by Ken Follett
Fitz’s face was no longer merely impassive, Lloyd saw. He was struggling to maintain control. Lloyd understood that his mother had put her finger on the real problem. It was not so much that Fitz was ashamed of having an illegitimate son; he was too proud to accept that he had loved a housemaid. He probably loved Ethel more than his wife, Lloyd guessed. And that upset all his most fundamental beliefs about the social hierarchy.
Lloyd spoke for the first time. ‘I was with Boy at the end, sir. He died bravely.’
For the first time, Fitz looked at him. ‘My son doesn’t require your approval,’ he said.
Lloyd felt as if he had been slapped.
Even Ethel was shocked. ‘Fitz!’ she said. ‘How can you be so mean?’
At that point Daisy came in.
‘Hello, Fitz!’ she said gaily. ‘You probably thought you’d got rid of me, but now you’re my father-in-law again. Isn’t that amusing?’
Ethel said: ‘I’m just trying to persuade Fitz to shake Lloyd’s hand.’
Fitz said: ‘I try to avoid shaking hands with socialists.’
Ethel was fighting a losing battle, but she would not give up. ‘See how much of yourself there is in him! He resembles you, dresses like you, shares your interest in politics – he’ll probably end up Foreign Secretary, which you always wanted to be!’
Fitz’s expression darkened further. ‘It is now most unlikely that I shall ever be Foreign Secretary.’ He went to the door. ‘And it would not please me in the least if that great office of state were to be held by my Bolshevik bastard!’ With that he walked out.
Ethel burst into tears.
Daisy put her arm around Lloyd. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry,’ Lloyd said. ‘I’m not shocked or disappointed.’ This was not true, but he did not want to appear pathetic. ‘I was rejected by him a long time ago.’ He looked at Daisy with adoration. ‘I’m lucky to have plenty of other people who love me.’
Ethel said tearfully: ‘It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have asked him to come here. I might have known it would turn out badly.’
‘Never mind,’ said Daisy. ‘I have some good news.’
Lloyd smiled at her. ‘What’s that?’
She looked at Ethel. ‘Are you ready for this?’
‘I think so.’
‘Come on,’ said Lloyd. ‘What is it?’
Daisy said: ‘We’re going to have a baby.’
(iii)
Carla’s brother, Erik, came home that summer, near to death. He had contracted tuberculosis in a Soviet labour camp, and they had released him when he became too ill to work. He had been sleeping rough for weeks, travelling on freight trains and begging lifts on lorries. He arrived at the von Ulrich house barefoot and wearing filthy clothes. His face was like a skull.
However, he did not die. It might have been being with people who loved him; or the warmer weather as winter turned into spring; or perhaps just rest; but he coughed less and regained enough energy to do some work around the house, boarding up smashed windows, repairing roof tiles, unblocking pipes.
Fortunately, at the beginning of the year Frieda Franck had struck gold.
Ludwig Franck had been killed in the air raid that destroyed his factory, and for a while Frieda and her mother had been as destitute as everyone else. But she got a job as a nurse in the American zone, and soon afterwards, she explained to Carla, a little group of American doctors had asked her to sell their surplus food and cigarettes on the black market in exchange for a cut of the proceeds. Thereafter she turned up at Carla’s house once a week with a little basket of supplies: warm clothing, candles, flashlight batteries, matches, soap, and food – bacon, chocolate, apples, rice, canned peaches. Maud divided the food into portions and gave Carla double. Carla accepted without hesitation, not for her own sake, but to help her feed baby Walli.
Without Frieda’s illicit groceries, Walli might not have made it.
He was changing fast. The dark hair with which he had been born had now gone, and instead he had fine, fair hair. At six months he had Maud’s wonderful green eyes. As his face took shape, Carla noticed a fold of flesh in the outer corners of his eyes that gave him a slant-eyed look, and she wondered if his father had been a Siberian. She could not remember all the men who had raped her. Most of the time she had closed her eyes.
She no longer hated them. It was strange, but she was so happy to have Walli that she could hardly bring herself to regret what had happened.
