Gently Continental
Page 11
GENTLY
All the war years, before, after: Vienna, Berlin, New York.
MRS BRESKE
(Makes her buzzing noise.)
GENTLY
And the Polish lady, did he mention her – what was her name . . . Lydia Brodetsky? Perhaps you had a laugh over that? Told this Stenke he hadn’t changed?
TRUDI
(Jumping up.)
I’ve had enough! Can’t you see he knows everything, mother? Oh my goodness, what’s the use of sitting there and letting him humiliate you?
FRIEDA
(Jumping up too and coming to confront her.)
Keep your mouth shut, you by-blow!
TRUDI
I won’t – it’s too fantastic! There’s just no point in keeping quiet.
FRIEDA
You’ll shut up—
GENTLY
Stand back, Miss Frieda.
MRS BRESKE
Ach, mein Gott – I’m going mad!
TRUDI
You’re all so blind, that’s the trouble. And you think that other people are blind too.
FRIEDA
If you say a word—
TRUDI
But he knows! He’s simply squeezing you to make you confess. And I know too – all, everything – so who do you think you’re fooling?
FRIEDA
You know nothing!
TRUDI
Yes – he told me!
MRS BRESKE
Mein Kind—
TRUDI
Oh mother, what’s the use? I’ve known for weeks now, and I don’t care – it doesn’t matter to me a bit.
MRS BRESKE
It . . . does not matter?
TRUDI
No. None of it. I think it has all worked out for the best. I wanted to tell you that, Mütterlein, I wanted you to know it was all right.
MRS BRESKE
Trudi, Trudi . . . ach, Trudi!
TRUDI
I don’t want anything to change. Nothing between us, Mütterlein. Everything to go on as before.
MRS BRESKE
(Weeps.)
TRUDI
(Goes to her, puts her arm round her).
Mütterlein, Mütterlein. When were you not the best of mothers to me?
MRS BRESKE
(Weeping.)
Ich bin schlecht, ich bin schlecht!
TRUDI
No, don’t say that, Mütterlein.
MRS BRESKE
Ach, how could you forgive me?
TRUDI
There is nothing to forgive, Mütterlein, nothing.
FRIEDA
(Stares murderously at Trudi, her blunt fingers hooking at air.)
GENTLY
(To Walters.)
Fetch that photograph which stands on the what-not.
(Walters hands it to him. Gently studies it, then glances at Trudi.)
You are not Mrs Breske’s daughter, of course.
TRUDI
No.
GENTLY
In effect your real name is Trudi Lindemann.
TRUDI
I am Mütterlein’s niece. I am the daughter of her sister, Mitzi Lindemann.
GENTLY
But you were brought up to think you were Trudi Breske.
TRUDI
Yes. I didn’t know who I was till recently. I knew I was like that photograph, naturally, but that sort of thing can happen in families.
GENTLY
Who told you different?
TRUDI
Uncle Martin.
GENTLY
By whom you mean the deceased.
TRUDI
Yes. He knew all about what happened in Vienna. He thought I should know who I was. I never knew my parents, of course, but Uncle Martin told me about them. My father was Professor of Music at the University . . . I believe he was a distinguished man. My mother’s health was never very good and she died soon after I was born. Just before that my father had been arrested. Nobody knows what happened to him.
GENTLY
Then, apparently, you were registered as the daughter of your aunt.
TRUDI
That was necessary, don’t you see? Mütterlein had a permit to leave the country, but she could never have got one for me.
MRS BRESKE
Dass ist wahr, mein Gott! Without this she is finished. I promise Mitzi when she is dying – swear I take her baby with me. Ach, that journey! With Frieda two, and Trudi crying – crying – crying. What do you know about this? What do the English know about anything?
GENTLY
And Trudi Lindemann remained Trudi Breske.
MRS BRESKE
But yes – how can it be different? How do I know the English will take her if she is not what the papers say? Und when she grows up, shall I tell her then all the terrible things that happen – how her father is put into an Ofen, how her mother is dying of grief? Nein, nein! Better she think the ugly old woman is her Mütterlein, that she haf a scamp for her father – ach, yes! Much betterer!
