by JH Fletcher
He took a deep breath. ‘A chance to show you that things have improved. In that department.’
Talking had failed. Now he was resorting to the arguments of the body. She would have been offended had it been a ploy but knew it was not. He wanted her out of the depths of his feelings for her.
She ought to say no. Yet wanted him so much. Impulse leapt. Her fingers tightened on his. ‘I would like you to show me.’
There were problems. Having lived in each other’s pockets all the time Ruth had been in London they had made separate plans for tonight. He had to attend a dinner whereas she had managed to get hold of a ticket for the Royal Ballet. They agreed she would catch a taxi after the performance and go from Covent Garden to his flat.
‘Not a very romantic start to the evening,’ he said doubtfully.
‘We’ll make up for it later.’
‘I’ll make sure I’m home before you,’ he told her.
She laughed. ‘You’d better. I’ve no plans to spend the night on your doorstep.’
The Royal Opera House, murmurous. The cathedral hush before the curtain. It was Stravinsky’s Firebird, harsh, spiky, exciting, dangerous music. And the dance a perfect match, though whether the music was right for the dance or the dance for the music Ruth did not know, only that the entity was complete through the interaction of both.
Impressions snipped the air. The ballerina’s coral skirt, the plume of flames upon her head. The dancers twisting, faster, faster, gyrating in doomed frenzy and falling while the music and the firebird prowled triumphant. The ultimate tranquil building of music and dance, step by step, chord by chord, to the finale, the magician slain, evil vanquished, the music’s pulsing and triumphant farewell.
Ruth thought, I cannot do it. Cannot.
She went out into the rainy London streets, the pavements shining in the rain, the gutters running with rain, and walked walked walked, head, soul and heart taken up by the music’s lingering magic. By the awareness of what she must do, must not do.
And so, finally, to the Embankment, the river grey beneath the slanting shafts of rain, and amen, amen, amen.
She knew she should phone Richard but did not, afraid he would talk her round. She caught a taxi to Barnes. In the morning she went directly to the airport. While she waited for her flight she wrote to him. She said nothing of art, its demands. She had been able to talk to him about it but to express it in words on the page … Impossible. They would insult by their pretentiousness. Instead she justified herself by referring to Dougie, knowing that Richard could not dispute her on such ground.
I cannot give up on him. I have an obligation, a duty, a loyalty. Not only to him. To myself. Because, if I betray him, I betray myself. I cannot. Forgive me.
Richard had said, ‘The Germans are very keen to see you.’
Ruth had been doubtful. ‘I thought most of Germany had been flattened. Is their economy in a fit state to think of buying books?’
‘Not very many, not yet. But they will. They’re working flat out. There’s a man called Erhardt who’s running their finances. People are talking about miracles.’
So she had agreed but with reservations. Now, as her plane landed, her doubts were greater than ever. She was nervous. For so long Germany had been the enemy. What would it be like actually to be in the country that had seduced Franz so fatally?
Wernher Schroeder was waiting for her at the barrier. He was about forty years old, tall and formal, with a silver tie and dark suit. She had thought he might click his heels and bow; instead he shook her hand.
‘Welcome to Germany.’
‘Thank you.’
They drove through a small town that had been badly damaged, many buildings with only the outside walls standing, a castle in ruins.
Schroeder said, ‘As you see, there is still a lot of work to be done. But it will all be rebuilt in time.’
‘I wonder whether there’s much of a demand for books at this stage,’ Ruth said.
‘Certainly there is a demand. And will be much more, later.’
As Richard had told her.
‘But books about the war … I’d have thought people had had enough war to last a lifetime.’
‘People in Germany are very interested in the experiences of others. Especially in books that hold out hope for the future, as yours does. Out Of The Depths,’ he said with satisfaction, ‘is a title that expresses so well what people in Germany feel. They have been plunged into the depths. Now they are beginning to climb back into the light. I believe a book that expresses such sentiments will sell very well here.’
Schwarzbruchen itself was little damaged, which was a relief. Schroeder left her at the hotel. She had a wash and change of clothes and went out into the main square. Near the hotel was a church with twin Gothic spires, ornately moulded. There were ornamental trees down the middle of the square; more trees on one side, while on the other a line of buildings hid their windows behind wooden shutters that glowed in the sunlight. Beyond the church the ground rose through meadows to the summit of a rounded hill. It was very peaceful and no one looking at it would have known there had been a war at all.
It made Ruth feel as though she had passed out of reality into a dream world where nothing ever had or would change and the clocks were all set permanently at one minute to midnight.
She went through the routine of luncheons and book signings, of workshops and after-dinner speeches. Her visit had been well covered by the press. She was one of the first foreign writers to visit Germany since the war, the first Australian writer ever in this part of the country. And a woman, on top of everything else. Reporters came from Stuttgart and Karlsruhe. They asked her the questions that she had discovered reporters always asked. Was this her first visit? How did she like the country? Was she married? How many children did she have? Did her husband mind her travelling alone?
