White Lies

by Rudolph Bader

  When he delivered the group back to their base camp at the Hydro Hotel they were a little tired but very happy. They thanked him for his interesting and entertaining tour. And of course, Nora was extremely proud of her clever son.

  Sixteen

  It was a pleasant summer evening. Andrew and Rebecca were sitting on the shingle beach, leaning against one of the wooden groynes, enjoying the light breeze and talking about their situation in life, something they had begun on a regular basis a few months ago.

  Up to now, their talks about their relationship had usually consisted of what amounted to a celebration of their mutual love. More recently, they had sometimes brushed against the subject of a family. But they had never really spoken about it openly. Now it seemed the right time.

  “Have you ever thought about the future?” Rebecca asked. “I know you’re so involved with the past, but there’s also a future for us, isn’t there?”

  “Of course. Sometimes I try to imagine our lives in about twenty years or so. But it’s all a big blur.”

  “Have you thought about a family?”

  Andrew hesitated before he carefully answered. “Yes, I have. But I don’t know if it’s right, these days, you know.”

  “Are you worried so much about the future?”

  “Not really very seriously, but I just don’t know. Look, now with Fukushima I don’t know if it’s safe to have a family in the near future.”

  “I see. But isn’t Fukushima a long way from here?”

  “Indeed, it is. But it could happen here, in this country, in France, elsewhere in Europe. Yes, particularly in France. You’ve heard about the French unwavering belief in nuclear power, and they have some of the oldest and most dangerous power stations.”

  Rebecca sighed. “I am confident the European politicians will have sense enough to phase out all the nuclear power stations, now, after what happened in Japan. It’s being discussed in most countries.”

  “History even today remains true to itself in many ways,” Andrew mused. “There’s always some big danger looming just over the horizon, and there’s always hope. It’s this constant balance between danger and hope that we humans have to cope with. But can you see any great hope at this point in time? Anywhere in the world?”

  “Yes. Isn’t there a great deal of hope in what’s going on in North Africa at the moment? You know, what they call the Arab Spring. Only this year, so much has already happened down there that can give us a great deal of hope for the future. Most of the dictators are disappearing, and more democratic systems are emerging, in Tunisia, in Libya, in Egypt. I know things are not perfect yet, but there are clearly visible movements that allow us to hope for better times.”

  “I’m glad you can be so positive.” Andrew smiled at his beloved Rebecca. “So, you’d like to start a family?”

  “Well, not right now. Let’s wait and see, but I think we should try for it soon.”

  They let it stand at that. The sun was throwing longer shadows over the beach and they felt hungry. So they stood up and strolled off the beach, holding hands, still very much in love.

  Over the following days, Andrew often returned to their talk about a family in his mind. Again and again, he asked himself if he wanted to become a father or not in the near future. For a while, his quest moved in circles, always returning to the same position of indecisiveness. His conclusion was always to put it off. He was confident that he - or he and Rebecca together - would eventually arrive at a positive decision. But not yet.

  One day in October they drove up to London to attend a concert. He would later remember the date; it was Wednesday, the 26th of October. The traffic was horrendous, but they still made it in time to the Barbican Centre, where they parked their little red car in the car-park. Andrew had booked the parking on the Internet in advance. They walked the short distance through those doors to the lobby of the concert hall. When they entered the hall itself, looking for their seats, the gong sounded to announce the immediate beginning of the concert. They found their seats, settled down, sealed their pleasure about the treat to come with a quick kiss and relaxed.

  The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra was ready, all the instruments tuned. Their chief conductor, Riccardo Chailly, entered, bowed, turned round to face his orchestra, and the music began. While the maestro’s long wavy hair danced in the air and the musicians were getting into the strange mood of the modern piece, which was first on the programme, Andrew’s mind refused to be taken in straightaway. The music was a new composition of a man called Steffen Schleiermacher, something that Andrew had never heard. Although it was quite good, he just couldn’t really get into the music. And before he could adapt to the new sounds, the piece was over, and the audience applauded politely.

  The next item on the programme was Beethoven’s first symphony. It was a great performance; the conductor and the musicians did justice to their reputation among the best of the world. It was during this symphony that Andrew’s mind travelled through galaxies and what he saw as a thick fog in his mind began to lift gradually. When the piece reached its end and the audience applauded frenetically, he knew he had reached an important decision, but he wasn’t quite clear as to what it amounted to.

  In the interval, they drifted to their drinks that they had pre-ordered before the concert. He had a glass of prosecco, while Rebecca sipped her gin-and-tonic.

  “You are very quiet,” she remarked, looking him in the eyes.

  “Am I?”

  “Yes, normally you have something to say about the music we just heard, the pieces, the interpretation, the musicians, the conductor... What about the new piece, the contemporary one? Did you like it? I quite enjoyed it. It was very unusual. But then, what can one expect from a contemporary composition?”

