by Daniel Kemp
She told how life became unbearable after that, both away from home and in it. No longer could she attend school without feeling shame. Not simply for what had happened, but for what she saw as her stupidity. If only I had stopped and had thought of those torn briefs, then things would have been different, she had told herself, quick to level the unjust blame where others too directed theirs. She was called 'that whore' by the judgmental neighbours and girls living nearby, or 'easy' to the lustful onlooking boys that were only aware of a side of the story as told by Rory, James and Michael.
“It will be best to go back, Fianna, you can't mope around here all day,” Imelda advised her after two days of self-examination which she had spent on her own, venturing only as far as the corner shop where she encountered some of the sanctimonious who lived close with their smug vilification and censure. Reluctantly, accepting Imelda's advice, she found the courage to return to her studies, hoping that things were not so bad at the school. But hope didn't last long. The bus rides were the first obstacles to face. That was where the first opinionated groups were gathered and they were short on mercy that first day.
“Can't keep her legs closed, can't keep her mouth shut. You're nothing but a little tart,” bravely called out an anonymous voice shifting behind acquiescent friends when Fianna had turned around to confront him. Abject loneliness was how she felt, without anyone standing beside her shouting the innocence of credibility. Then pride left her. She felt let down by everyone, including most importantly herself. She would not stay, nor travel on to find more abuse and denunciation. To the pretty picket-fenced home she returned. The only place of comfort left to her. Or so she thought.
Something more sinister than the loss of self-belief and confidence entered her life shortly after her decision to confine her studies to that foster home that she called home. Keith Duggen started to hang around more often than he used to do, and Imelda began to question why. He had less puritanical intentions than his outbursts would have his wife believe.
Why do you think I'm at home, woman, it's dead at work. There's nothing coming in. Do you think I want to stay around here all day with that girl, listening to her music playing? I asked her yesterday to turn it down, I couldn't hear all the news about the rail strike that is crippling the country.
He offered a different excuse one Monday morning for not going to the warehouse where he worked. This time a sore back was the reason for absence. Done too much in the garden over the weekend, I think, he said, as he waved goodbye to his wife on her 7am departure to the bank where she was employed as assistant manager. He made toast and a pot of tea, found a tray and carried his bribe to Fianna's room. She was asleep. Gently he laid the tray on her bedside table, carefully avoiding her now redundant pink alarm clock that stood alone. She was dreaming of young devils as an older one stood gazing at her, imagining her naked body and what he would do with it as he silently slipped from his nightclothes and pulled back the single white sheet that covered her. Fianna awoke as his tobacco-smelling hand clasped her mouth and his flabby body descended alongside her stricken figure.
“He lifted my nightdress and with his other hand pushed his prick inside of me, tearing me apart!”
“Be a good girl and I'll be good to you. Be a bad one and I'll rip your head off then burn your body before anyone notices that you're gone!”
He was a lot stronger than a boy and more determined than they had been. There was nowhere to hide for her and no early escape from what occurred nor, as she was vehemently told, future beatings and punishment if Imelda ever found out.
“It will be our little secret, or I will tell Imelda that you forced yourself on me. No one's going to believe you; you have bad history, girl. Be sweet to me and I will be sweet to you.”
Twice more he visited her bedroom that day, and several more times during the next two he took off from work with that sore back. Fianna was condemned to her fate until late on Wednesday night when she was awakened by a silent Imelda with a soft finger, instead of Keith's stinking hand across her lips.
“I haven't got loads of money, my child, but what I can spare I'm going to give to you. I think I know what's happening here with you and him and it's not right. I'm not strong enough to stop him and neither are you, my child. I can't let it all come out. I'm too old to start all over again on my own. I'm a coward at heart, you see, and couldn't stand the scandal. I'm sorry, but you will have to leave, and I have no idea where you can go.”
