by Peter Rimmer
Without being recognised by the staff at the station she began her walk through the countryside. The war was far away. Like Henning von Lieberman. They had finished the food in the picnic basket the night before. It was too early for blackberries in the hedgerows. She had bought a small meat pie in the village. The pie was freshly baked and delicious. She began to sing. The birds sang back. She was not going to die. Whatever happened to Germany, she was not going to die. If he hadn’t slapped her face and seen what he had done she would not have been given the rail pass.
When she saw the old house through the trees she began to run, skipping as she went. One of the farm workers in the field by the road recognised her and waved. Melina waved back. Her feet hurt. The pain was pleasant.
At the front door, Strauss stood with a look of surprise. He was a Nazi as she knew his instructions came from Henning to report on her father.
“Mr Henning von Lieberman sends his regards,” she said with a smirk to let him know what was happening. Servants spying, or ‘looking after’ as General von Lieberman preferred, stuck in her craw.
“Your mother’s in the garden.”
“Who is it?” came her mother’s voice, drifting lazily through the old house. The house was quiet, letting her mother’s voice travel.
“It’s me, Mama. Melina. I’m home.”
When Klaus von Lieberman rode back from the fields an hour before sunset they were sitting by the fire. A cold wind had come up from the direction of the snow-capped mountains. All the windows in the house were closed. He had rubbed down the horse and left her eating hay in the stall, the soft brown eyes watching him with love. They had known each other a long time.
In the small room with the log fire Melina jumped up and ran to him, putting her head on his chest. She had not buried her head in his chest since she was twelve. The last time he had seen his eldest daughter was at the railway station when he drove her there in the trap on her way to secretarial college in Berlin. Klaus put his arms round his daughter and held her tight. Gabby, his second daughter, was watching them. It was difficult to tell as a father which was the prettiest of the two girls. Keeping his arm over her shoulder they walked towards the warmth of the fire.
“It’s damn cold for the end of May. They’ve finished ploughing the ten-acre field. Tomorrow we plant it out with cabbages. I’m quite the farmer,” he said looking at his daughter. “To what do we owe this privilege, Melina? How did you get from the station?”
“I walked. Took us three days in the train from Berlin. My flat’s been bombed out. These are Mama’s clothes. Lost everything in the bombing.”
“Did the Party let you go? I am surprised.”
“Cousin Henning got me a rail pass.”
“Good for Cousin Henning.” In better times, Klaus would have had more than words with his Cousin Henning for seducing his daughter. An old friend from the war had written him a letter congratulating him on his daughter’s luck on having a boyfriend so high up in the Party. In case his letter was read and reported to the Nazis, he had suggested no criticism. “Your mother’s clothes suit you. Your mother was younger than Gabby when I married her.”
“I’m not exactly on the shelf, Daddy,” said Gabby. “Melina says an old man on the train had a basket of food. There wasn’t a dining car. What has first class rail travel come to in the brave new Germany?”
“There was a blanket,” said Melina. “At least there was a blanket.”
“Did you find out this old man’s name?” asked her father.
“He gave me sandwiches and hot coffee from the flasks. There were four of them. He was coming to his sister’s with his great-niece. Her parents had been killed in the bombing with her brothers and sisters. We parted at Neuberg. He was very helpful but gave me the creeps. I don’t think the girl was really his relative. His name was Hillier.”
“Did he say Hillier not Hitler?”
“How did you know?”
“He was making sure you went where you said you were going, Melina. Hillier not Hitler shopped young Horatio Wakefield in 1934 when Harry Brigandshaw asked me for help. He’s a diehard Nazi.”
“Did the stiff-armed salute in the carriage.”
“He’s an associate of Cousin Henning, I should think. And Uncle Werner. They don’t let us out of their sight in case we get up to mischief.”
Taking his arm off his daughter’s shoulder, Klaus strode back to the door. When he opened the door and looked into the hall there was no one there.
“Don’t mention him again.”
“Who was the young girl?”
“Not his sister’s granddaughter. Hillier’s estate is in Prussia. The Nazis gave it back to him for services to the Party… Now pour your father some tea. At least we learnt to drink tea from Harry… A pawn, Melina. Hopefully you will never know who she was.”
“Her name was Hilda. She was frightened of him.”
“Had good reason, I expect. He’s a dangerous man. That kind of man only thinks of himself and the Party. Did he tell you when to change trains? Of course he did. You arrived safely. What’s for supper, Bergit?” he asked his wife.
“A goose. I asked Strauss to kill a goose.”
“Very appropriate. Hope he killed a fat one.”
“I’m very hungry,” said Melina. “All I’ve had is a pie at the station.”
“Now, tell me what really happened, Melina. You haven’t run into my arms since you were twelve. What’s the matter?”
“I want to go over to Switzerland. Stay with Françoise in Geneva.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged if you are prepared to ride a horse. You can take Gabby out of harm’s way.”
“We’re going to lose the war now the Americans are fighting.”
“I know we are. But I still have to grow the people food. Whoever is in charge of the government, the people still have to eat.”