TRUDI
Oh mother, mother, you’re not ugly.
GENTLY
But after the war, when the Nazis were beaten, when the estate of your sister was properly administered . . . was it so much better then?
MRS BRESKE
It is the same. How can I show that Trudi Breske is Trudi Lindemann?
GENTLY
Perhaps you couldn’t. But you inherited the estate and had it in your power to gift it to your niece.
MRS BRESKE
She is then a child still!
GENTLY
But not now. When did Miss Trudi become twenty-one?
FRIEDA
(Fiercely.)
What does that matter? Did she make all this – our hotel, our business? Oh no – oh no! It was mother and I who did that. It was we who worked sixteen hours a day, seven days every week – while Trudi lived like a lady: first at school, then here!
TRUDI
But Frieda, I wouldn’t dream—
FRIEDA
What right has she – tell me that? It was mother who gave her life in the first place: Trudi Lindemann wouldn’t be alive today. And if mother hadn’t risked her own life then – if she’d left dear Trudi to the Nazis – there wouldn’t have been any question, would there, about who Aunt Mitzi’s money belonged to. No, no! When she became a Breske she gave up her rights as a Lindemann. She was equal with me then and she is equal with me now.
GENTLY
The law views it a little differently.
FRIEDA
Where was the law in Hitler’s Vienna?
GENTLY
Your mother did a brave thing, but that doesn’t make a wrong a right.
MRS BRESKE
I do not wrong her! Ach, the money is now four times, five times – she will have more, much more, than poor Mitzi is leaving her.
GENTLY
That may be so, yet still a wrong has been committed against her. I imagine the courts’ decision will be that this hotel belongs to Miss Trudi.
FRIEDA
Never!
GENTLY
Oh, I think so.
FRIEDA
We’ll pay her out, and no more.
GENTLY
But you were in illegal possession of the principal, so you will scarcely be allowed to retain the increment.
FRIEDA
(Thrusting her face towards his.)
This is our work – we made it! Nobody is going to take it away. I’d sooner burn the place to ashes than hand it over to her.
GENTLY
You’ll fight, will you?
FRIEDA
Yes – fight!
GENTLY
To establish your illegal possession?
FRIEDA
This place is ours!
GENTLY
What a pity, Miss Frieda, that your father knew different.
Snap! The trap has closed, and Frieda is suddenly, shockedly aware of it. Her pale-lipped mouth is caught open, he
r next retort stopped in her throat. Her wolfish eyes have grown wild, protruding, echoing Mrs Breske’s and her flat, kitchen-pale cheeks have turned a new, floury, grey. Her breath won’t come. She stares and stares. Gently watches, casual, expressionless. Mrs Breske, mouth open too, drags at her daughter with her eyes. Trudi’s eyes are incredulous, Shelton’s baffled, but drinking it in: Walters, who knows his place, glances furtively, as though not wishing to be thought to interfere. Only Sally Dicks, that model stenographer, relishes that moment only with her ears, her pencil, one of several waiting, poised, alert for the next syllable.
GENTLY
Let me recapitulate the situation. Mrs Breske inherits her sister’s money. She – and you, Miss Frieda – are both aware that the money properly belongs to Miss Trudi. Miss Trudi however does not know she is the daughter of Mrs Lindemann, and the only person who can possibly tell her has vanished into wartime Germany. Miss Trudi does not and cannot know. It is safe to proceed on that basis. So Mrs Breske invests the money in this hotel, and with the especial aid of Miss Frieda, makes it prosper.
MRS BRESKE
Ach, yes, is true – Frieda works so hard.
GENTLY
That was my impression, Mrs Breske.
MRS BRESKE
The books, the staff – she is good. I cannot do it without Frieda.
GENTLY
Nevertheless, all this prosperity – of which you, Miss Frieda, were a principal agent – arose from the misappropriation of the Lindemann estate. It was balanced on that. If a whisper of Miss Trudi’s origin ever reached her, then the Hotel Continental, representing years of effort, would be lost – if nothing worse.