* * *
“That's when I found my animal, Shaun, and I took centre stage in his jungle. I travelled to Newry, to a sect I'd heard off on the fringes of the city. It took days to get there, but the hope of finding some peace drove me on and kept me going. They were not a religious group as such, more a free thinking lot where the church played no part. They believed, so they said, in looking after each other in the cruel world of commerce and world politics. Their motto was; from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. I didn't know it was a Communist slogan and if I had known it would have made no difference, as those words appealed to me as if they had been written with me in mind. Jack was not there but possibly he got that silly phrase of his; no one is more important than each, from them, or the Russian in Vienna. Only I hope his words are more sincere than theirs.
At first I was welcomed with open arms, they genuinely seemed to want me, but it wasn't so much me as my money they wanted. Imelda had given me about thirty quid, which was a fair bit of money in those days, especially for a fourteen-year-old to be carrying. Their philosophy of one for all and all for one stretched into everything they did, including the share of work and wealth. Me, the silly fool that I was, believed in every word they said. I gave them what I had left, leaving myself no option but to rely on their generosity and skill in providing. I was a long way off of being wise in those days, Shaun. We all lived on a farm owned by the leader of the group, a man named Donegal Fitzpatrick. He seemed a lovely man at first. The tall, dark, handsome type you read of in magazines and see at the picture houses. A Clark Gable kind of figure! Yes, no need to look so quizzical, I hadn't been put off men at that time in my life and you can draw whatever conclusions you like from that.
The spring and early summer were okay, with the dozen of us who were there finding plenty to do around the farm, but come late July all that changed, and not for the better. There were eight men, aged between twenty and forty, not counting Donegal, and four of us women. I was the youngest, with the other three in their late twenties and early thirties. Two were sisters apparently, but none told me their surname. I was told to call them Kelly, Ruth and Philippa. They did all the cooking and most of the trips into Newry, driven there by Donegal in his car.
I thought that although we were almost self-sufficient those journeys were to buy the stuff we couldn't grow on the farm like tea and coffee, but that wasn't all they went for. Fitzpatrick was no glamorous film star, he was a sordid pimp, Shaun. And the men; they were his enforcers, if he had the need of them. This I found out in the third week of that nonstop rain-sodden July when I'd just passed my fifteenth birthday. Donegal took me along with the other three women one Friday night to begin my career as a prostitute. I took to it like a duck to water at first, but then I guess I was lucky in the punters he found for me. It was not only in Vienna that the men favoured the young!
Ruth was not so lucky one night. The man she was with took back his money and slashed her across the face with a switchblade knife. Donegal and his men found that man later. They left him with both knees broken after beating him with pickaxe handles. So, Shaun, I've had plenty of men, knowing how to pleasure them whilst giving them the impression that I was enjoying it, but I was not. As I told you; I'm good at playing roles. A born actress. How good are you?”
“Were you playing at love when you fell for that Donegal, Fianna?”
“I didn't have to play at it, Shaun. He made me feel safe and wanted. That must be strange for someone like you to understand. I doubt y
ou've ever been confused by life and certainly not used as I was. There you have me; a murdering whore full of evil and lacking affection for men as well as having no common sense.”
“So, apart from murdering a priest what else have you been up to in the remaining unaccounted-for ten years, Fianna?” I asked.
“You wouldn't want to know, Shaun, believe me on that one.”
Chapter Twelve
Pavelić
We met Richard for lunch at the Manhattan offices of his pharmaceutical company. When we left not only was I unsure about Jack's true reasons in sending us to America but also Stockford's involvement in the plan.
His offices had displayed the usual luxurious grandeur of success, with award-winning plaques hanging on walls alongside certificates of excellence and floor-to-ceiling glass looking out on the skyline of Manhattan, but we were entertained in a smaller, windowless place beyond that spacious plushness. A singularly private room lined throughout by bare polished dark wood, bereft of family photographs and paraphernalia. Here was the solidity of a single mind. A place of quiet refuge to escape and rest. Apart from the table around which we were to sit, there was only one other piece of furniture, a reclining red leather chair, beside which was a rolled-up heavy woollen blanket. I was trying to imagine the kind of life that requires a minimalistic sanctuary to find sleep when I began reciting Jack's tale of Aberman's death to his hard, impassive face which never altered even as I finished.