In the morning the wind dropped and the sun came out. Sleeping in her own bed had given Melina a good night’s sleep. The depth of the sleep, without the undercurrents of worry and fear, left her refreshed and confident. Her mind was thinking clearly. She was no longer negative, caught in a trap with no way out. She hoped Henning had slept as well in his privileged, underground apartment. Something she doubted. To be ‘lucky’ to live away from natural light summed up her feeling of the war. The regression from arrogant certainty had come to them all bit by bit in Berlin, most of it unnoticed at the time. Henning was now living in a bunker whichever way he looked at it.
Her father had put his finger over her mouth when she tried to talk about Berlin in front of the fire after they dined on roast goose. There was more food in the country than she had seen for a long time. The war had not yet reached their part of Bavaria.
After a good breakfast her father suggested a walk. The two of them alone. Her mother was going off to help a sick tenant and Gabby did not like walking unless it was with a young man. Gabby found any talk of politics boring and was glad to see them go. She knew what her father wanted to talk to her sister about.
“You two go,” she said. “I’m going to play the piano. Are you going into the fields later, Father? You are becoming quite the yokel farmer riding around in old clothes on a horse.”
Father and daughter smiled at each other. Melina could see the ‘yokel’ farmer was an old joke between them.
Her father said nothing until they were far away from the house. Then he looked around at the trees and the clumps of bushes.
“Have you seen Erwin?” he asked.
“Not for months. They transferred him to fighters. Messerschmitt Bf 109s. Says they’re a match for the Spitfires and the Hurricanes any day. Why are you so cautious?
“Strauss, and a few others like him.”
“Erwin’s disillusioned. What he believed at seventeen he doesn’t believe anymore. He says it’s like being stripped naked in a crowd. Everything he had on has been taken away from him. Many of his fellow officers think the same. He mentioned his namesake
General Rommel. They all think the war can’t be won. They think the Americans, if not Churchill, will do a deal. That way they’ll still be better off than under the Versailles Treaty.”
“What do you think, Melina?”
“I agree with him. Henning and I fell out. I told him we were losing the war and he shouted. The information coming into Party Intelligence is obvious to an idiot. They don’t want to believe what’s in front of their noses. Prefer to believe in Party propaganda. Unlike Erwin, they are not the ones fighting the war.”
“Don’t ever say this out loud again.”
“Don’t you believe me?”
“Of course I do.”
“They think German science will come to their rescue. The new flying bombs they’re planning will put the British on edge again just when our bomber squadrons are not flying over England. There’s also some kind of new bomb they all talk about that will win them the war in a day. Just the threat of dropping it is meant to win us the war. Then Britain and America will sue for peace. If you ask me they’re clutching at straws. Just more propaganda. They get more and more cocky at Party Headquarters, which is never a good sign. Do you think I can cross into Switzerland?”
“They’ll come for me and your mother if you do. Strauss will tell them you’ve gone from the house. You girls go, Melina. Better to save two of my family than lose all of us. Your mother will agree with me. For hundreds of years von Liebermans have made sure the next generation survived.”
“You think they would?”
“I’m certain. Frightened people are dangerous. From what you tell me about Berlin, most of them know what’s going on at the fronts. They should be more scared of the Russians after what we did to them. Let’s walk. A good walk with the dogs and my daughter will make my day. Come on.”
Everyone they met or saw in the fields either doffed their caps or waved to her father. All of them were employees or tenants. They all knew they depended on her father. None of it was ingratiating. Trying to get in his good books. If her father left or was killed the estate would fall apart. He was the glue that held it all together, each of them doing their job in the larger jigsaw puzzle managed by him. In every society, so far as Melina had seen, someone had to lead. The hope for everyone was a leader who knew the difference between right and wrong and acted accordingly. She had listened to that lecture many times from her father and never believed a word until now. She had thought it was his way of explaining why the family was so privileged. Had so much of everything and more than the rest. Looking at them now, as she passed, their eyes pleading, the people needed her father more than he needed them.
“You know more about Hilda, don’t you, Father?” she said when they sat down together on an old bench that looked for miles towards the snow-capped mountains over the lake.