To these Europeans, cut off so long by war, Ruth was an exotic creature, like a rare and wonderful bird that had appeared suddenly in their midst. She sensed their astonishment that Australians could read at all, never mind write, and when she spoke the audience stared as though a kangaroo had got up and addressed them.
Cultured people for all that, friendly and hospitable, and Ruth saw that Schroeder had been right. They were fascinated by what she had to tell them; it opened perspectives closed to them for a generation and when she departed from her prepared script to speak of the empty vastness of Australia and her own feelings for it she sensed a fascination that matched her own. These people were ripe for something new. With luck, she thought, she might be the person to bring it to them. It was an exciting thought.
At the end of her visit Schroeder told her how delighted he had been with the way things had gone. ‘There has been a huge amount of publicity,’ he said. ‘And the way you spoke … I must congratulate you. After this you have a guaranteed market here for your work, absolutely guaranteed.’
There certainly had been a lot of publicity. She had been contacted by journalists from as far away as Frankfurt and Cologne, had given endless radio interviews, had been asked again and again when she was coming back, it had been a great success.
Now she was tired. She spent her last evening alone in the hotel, had a light supper, strolled around the square as darkness came sifting down and the lights of the buildings began to prick through the dusk.
It was wonderful to be at peace at last, to be rid of schedules and responsibilities. She had not heard from Richard; after the way she had left him standing she wondered whether she would ever hear from him again. Regret was waiting to sandbag her, she would wish a hundred times she had decided differently, yet remained convinced she had been right. Too late now, in any case. Work beckoned. She had been dubious about coming to Germany yet had gained something wonderful from her visit, the affirmation of a sense of direction in her work.
We cannot go on living our lives in hatred, imprisoned by the demons of the past. That is where we have always gone wrong before. People
need to turn their faces to the light. If I believe it is truly the artist’s responsibility to point the way forward, I’d better get on with it.
Buoyed by her vision of the future, Ruth returned to the hotel. Behind his desk the porter looked up at her.
‘Frau Ballard?’
‘Yes?’
‘A visitor has been asking for you.’
She frowned. She had been expecting no visitors.
‘I told him he could wait in the lounge.’ He saw her expression and became concerned. ‘If you wish, I shall send him away —’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll see what he wants.’
Someone who has heard me speak, she thought. Another reporter, perhaps.
She pushed open the lounge door and went in. The man was sitting in the far corner of the room, his back to her. She walked over to him, her feet soundless on the carpet. He was looking at a magazine and did not hear her.
She stopped at his side. ‘I understand you want to see me?’
He turned to face her. He smiled and she felt the blood stop in her veins.
Franz.
The porter was hovering by the door, waiting to see if he would be needed. Ruth felt a gush of affection for him, the whole world. ‘Thank you. I won’t … It’s all right. A friend …’ Stuttering incoherently.
She sank into a chair beside a low table where earlier that evening coffee had been served. Somehow that mundane fact was important, a fingernail clinging to reality.
‘I was sure you were dead.’
Franz smiled. ‘Not yet.’
The same voice. After all this time, the same voice.
‘But how …’
How have you been? How have you survived the war? How are you here, facing me?
‘Long story.’
He looked older, a face that had known trouble. The war leaves its mark, she thought. We talk about it being over, but is it?
‘Franz …’ She tasted the name, the experience of his being here, of their being together. She took his hands. They were rough, hard, used.
‘These days I’m a wheelwright,’ he told her. As though he had read her thought.
‘Tell me.’
‘About being a wheelwright?’
In the past, in the days before arrogance had swallowed up all else, he had mocked her. Her mouth prepared to smile back at him but did not. Something had to be wrong.
‘You took mathematics at Heidelberg,’ she said. ‘How come you’re doing something so different?’
‘I never went to Heidelberg in my life.’
His humourless smile confirmed her alarm. ‘But —’
‘We have not been introduced, I think.’ Suddenly there was a tang of German in his voice, the rhythm of his words. But not in mockery. Oh no. He drew himself together, jerked his head stiffly as though bowing and thrust out a hand. ‘Gunther Frey,’ he said formally.
Ruth stared at him, eyes wide, wondering. There was ice here, a fragile bridge, and beneath the ice a void. She, too, drew herself together. ‘No more games,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’
‘All of it?’ Satire lanced in the broad, humourless smile. ‘How long have you got?’
‘As long as it takes.’
NINETEEN
For months after leaving Australia, Franz was haunted by the recurrent images of an inexplicable dream.
Above the great river a promontory is crowned by a tower of stone. Trees surround it so that the green leaves are flecked by the grey of the stonework. It is a fine evening and the setting sun changes the colours first to gold then to a rich vermilion etched with black.
He lies in the bottom of a wooden skiff as it drifts downriver in the direction of the promontory. The boat is white. Its white shadow travels through the dark water as smoothly and silently as the boat to which it is tethered. He is alone, lying quietly within the hull, its planks firm beneath his shoulders. He does not move yet the boat makes steady progress through the water. As the promontory draws nearer he sees one tree standing high above the rest, above the tower itself. Even from this distance he can see how its great roots seize the earth, how its branches, gnarled with the weight of years, finger the sky.