Rebecca was fascinated by Walli. Now just fifteen, she was old enough to have the beginnings of maternal feelings, and she eagerly helped Carla bathe and dress the baby. She played with him constantly, and he gurgled with delight when he saw her.
As soon as Erik felt well enough, he joined the Communist Party.
Carla was baffled. After what he had suffered at the hands of the Soviets, how could he? But she found that he talked about Communism in the same way he had talked about Nazism a decade earlier. She just hoped that this time his disillusionment would not be so long coming.
The Allies were keen for democracy to return to Germany, and city elections were scheduled for Berlin later in 1946.
Carla felt sure the city would not return to normal until its own people took control, so she decided to stand for the Social Democratic Party. But Berliners quickly discovered that the Soviet occupiers had a curious notion of what democracy meant.
The Soviets had been shocked by the results of elections in Austria the previous November. The Austrian Communists had expected to run neck-and-neck with the Socialists, but had won only four seats out of 165. It seemed that voters blamed Communism for the brutality of the Red Army. The Kremlin, unused to genuine elections, had not anticipated that.
To avoid a similar result in Germany, the Soviets proposed a merger between the Communists and the Social Democrats in what they called a united front. The Social Democrats refused, despite heavy pressure. In East Germany the Russians started arresting Social Democrats, just as the Nazis had in 1933. There the merger was forced through. But the Berlin elections were supervised by the four Allies, and the Social Democrats survived.
Once the weather warmed up, Carla was able to take her turn queuing for food. She carried Walli with her wrapped in a pillowcase – she had no baby clothes. Standing in line for potatoes one morning, a few blocks from home, she was surprised to see an American jeep pull up with Frieda in the passenger seat. The balding, middle-aged driver kissed her on the lips, and she jumped out. She was wearing a sleeveless blue dress and new shoes. She walked quickly away, heading for the von Ulrich house, carrying her little basket.
Carla saw everything in a flash. Frieda was not trading on the black market, and there was no syndicate of doctors. She was the paid mistress of an American officer.
It was not unusual. Thousands of pretty German girls had been faced with the choice: see your family starve, or sleep with a generous officer. French women had done the same under German occupation: officers’ wives back here in Germany had spoken bitterly about it.
All the same, Carla was horrified. She believed that Frieda loved Heinrich. They were planning to get married as soon as life returned to some semblance of normality. Carla felt sick at heart.
She reached the head of the line and bought her ration of potatoes, then hurried home.
She found Frieda upstairs in the drawing room. Erik had cleaned up the room and put newspaper in the windows, the next best thing to glass. The curtains had long ago been recycled as bed linen, but most of the chairs had survived so far, their upholstery faded and worn. The grand piano was still there, miraculously. A Russian officer had discovered it and announced that he would return next day with a crane to lift it out through the window, but he had never come back.
Frieda immediately took Walli from Carla and began to sing to him. ‘A, B, C, die Katze lief im Schnee.’ The women who had not yet had children, Rebecca and Frieda, could hardly get enough of Walli, Carla observed. Those who had had
children of their own, Maud and Ada, adored him but dealt with him in a briskly practical way.
Frieda opened the lid of the piano and encouraged Walli to bang on the keys as she sang. The instrument had not been played for years: Maud had not touched it since the death of her last pupil, Joachim Koch.
After a few minutes Frieda said to Carla: ‘You’re a bit solemn. What is it?’
‘I know how you get the food you bring us,’ Carla said. ‘You’re not a black marketeer, are you?’
‘Of course I am,’ Frieda said. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I saw you this morning, getting out of a jeep.’
‘Colonel Hicks gave me a lift.’
‘He kissed you on the lips.’
Frieda looked away. ‘I knew I should have got out earlier. I could have walked from the American zone.’
‘Frieda, what about Heinrich?’
‘He’ll never know! I’ll be more careful, I swear.’
‘Do you still love him?’
‘Of course! We’re going to get married.’
‘Then why . . . ?’
‘I’ve had enough of hard times! I want to put on pretty clothes and go to nightclubs and dance.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Carla said confidently. ‘You can’t lie to me, Frieda – we’ve been friends too long. Tell me the truth.’