MRS BRESKE
How . . . worse?
GENTLY
An offence was committed. You cannot be unaware of that. Certainly Miss Frieda is not so unintelligent as not to know an offence was involved. The loss of the hotel and perhaps prison were the penalties of Miss Trudi finding out, and any prospect of this happening would be a very serious threat.
TRUDI
But it wasn’t – isn’t! You must listen to me – I would never have done such a thing to mother!
GENTLY
Perhaps not, but your mother and sister couldn’t be certain of that.
TRUDI
Yes they could – they know me! Mütterlein, you know me, don’t you?
MRS BRESKE
Ja, ja.
TRUDI
Frieda?
FRIEDA
(Shrugs.)
TRUDI
You see? They knew I wouldn’t behave so. It is true what Frieda says – so true! – that Trudi Lindemann wouldn’t be alive. I am here because I became a Breske, because Mütterlein took me for her daughter. And there cannot be two standards, one for then, one for now. Mütterlein has the rights of a mother with me, and I am glad, proud to be Frieda’s sister.
FRIEDA
No sister of mine.
TRUDI
Yes – sister! Equal with you, the way you said. If you don’t love me, Frieda, I’m sorry.
MRS BRESKE
Ach, ach, is Friedachen’s way.
GENTLY
But I’m afraid the facts of the matter make all this irrelevant, Miss Trudi. It is self-evident that your mother and sister didn’t trust you enough to confide in you. There can be no two ways about this, they either trusted you or distrusted you; and plainly they distrusted you. They intended to keep you in ignorance of the deceased’s identity.
FRIEDA
So we did. What then? What reason had I to trust this sister?
TRUDI
Oh, Frieda!
FRIEDA
Oh, Trudi! Aren’t we the sweet little miss? But not so sweet, not so sisterly when it comes to other people’s fiances. You soon had your hooks in Stephen Halliday when you came tripping back from college.
TRUDI
I didn’t know—
FRIEDA
You didn’t want to! You just reached out and grabbed him. Not that I care – if he’s such a fool you can have him and welcome. But trust you? Schweinefleisch! I wouldn’t trust you to carry out the swill. No, I wouldn’t have told you who was staying here – what was my father to you?
GENTLY
In fact he represented that threat I spoke of.
FRIEDA
Yes – another worthless person! He came running to us . . . never mind that. I don’t care what you think.
GENTLY
He came running to you when he was in trouble?
FRIEDA
Oh no, you can’t put words in my mouth. He was in England, he found us up – reckoned we would be a soft touch.
GENTLY
Which you seem to have been.
FRIEDA
Not me. I would never have let him in the house. He was trouble. I knew he would talk to her, even though he promised not to. But mother let him in – she’s soft, a hard-luck story always gets round her – and we were stuck with him. If this hadn’t happened he’d have been here for life.
MRS BRESKE
Frieda, Liebling – he was your father!
FRIEDA
And a drunken sponger – you know it! Living like a guest, stuffing, boozing – even his pocket-money came from you.
MRS BRESKE
He is my husband, once, once.
FRIEDA
Yes – half-a-hundred women ago.
MRS BRESKE
Ach, do not speak so. Poor Martin! Perhaps I wronged him after all.
And as she weeps a few fat tears, gross, suety Mrs Breske, dragging across her eyes thick fingers, on one of which the gold still glimmers, mourning, it maybe, not (X) Clooney, not Albrecht Stenke, nor Martin Breske, but a memory of that Vienna when the world was young and gay, when Strauss, lilting from a young man’s fiddle, lifted her heart among the nightingales, and the Danube, blue, forever blue, flashed, flowed along with the voice of spring. What will fetch such tears from Frieda, when she sits as her mother now?
GENTLY
Why did he come to you, Mrs Breske?
MRS BRESKE
(Shrugging.)
Who can say? He is in trouble, that is certain, and Martin never had any money.
GENTLY
Did he speak of this trouble?