Unguided yet purposeful, the skiff changes course across the current. Peacefully it comes to rest beside a meadow that extends to the foot of the hill on which the tree-girt tower stands.
He disembarks and walks through tall grass that forms a screen of emerald before his eyes. He comes out on a path that winds uphill towards the summit. He follows it.
Between the pockets of soil the rock that from the boat had seemed grey now glows an intense red. On the surface of the rock appears the first of the paintings, four dancing men, faceless, their sex, enormously enlarged, hanging. He passes them. A sense of menace comes from them, the chill of the unknown. Beyond them more figures, male and female, long-limbed and malevolent, extend their arms above their heads. A fish swims upon the rock face, its skeleton displayed. A mouthless face is haloed with gold. The figures jostle him, their fingers clutch at him. With enormous effort he tears himself free and hurries on, panting as the climb grows steeper.
He reaches the summit. The stone tower has metamorphosed into a jumble of piled rock. He stands upon it. Beneath him the land flows like a great and tranquil sea, a plain without shadow or feature. The sun paints it madder and scarlet, umber, russet and titian beneath a sky colourless with heat. Above him the great tree stands. Its limbs cast a green and grateful shade.
Franz felt no regret at turning his back on his family, on what had been his country, on everything that until now had comprised his life. On the contrary, he was exultant. As the ship crossed the Indian Ocean on the first leg of its journey to Europe the sense of ecstasy and amazement at what he had done burned within him. He wanted to run, to shout aloud, the confines of the ship punished him, yet he permitted himself no such indulgence. When he had joined the party he had been taught that his first duty was to control himself. Only then would he be worthy to control others. By merging his soul with the composite soul of the German people he as an individual had ceased to exist. Discipline as well as faith must guide him.
He obeyed gladly. His feelings went far beyond allegiance to a political party; National Socialism transcended politics. The comfort of belonging, of submerging his will within the greater will of the people and its leader, overwhelmed him. It represented not oblivion but fulfilment, lifting from him the burden of decision and doubt. He was filled with gratitude that such an opportunity had been given him.
As the train made its way south from Hamburg to Heidelberg, where he had been promised a post in the School of Mathematics, Franz stared out of the window at this land to which he had returned. His land. His destiny. Everywhere the signs of that destiny were manifest; the brilliant flags, the troops waiting at the stations, the air spiked with energy and excitement.
Yes, he thought, I was right to come back.
Yet for all his conviction was tired and troubled. One thing marred his sense of fulfilment; the dream that visited him every night. Its recurrent vision plagued him; the river and tower, the trees and capering images, the land like a great and tranquil sea. He told himself it meant nothing yet hated it. He believed it sullied him, signalling an inexplicable disloyalty to the new imperatives of blood and iron. It shall pass, he ordered himself fiercely. It must. It has no place.
A man came down the corridor. Heavy-bellied, brown-uniformed, he flung open the door and thrust himself into the compartment. Pig eyes gleamed, snout sniffed for treason.
‘Papers …’
Franz produced them silently.
The man pawed through them, measured Franz with a suspicious eye. ‘Name?’
‘Franz Vogel.’
‘Where you going?’
‘To Heidelberg.’
‘Your business?’
‘I’ve been offered a job at the University.’
The man tapped the papers in his freckled fist. Instincts honed against the unorthodox, he
sensed something out of order. ‘You’re a foreigner. With an accent. How come you’ve got a good German name, eh?’
‘I am German. As my papers show.’
The man examined them again, gropingly, seized triumphantly upon what might be an anomaly. ‘Says here you were born in Australia.’ He brandished the fact like an accusation.
Spy. The word hung between them.
Franz was contemptuous. ‘A German citizen, all the same.’ He produced his trump in the form of his party card. ‘And a member of the party.’
The man examined that, too, was at once deferential. Perhaps a little anxious. ‘Thank you, comrade. You’ll understand we got to check —’
‘Quite.’
The man drew himself up, thrust out a stiff arm. ‘Heil Hitler.’
‘Heil Hitler.’
The man withdrew more quietly than he had entered. But would have regained his bluster before the next compartment, Franz knew.
A bully. There were so many of them, wearing their uniforms like fists thrust into the face of the world. Never mind. Even such thuggish behaviour was a sign of the rough vitality so necessary in what was, after all, the master race.
Professor Meissner was a party member, too, out of necessity. No bully, though. A grey, diffident man in his fifties, he seemed to believe that between academics politics should have no place.
He and Franz sipped strong coffee in his rooms. ‘How was Australia?’
‘Chaotic. As always.’
‘It is a country I have always wished to visit.’ Wistfully, as though speaking of a distant star.
‘A country that confuses freedom with licence.’
‘Ah yes.’ The empty cup clinked as the professor replaced it in its saucer. ‘Naturally one must be on one’s guard against that.’
‘In Australia,’ Franz assured him, ‘licence is regarded as a virtue.’ But wished to talk more about the future than the past. ‘I am glad to be back. To take up my duties at the University.’
‘Ah.’ At a side table Professor Meissner busied himself refilling cups.
