesh clothing our souls that blocks us from the limitless knowledge that’s ours by right when we die. I must have been blind not to realise that Emil had special qualities … and that he couldn’t have … ” Her tone changed suddenly as she said: “But, no matter. I shall soon be making amends and telling him how much I regret my blindness.”

  “Telling him …?” Otto echoed.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going as dotty as he went – or seemed to go. I’m speaking of when Emil and I are together again.”

  “In heaven?” Shocked, Otto clutched her hand and begged: “Mama, you mustn’t think of dying for a long time yet!”

  “I didn’t think of it.”

  “You didn’t?” He went cold as he queried: “Are you saying that someone else did?”

  “I never intended telling you like this, my darling, but yes – God has made His decision.”