MRS BRESKE
He says he wishes to lie low where he cannot be found. He is afraid that someone will come. We change his room so he can watch the gates.
GENTLY
Was it the police he feared?
MRS BRESKE
Ach no. I ask him this at the first.
GENTLY
Did he name, describe anyone?
MRS BRESKE
No. He says he does not know who will come.
GENTLY
But he must have hinted at the nature, the source of his fear?
MRS BRESKE
(Shaking her head.)
Nothings. I think it is maybe up here. (Points to her forehead.)
FRIEDA
And that’s where it was, if you ask me. He wasn’t on the run from anyone. It’s just the sort of tale he would have invented to get his feet under our table.
TRUDI
That isn’t true.
FRIEDA
What would you know about it?
TRUDI
He talked to us, Stephen and me. He was scared about something, something in America. He told us he had to leave there in a hurry.
FRIEDA
Which of course you believed.
TRUDI
Yes, I did. You could see he was scared when he talked about it. And I believe it the more now, when it turns out he was here with a forged passport.
GENTLY
So his trouble originated in America . . . wasn’t police-trouble . . . was likely to follow him, even here.
FRIEDA
And I say it’s all nonsense: and I think I talked to him as much as anyone.
GENTLY
So?
FRIEDA
What do you mean?
GENTLY
You have an alternative explanation – of why your father came here in these circumstances, and was first tortured, then killed?
FRIEDA
What makes you think—
GENTLY
Go on, Miss Frieda.
FRIEDA
No. You can do your own thinking.
GENTLY
I certainly will. Weren’t you going to say, What makes me think your father was murdered?
FRIEDA
(Paling again.)
If you say so. But—
GENTLY
It’s a perfectly good theory. The person who tortured Martin Breske had no good reason to want him dead. Also, the circumstances of the death appear to rule out deliberate homicide. My investigations tell me this. What I’m wondering is, who told you?
FRIEDA
Nobody told me!
GENTLY
A good guess?
FRIEDA
I – yes, I was guessing!
GENTLY
Why guess about that?
FRIEDA
Naturally—
GENTLY
Have we suggested we weren’t certain?
FRIEDA
I only thought—
GENTLY
You only thought what I needed investigation to decide. Perhaps you are psychic, Miss Frieda. Or perhaps you are not being entirely frank.
FRIEDA
Yes, I tell you—!
GENTLY
Tell me this. Did you trust your father not to talk?
FRIEDA
He swore he wouldn’t!
GENTLY
But did you trust him – a weak-willed character like that? Or, in your natural determination to keep the hotel at all costs, didn’t you decide on certain steps to make sure this wastrel wouldn’t talk?
FRIEDA
(Paler still.)
Never.
GENTLY
This sponger, this parasite.
FRIEDA
No!
GENTLY
This rat in your stores – who deserved no better than poison?
FRIEDA
(Rocking.)
I won’t answer you – I won’t be talked to like this.
GENTLY
Then let us go back to the previous question. Who told you your father’s death was an accident?
FRIEDA
No – nobody – it was a guess—
GENTLY
And what information was that man after?
Frieda makes some swerving movements, but still holds on for a few seconds. Her eyes are glazed, her bloodless lips pluck and gibber over her teeth. Then her eyes roll, she lists, she snores, her teeth snap shut with an audible click, and Frieda, Miss Breske, the cloud of thunder, goes lumping down in a dead faint. See to her, Gently says to Sally Dicks, but Trudi is already beside her cousin. Between them they hoist Miss Breske on the sofa and pack two cushions beneath her feet. Mrs Breske makes no movement, no gesture, sits gooseberry-eyed and oscillating. Trudi fetches brandy from chunky decanter, but knows not exactly how to administer it. Miss Breske moans, moves her head from side to side. Drink this, drink this, Frieda, Trudi says. She tips the glass to her cousin’s lips and her cousin moves her head and spills it. Then her eyes flicker open, fall on Trudi, the brandy. She makes a weak-strong movement, like a newly born calf: pushes the brandy, Trudi, from her, shudders, turns her face into the sofa.