  “For me it wasn’t a question of like or dislike. Both works, the Schleiermacher piece and the Beethoven symphony, had an unusual effect on me. I can’t tell you what it was exactly, whether it was the Germanic quality of the music, of both compositions, of both composers and of the orchestra itself, or the style of the performance. Two German composers, one who lived two hundred years ago and another one who is alive now, one from Bonn and the other from Halle. I just don’t know, but they have had a very strong effect on me. It’s even possible that the mood comes from my own subconscious quests, but it can be the music.”

  “Well, you’ll have another chance after the interval. We’re in for another treat, Beethoven’s Seventh,” Rebecca smiled.

  And it was just as she had predicted. The second half of the concert with that truly great symphony helped Andrew to get through to the end of the fog, and when the concert was over he saw light.

  Again, he was silent. They walked back to the car-park and drove out into the late evening traffic of London. Rebecca must have felt that he needed the silence to come to terms about how to communicate to her what he felt. They drove out of the big city in silence. It was only when they reached the M23 and the movement of their car had become more regular that Andrew spoke at last.

  “You must have wondered, my darling,” he began, “but I needed to sort things out first. But now I’m one hundred per cent sure I have come to an important decision.”

  She glanced at his face in the semi-darkness of the interior of the car. But she did not say anything. She let him continue at his own pace.

  “My first priority will be to find that diary of my mother’s. I want to read it, and I want to find answers to all those questions about the past before I’m ready to engage in the future. In other words, only when I’ve found out about Granddad’s role in the War can I take on the responsibility of parenthood. I promise you we’ll try for a child once I have my answers.”

  She was silent for several minutes. The M23 had become the A23 before she answered in a level voice.

  “I have been expecting this, and I respect your decisio
n. I know how much all that means to you, and I love you. So, I will go along with it as long as it won’t be for years and years. For both of us and our happiness I can only hope it will not take too long.”

  “Thank you, my darling.”

  They didn’t speak anymore during the rest of the trip. They were both deep in their thoughts. When they were back at their home they prepared for bed in silence. It was a happy silence. In bed, they were happy to cling to each other, to feel the smooth texture of the skin of their naked bodies. Even though this gave them both a moderate erotic feeling they didn’t do anything to intensify it. They were both very happy as they were. It was a celebration of togetherness. In this happy and relaxed mood, they gradually fell asleep, the lovely music still in their ears.

  The following morning, Andrew decided to make a special effort to find his mother’s diary. He wondered what new aspects he would find in there. Could it be that Granddad was all wrong about his fantasies? How long did he actually stay in Germany, how long did he spend in Switzerland? Was he really in Germany up to the end of the War? What role did he play when called up? Men of his age must have been called up in 1943 by the latest? Did he do his national service in the Wehrmacht? Did he fight against Poland, France, Russia, the Allies? What was his political allegiance? Was he perhaps even in agreement with Nazi doctrine? Or was he in the underground, fighting the Nazis?

  Would the diary reveal anything in that direction? Did Mum actually manage to find out anything about the background of that Wolfgang? And what about the woman called Anna, for whom Granddad seemed particularly concerned? Was she his great love before the War? How long did the relationship last?

  Questions over questions kept boiling up within him as he was planning to take a week off from work in order to search his mother’s attic and garage.

  He started with the attic. Strange feelings crept up on him as he got started. He thought it was like going through his mother’s things after she’d died, but he knew she was still alive, and she had given him full permission to go through all her old things. She was too tired of such searches herself.

  In the late afternoon of the first day that he spent in his mother’s attic he got tired of all this rummaging through his parents’ things. When his father got home the two men sat down on some wooden boxes in the attic. The father had brought some bottles of beer.

  “So, you’re hoping to find some of Nora’s old stuff, she told me.”

  They clinked their bottles, and each took a swallow of beer.

  “Yes, it’s her diary. She wrote down everything she found when she went to Germany, back in the nineties.”

  “Oh yes. She only told me a few days ago. I never knew she’d actually written a diary.”

  “You don’t mind, then?”

  “No. Why should I mind? She has obviously given you permission for this search. She trusts you to read it in the right spirit.”

  “But wouldn’t you rather read it yourself first? There may be very personal passages. There usually are, in a diary.”

  “Heaven forbid!” George exclaimed and slapped his left hand on his left thigh, leaning back on his box. “I have had just about enough of your mother’s crazy interest in all those old stories from the War. You just go ahead, and don’t mind me. You obviously have the same passion for that sort of stuff.”

  In a way, Andrew was glad that his father didn’t interfere, but gave him carte blanche with his search. Even though he loved and respected his father, he still felt that what he was about to launch into was something between himself and his mother. Granddad would have been involved if he was still in a better mental condition. But as things stood, it was now a matter between mother and son only. They were the ones who cared about history.