“You'll excuse me, Mr Stockford, but you seem little concerned about Schuschnigg killing the man who was instrumental in your escape from eventual death in a gas chamber. It's as though it never happened,” I declared, bemused by his non-interest. “I thought you might want him dead, and that was one of the reasons I was sent.” Fianna glanced angrily at me on my mention of death.
Sandra, the woman I'd spoken to earlier, was pouring wine. He dismissed her then, removing his heavy-rimmed spectacles, and wiping his eyes, he laughed derisively.
“I am a peaceful man, but if I were not it would serve little purpose wanting Schuschnigg murdered, Mr Redden, as he is already in his grave!”
“But I read an article of him being presented with an award for literature on his seventy-second birthday in the London Evening News over a week ago, Mr Stockford. Either you're mistaken or the paper has got it wrong,” I said, utterly surprised by his reply.
“No, there are other possibilities, Mr Redden. One being that you were told of this presentation in order to prove yourself to me. My only wish would be that you could pronounce his name correctly, but as it was an Englishman who first told you of him I'll make allowances.”
Again I looked into Fianna's eyes, and this time all I saw was a look of intense sorrow.
“What's another possibility, Mr Stockford?” I asked, to which Fianna supplied an answer.
“Jack as we all know him, or Sir Horace Butler as he's using for this exercise, is a storyteller, Shaun. It's how and why he lives the life he does. He weaves truth with lies making up a believable story, but the selling of interesting novels is not his goal. He sells new lives to those who he believes need them. There was never an entry in that London newspaper about Schuschnigg. He wanted us both in America for completely different reasons than the one he told you, and Richard is our way in. I really am the Bridget Slattery who murdered Finnegan and I would never have got a passport in that name without Jack. He has a special mission for me. I am in no position to refuse.”
“What about the stories of your life in that orphanage and then when you left? Were they lies too, Fianna?”
“I can do without the family reminiscences.” Stockford took command of the situation, as I continued staring at Fianna.
“You two can patch up your relationship another time. The story you were told about a meeting in Vienna in 1937 is true, as is its outcome; the birth of my niece Penina. On release from his German wartime prison camp Schuschnigg returned to Vienna where he started to make enquiries about Alain Aberman. We can only assume that he wanted to make good the friendship he hoped had survived the war. Alain got to hear of it. Aberman thought that Schuschnigg had died in the war and he believed he'd pushed all thoughts of him from his mind, but that wasn't the case. Memories that he had tried to suppress came flooding back, leading to his seeking out a foreign intelligence agent to tell his story to. He wanted Schuschnigg arrested, along with any of the ensemble who had accompanied the main players to the Chancery eight years previously. By fortune or ill luck it was Jack Price with whom he met. I have absolutely no idea who raped my sister, nor who was at that party. I've asked Jack but he's never told me. That's his hold over us.
Schuschnigg was shot dead in the street by a member of the Ante Pavelić’s Ustaše as he walked from the American Embassy the very day he arrived in Vienna from Germany. You look quizzical, Mr Redden. Perhaps you're wondering how I know?” I was, but I was also wondering about the truth of Aberman's death. I must have sounded dumb to him as in a feeble voice I answered, “Yes, I am.”
“On the night I and my family departed from Vienna, Aberman met my mother, Mayanna, and told her of his plan to avoid capture. I saw them together, Mr Redden, and I knew the moment I saw them that they were having an affair. It was in their eyes and in the way they held each other. It was not just good friendship that united them that night. In my opinion they were lovers. My mother cried when they parted and cried again on the flight. When we landed in New York, we moved into the same house as I live in now. When the pregnancy of my sister became more obvious, she was kept at home and the two of us were sworn to secrecy. When Penina was born everyone we knew accepted her as Mayanna's child without questioning that. I was told some of the story as I held my mother's hand before she passed away. Leeba moved out after Mayanna died and Penina a little while later.