‘The truth?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘I did it for Walli.’
Carla gasped with shock. That had never occurred to her, but it made sense. She could believe Frieda would make such a sacrifice for her and her baby.
But she felt dreadful. This made her responsible for Frieda’s prostituting herself. ‘This is terrible!’ Carla said. ‘You shouldn’t have done it – we would have managed somehow.’
Frieda sprang up from the piano stool with the baby still in her arms. ‘No, you wouldn’t!’ she blazed.
Walli was frightened, and cried. Carla took him and rocked him, patting his back.
‘You wouldn’t have managed,’ Frieda said more quietly.
‘How do you know?’
‘All last winter, babies were brought into the hospital naked, wrapped in newspapers, dead of hunger and cold. I could hardly bear to look at them.’
‘Oh, God.’ Carla held Walli tight.
‘They turn a peculiar bluish colour when they freeze to death.’
‘Stop it.’
‘I have to tell you, otherwise you won’t understand what I did. Walli would have been one of those blue frozen babies.’
‘I know,’ Carla whispered. ‘I know.’
‘Percy Hicks is a kind man. He has a frumpy wife back in Boston and I’m the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. He’s nice and quick about intercourse and always uses a condom.’
‘You should stop,’ Carla said.
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘No, I don’t,’ Carla confessed. ‘And that’s the worst part. I feel so guilty. I am guilty.’
‘You’re not. It’s my choice. German women have to make hard choices. We’re paying for the easy choices German men made fifteen years ago. Men such as my father, who thought Hitler would be good for business; and Heinrich’s father, who voted for the Enabling Act. The sins of the fathers are visited on the daughters.’
There was a loud knock at the front door. A moment later they heard scampering steps as Rebecca hurried upstairs to hide, just in case it was the Red Army.
Then Ada’s voice said: ‘Oh! Sir! Good morning!’ She sounded surprised and a bit worried, though not scared. Carla wondered who would induce that particular mixture of reactions in the maid.
There was a heavy masculine tread on the stairs, then Werner walked in.
He was dirty and ragged and thin as a rail, but there was a broad smile on his handsome face. ‘It’s me!’ he said ebulliently. ‘I’m back!’
Then he saw the baby. His jaw dropped and the happy smile disappeared. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘What . . . who . . . whose baby is that?’
‘Mine, my darling,’ said Carla. ‘Let me explain.’
‘Explain?’ he said angrily. ‘What explanation is necessary? You’ve had someone else’s baby!’ He turned to go.
Frieda said: ‘Werner! In this room are two women who love you. Don’t walk out without listening to us. You don’t understand.’
‘I think I understand everything.’
‘Carla was raped.’
He went pale. ‘Raped? Who by?’
Carla said: ‘I never knew their names.’
‘Names?’ Werner swallowed. ‘There . . . there was more than one?’
‘Five Red Army soldiers.’
His voice fell to a whisper. ‘Five?’
Carla nodded.
‘But . . . couldn’t you . . . I mean . . .’
Frieda said: ‘I was raped, too, Werner. And so was Mother.’
‘Dear God, what has been going on here?’
‘Hell,’ said Frieda.
Werner sat down heavily in a worn leather chair. ‘I thought hell was where I’ve been,’ he said. He buried his face in his hands.
Carla crossed the room, still holding Walli, and stood in front of Werner’s chair. ‘Look at me, Werner,’ she said. ‘Please.’
He looked up, his face twisted with emotion.
‘Hell is over,’ she said.
‘Is it?’
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Life is hard, but the Nazis have gone, the war is finished, Hitler is dead, and the Red Army rapists have been brought under control, more or less. The nightmare has ended. And we’re both alive, and together.’
He reached out and took her hand. ‘You’re right.’
‘We’ve got Walli, and in a minute you’ll meet a fifteen-year-old girl called Rebecca who has somehow become my child. We have to make a new family out of what the war has left us, just as we have to build new houses with the rubble in the streets.’
He nodded acceptance.