  “Let me ask you one thing, though,” George asked his son. “What are you going to do once you’ve found out things you didn’t know before? Not that I believe you’re going to find out any spectacular things, but what if you find out terrible things about your old grandfather? Would that change anything? Would that make the world a better place?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The father had just finished his beer and prepared to get up and climb down the ladder. He smiled at Andrew. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  “I think I’ve had enough for today,” Andrew replied. “I’ll call it a day.”

  After his father, Andrew also climbed down the ladder, washed his hands and left. He went back to his flat, where Rebecca was ready with a light supper. She had some good news.

  “Dave phoned. He wants to celebrate with you. He’s been appointed as a full professor. He’s all over the moon, and he’ll call you again later or you call him.”

  Andrew met Dave two nights later at the pub. Rebecca didn’t want to join them. “It’s a thing between you two. Old buddies celebrating. Only don’t drink too much,” she had warned.

  The two friends discussed every aspect of Dave’s new position, his opportunities in research, his new routine, his new salary. Dave promised to remain Andrew’s best friend. Then, after their third round, their talk drifted to other topics, the weather, current politics, the general state of the world and such things.

  “I think it’s a pity that Europe didn’t grasp the opportunity it had after German reunification,” Dave mused.

  “Well, at least the former Soviet Republics of Eastern Europe freed themselves and became democracies. That’s something, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but what about leaving the Cold War behind? The way things are going these days Russia and Western Europe are in opposition as much as before the fall of the Iron Curtain. That guy Putin keeps heating things up whenever he can.”

  “I can understand him,” Andrew suggested. “Imagine how the Russians have always been in fear of the West. They never trusted any Western leader. What could have improved the situation, built up some form of trust, would have been for the West to work together with Russia right from the early nineties. I know that Gorbachev shouldn’t have been ousted by Yeltsin. Gorbachev knew how important for world peace a good understanding between East and West was, whereas Yeltsin, and in his wake Putin, opted for confrontation, reviving old Russian nationalism, directed against the West. But even with Putin, we could have come to a better understanding. I think the worst mistake was for NATO to incorporate all those buffer states, from the Baltic States down to Bulgaria. Like this, the West poses a direct threat to the Russians. So if in the future, Putin is going to do some silly things to demonstrate his power, NATO will bear the main burden of guilt. But let’s hope Putin won’t have to go to extremes, even though one may never know with him.”

  “But what could he do?”

  “Well, just bear in mind that Stalin made sure most of the Soviet Republics had enough Russians living and working in them. He implemented a huge relocation programme in the 1930s. Like this, there is still a considerable proportion of Russians in all those new countries. What could happen if Putin should call upon them to rebel against their new governments? Is Western Europe going to help those countries if new civil wars break out, perhaps in Latvia, or in Ukraine?”

  “You’re really painting a black picture. Putin must be interested in peaceful relations just like everybody else.”

  “I only hope you’ll be proved right,” Andrew said and emptied his glass.

  Discussions like these often took place between Andrew and Rebecca. With time, he realized that she wasn’t going to be of any great help, she just wasn’t involved enough. So he had to be satisfied with her general support without her enthusiasm. During the weeks that he spent looking for his mother’s diary he tried to get more information out of the other members of his family. He was looking for any bit of information concerning Granddad that might be helpful in his quest. Mother had already told him what she was prepared to share with him without her diary, while Lisa refused to di
scuss the topic and even warned him not to get crazy. “You’ll end up in the loony bin if you’re not careful,” she threatened.

  One evening at the pub Andrew was surprised to find David in an extremely happy mood. Whereas usually his friend was a more serious person, always full of thoughts about literature and its contribution towards a better world but without the belief in its success, he now appeared to be a lot more relaxed. What could be the reason behind such a change of mood?

  “I say, you really seem to be in a fantastic state. What’s up, old chap?”

  “Well, guess,” David answered with a mysterious smile. “Can’t you guess? What can make a guy really happy?”

  “A woman?”

  “Bull’s eye, old chap!”

  “Come on, tell me all about it,” Andrew urged his friend.

  “Well, what do they say in such situations? I don’t know how to describe it; my feelings are beyond words.”

  Andrew laughed. “You can say such a thing, you of all people? You, who are a man of the word, of the power of language?”

  “It’s not so easy when it comes to your own feelings, you know.”

  “If you were a poet you’d know what to say, wouldn’t you?”

  “Not all poets wrote about the theme of love.”

  “Those are poor quibbles. Just tell me in plain words.”

  Then David told him about the woman he had met at that conference in Canterbury a while ago. They had kept in touch, and as things stood, they had fallen for each other and were now a serious item.

  “Why did you never tell me?” Andrew asked, a little disappointed at his friend’s secretiveness over the past few weeks.

  “Things were not clear to me for quite some time. But now I know where we stand. But what’s the problem? I have told you now.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Marie-Claire. She’s French.”