A man my mother always referred to as an uncle would visit every month during those early years bringing food, books and sometimes I saw him pass Mother money. I never saw anything that resembled a letter pass between them until, I think it was October 1945. We went out for dinner that night, Mr Redden, a thing we had never done. I asked her why that was—'what are we celebrating, Mum?' and she told me why.
At first she asked me if I remembered Schuschnigg. How can anyone forget that fat pig, I answered. I remember him coming after our father was shot, full of sorrow that was feigned and false. Then, when he left I saw him stuffing his pockets with bread that our Mother had just taken from the oven. She said that he had been shot dead three days after the war officially ended on the fifth of September. That's how I know Schuschnigg is dead and Jack is filling your head with stories. I have no common ground with fascist values, but if I ever met that man who shot him I'd shake his hand in gratitude as much later she explained exactly who he was. She spoke too of a priest who was not choosy nor discreet in whom he told of his wartime rescuing of Jews. He spoke to the Allies who were trying to reconstruct the government of Austria, and he spoke to senior members of his faith. One of those was the Archbishop of Vienna, a close confident of a certain Karl Weilham.
The communications that Jack and I have with each other are one-way. I wait for his letters with postmarks from all over the world. I have no idea how to contact him directly. I also trust him in the retention of secrets, but I don't fully trust him in his motives. He hadn't contacted me for years until about a month ago, when he phoned and said he would be sending someone who would know the story of the Sternberg family and how Alain Aberman met his death. That was his code and your story was the other half of it. The use of the telephone was not only unprecedented, but deeply disturbing! He too knew the name of Weilham.
Somehow or other Jack knew of my interest in our family's ancestral history. He instructed me to pick that study up again, this time concentrating on the name of Schuschnigg. I discovered that he has a living step-brother. Born in Vienna in March 1918. Unlike Schuschnigg, the step-brother, Karl Weilham, joined the Nazi Party three weeks after their annexation of Austria in t
he Second World War. He served in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, then after being wounded, was attached to German Army Group E, serving in Italy and the Balkans.
It was there he met and collaborated with Josip Tito, leader of the anti-German forces in Yugoslavia, a communist and Ante Pavelić, leader of the Croatian pro-German forces. Although Tito and Pavelić were on opposite sides during the Second World War they were on the same side during the First World War fighting the White Russians. Tito went into the Red Army after the October Revolution in 1917 returning to the newly formed Kingdom of Yugoslavia and joining the Communist Party. Pavelić, on the other hand, returned to Croatia to form the Ustaše movement in allegiance with the Fascists of Italy and then the German Nazis.
From an early age Weilham learned how to play both sides in a conflict. He now has an undisclosed financial interest in KGA, the company we are in talks with. I know this as a fact and have the necessary written confirmation. He did not disclose any of this information when he was appointed senior assistant secretary to the Secretary General of the United Nations last year! Tito, now President and Marshal of Yugoslavia, was one of his sponsors having first met our Karl in Vienna as early as 1934.
Tito's wartime partisans helped many Jews escape from persecution, whereas Pavelić, and his Ustaše movement, murdered tens of thousands of my religion. Weilham was in the middle, appeasing both sides through a Catholic association he had developed with Croatia's archbishop, who at best turned a blind eye to the genocide and at worse favoured Pavelić. As soon as the war in Europe ended Tito expressed his repugnance for what he saw as direct Vatican intervention, but absolved Weilham from blame. One year on saw the head of Croatia's Catholic church arrested by the Yugoslavian army and sentenced to sixteen year's imprisonment for assisting the Ustaše. This, and his censorship of Rome, led the Pope to excommunicate Tito and his government. Pavelić, however, was assisted by some of the authorities within the Catholic church in his escape from arrest in Vienna, and his flight to South America. Weilham, the newly installed UN assistant secretary, met with Ante Pavelić in Argentina many times and it was he who was instrumental in securing his return to Europe in 1959 after an assassination attempt on his life.