“Not Hilda specifically. There’s a boarding school in Neuberg for young girls run by the Nazi Party. They take children of recalcitrant families and put them in the school. Young minds are easily moulded to the Party’s agenda. Why the Nazis have the Hitler Youth Movement which brainwashed Erwin. Turned him against the authority of his father for the protection of the Party. Every political movement with the purpose of maintaining power for a long time has a youth movement, some more evil than others. With everyone marching in step, the leaders of the Party can control everyone. Anyone stepping out of line is ridiculed by the others. Sent to concentration camps if they don’t immediately step back into line. Their children taken as hostages to schools like the one Hillier was taking the girl to in Neuberg. My guess is he was doing two jobs in one. Seeing the girl into boarding school while making sure the von Liebermans toe the Party line. When things start going wrong for undemocratic rulers they become paranoid. Very dangerous. Be careful, Melina. The months ahead are dangerous for every German. Tell Erwin to keep his nose out of other people’s business. You used to write to each other. Didn’t Strauss deliver his letters? When we are young we imagine we can change the world. By the time we get to my age we know we can’t. That life is just a repetition of what happened before. It looks different but it’s just the same. There are many influences trying to govern the progress of mankind. Religion. Party politics. A few good men and women with optimistic ideas. A lot of bad men and women using whatever means for their own end. Bribery. Fear. War. Patriotism. Racism. The list is as long as your arm. My father said it was the nature of the beast. That the beast was man. Talk to me again in thirty years if we are both still alive. But I’ll take on one bet, sometime in the future you’ll be having this exact same conversation with one of your own children who will be thinking just as you thought when you went to Berlin. That the Party was going to solve all the people’s problems. We all like being part of a gang. A group. We like being part of something. Makes us feel we are wanted. Not alone. Not on the outside. Man, like animals which we are, like to herd together. This war and the Nazi Party will all be over one day. We’ll look back and hope it never happens again. But it will. In some other form that at first we don’t recognise. Somewhere else, probably. Another continent. Man and woman can never change. It’s in our ancestry. What we inherited in our bodies from our mothers and fathers. The good and the bad. Just don’t lose hope. You’ll find a nice young man your own age and settle down.”
“You know about me and Henning?”
“Of course I do. I’m your father. It’s my job to know what’s going on in my family.”
“But you said nothing.”
“There was nothing to say. You had to find out for yourself. Part of growing up. Part of learning about life. Every father says it but we all have to make our own mistakes. And don’t only blame Henning. Blame his father. Unless he too is playing a game with the Nazi Party. Nothing would surprise me. We von Liebermans have changed sides a few times in history when it was necessary for our own survival as a land-owning family. Uncle Werner once said he had my best interests at heart. I just hope so. When the war’s over maybe we’ll all find out, Melina. I’m going to pick your mother a bunch of wild flowers. Will you help me?”
“That poor child.”
“Yes. I wonder what will become of her?”
“Do you think her name was Hilda?”
“Probably not. Not, anyway, the name her parents gave her.”
6
The bunch of wild flowers was worth more to Bergit von Lieberman than any expensive jewellery. Gabby was playing a Chopin prelude in the music room with the door open. Bergit could see her seated behind the grand piano, the wild flowers in a vase on top of it. Gabby never put up the lid of the piano when she was playing music for herself. Klaus had got back on his horse to ride into the fields they had ploughed yesterday to supervise the planting of cabbages. Underneath where each seedling was planted, the field hands would dig in manure with a small trowel. The individual manure for each plant was her husband’s way of ensuring a good crop of big cabbages without wasting valuable horse manure mixed with old hay. It was all in the detail, her husband liked to say. Nothing slipshod. Always better to appraise the job before rushing in.
“If you think it out first, you save time and money, Bergit,” he would say. “Brains make money. Not brawn. You have to think through the process in your mind. If it doesn’t work in your mind it certainly won’t work in practice. Why some people get ten times more out of the same piece of land than another. Think it out and follow it through. Something I doubt the Nazis have bothered to do. They want only what they see in front of them and to hell with the consequence.”
Seeing his flowers on the piano, hearing her daughter faultlessly playing Chopin, remembering her husband’s words, Bergit wondered how it was possible for her family to be so close to the abyss. She was sitting in the bay window of her sewing room, next to the music room, both looking out on the garden in spring. The lawns had not been cut. There was no petrol for the lawnmower. Klaus had said using the hand mower was a waste of labour better put into growing cabbages. The yellow flowers of the dandelions made the law
ns look quite as pretty as when the grass was cut in straight lines. The weeds in her flower beds were competing with the perennial flowers. The chaos had its own kind of beauty.
Gabby had switched to Beethoven as Bergit watched a blackbird digging for worms among the long grass and dandelions, pulling out a three-inch long worm with its beak. Quickly the bird gobbled the earthworm and returned to its digging. With another worm the bird flew off with the twisting morsel in its beak. Food for the nest, thought Bergit. Nature at its best and worst. Life for the nestling. Death for the worm.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
So absorbed with the blackbird, Bergit had not heard Melina come into the sewing room. The doors to the hallway and the piano room were both open.
“Life and death.”
“Sounds heavy.”
“Not really. The blackbird feeds its young. The worm dies.”
“She’s much improved,” said Melina, nodding her head towards her sister at the piano.
“You’ve been away a long time. In better times she would go to the Conservatory in Berlin. Such a shame to see so much talent go to waste.”
“She can still go when the war’s over.”
“Should have gone two years ago but your father rightly said no. Another price we pay for going to war. Which was more important, any of the kaisers or Ludwig von Beethoven? A silly question. Beethoven and war. We Germans are good at producing both. The finest of music and the worst of hell on earth.”
“Wasn’t his grandfather a Dutchman? Van Beethoven. Not von.”
“Does it matter with music like that? Maybe her children can become concert pianists.” Bergit was smiling at Gabby still playing, oblivious of their conversation.
“She’d better find a husband who can play the piano, who’s musical. Where’s Papa?”
“Gone to plant his cabbages. All ten acres. Lots of sauerkraut. Are you all right?”