‘I need your love,’ she said. ‘So do Rebecca and Walli.’
He stood up slowly. She looked at him expectantly. He said nothing but, after a long moment, he put his arms around her and the baby, gently embracing them both.
(iv)
Under wartime regulations still in force, the British government had a right to open a coal mine anywhere, regardless of the wishes of the owner of the land. Compensation was paid only for loss of earnings on farmland or commercial property.
Billy Williams, as Minister for Coal, authorized an open-cast mine in the grounds of Tŷ Gwyn, the palatial residence of Earl Fitzherbert on the outskirts of Aberowen.
No compensation was payable as the land was not commercial.
There was uproar on the Conservative benches in the House of Commons. ‘Your slag heap will be right under the bedroom windows of the countess!’ said one indignant Tory.
Billy Williams smiled. ‘The earl’s slag heap has been under my mother’s window for fifty years,’ he said.
Lloyd Williams and Ethel both travelled to Aberowen with Billy the day before the engineers began to dig the hole. Lloyd was reluctant to leave Daisy, who was due to give birth in two weeks, but it was a historic moment, and he wanted to be there.
Both his grandparents were now in their late seventies. Granda was almost blind despite his pebble-lensed glasses, and Grandmam was bent-backed. ‘This is nice,’ Grandmam said when they all sat around the old kitchen table. ‘Both my children here.’ She served stewed beef with mashed turnips and thick slices of home-made bread spread with the butcher’s fat called dripping. She poured large mugs of sweetened milky tea to go with it.
Lloyd had eaten like this frequently as a child, but now he found it coarse. He knew that even in hard times French and Spanish women managed to serve up tasty dishes delicately flavoured with garlic and garnished with herbs. He was ashamed of his fastidiousness, and pretended to eat and drink with relish.
‘Pity about
the gardens at Tŷ Gwyn,’ Grandmam said tactlessly.
Billy was stung. ‘What do you mean? Britain needs the coal.’
‘But people love those gardens. Beautiful, they are. I’ve been there at least once every year since I was a girl. Shame it is to see them go.’
‘There’s a perfectly good recreation ground right in the middle of Aberowen!’
‘It’s not the same,’ said Grandmam imperturbably.
Granda said: ‘Women will never understand politics.’
‘No,’ said Grandmam. ‘I don’t suppose we will.’
Lloyd caught his mother’s eye. She smiled and said nothing.
Billy and Lloyd shared the second bedroom, and Ethel made up a bed on the kitchen floor. ‘I slept in this room every night of my life until I went in the army,’ Billy said as they lay down. ‘And I looked out the window every morning at that fucking slag heap.’
‘Keep your voice down, Uncle Billy,’ Lloyd said. ‘You don’t want your mother to hear you swear.’
‘Aye, you’re right,’ said Billy.
Next morning after breakfast they all walked up the hill to the big house. It was a mild morning, and for a change there was no rain. The ridge of mountains at the skyline was softened with summer grass. As Tŷ Gwyn came into view, Lloyd could not help seeing it more as a beautiful building than as a symbol of oppression. It was both, of course: nothing was simple in politics.
The great iron gates stood open. The Williams family passed into the grounds. A crowd had gathered already: the contractor’s men with their machinery, a hundred or so miners and their families, Earl Fitzherbert with his son Andrew, a handful of reporters with notebooks, and a film crew.
The gardens were breathtaking. The avenue of ancient chestnut trees was in full leaf, there were swans on the lake, and the flower beds blazed with colour. Lloyd guessed the earl had made sure the place looked its best. He wanted to brand the Labour government as wreckers in the eyes of the world.
Lloyd found himself sympathizing with Fitz.
The Mayor of Aberowen was giving an interview. ‘The people of this town are against the open-cast mine,’ he said. Lloyd was surprised: the town council was Labour, and it must have gone against the grain for them to oppose the government. ‘For more than a hundred years, the beauty of these gardens has refreshed the souls of people who live in a grim industrial landscape,’ the Mayor went on. Switching from prepared speech to personal reminiscence, he added: ‘I proposed to my wife under that cedar tree.’
