The Women in His Life

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

  ‘Oh thank you, Grandmama!’ he cried, taking the box from her. Excitedly he tore off the fancy coloured paper, lifted the lid and looked inside.

  ‘Oooh!’ he cried when he saw the six candy pigs lying side by side in the box. They were plump and rosy, with beady eyes and yellow bows, and they looked delicious. His mouth watered.

  ‘They’re made of your favourite marzipan,’ his grandmother said, smiling at him indulgently. ‘But you’re not to eat even one before dinner. Your mother will be cross with both of us, if you do.’

  ‘I won’t, I promise, Grandmama,’ he said, as always a polite and obedient boy. After putting the lid back on the box, he placed it on a nearby table, picked up the torn paper from the floor, crumpled it in a ball and threw it into the fire.

  Then he stepped closer to his grandmother, put one of his small, chubby hands on top of hers and began to pat it. ‘Gangan,’ he said, reverting to his babyhood name for her. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Anything in the whole world, Maxim.’

  He held his head on one side and wrinkled his nose. ‘How do you know when to whistle?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘How do you know I’m there, outside the door?’

  Her mouth twitched in amusement but she kept a serious face and said, ‘Well, I don’t really know that you’re there. I hope you are… I suppose I sort of feel that you are… because I love you.’

  He nodded solemnly. ‘I like our game, Grandmama.’

  ‘So do I.’ Margarete Westheim leaned back in the chair and studied her only grandchild for a moment. She loved him so much she sometimes thought her heart would break from it. The knowledge that she would have to leave him was an agony. Her only regret about dying, and die she must one day in the not-too-distant future, was that she would miss all those years of his growing up, the wonderful years. He was such a beautiful boy, full of life and laughter and mischief, and so bright, and intelligent beyond his years. She prayed to God every night that Sigmund would succeed in getting the child out of Germany. Like her son and daughter-in-law she was terribly afraid for him. A pestilence stalked this land. A shiver ran through Margarete, and she wondered where God was in this Godless nation. But then what could He do? Evil was man’s invention, not God’s.

  ‘Is something hurting, Gangan?’

  Startled out of her brief reverie by his piping child’s voice, Margarete looked at him quickly. ‘No. Why do you ask that, darling?’

  ‘You have a funny look on your face, a puckery look, like you’re going to cry.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she reassured him with a swift smile, suddenly aware of the worry in his child’s eyes. She opened her black beaded evening bag, reached inside, took out a small item wrapped in silver paper and handed it to him. ‘Here you are, Maxim, here is your Friday pocket money.’

  ‘Oh, Grandmama, thank you, thank you.’

  He unwrapped the silver paper, his eyes shining as he stared down at the coins in his hand. Four marks. His Gangan always gave him four now. Last year he had received three. Next year she would give him five. She had told him that. One mark for every year he had been born. He leaned closer to her, kissed her cheek, and beamed into her face as he slipped the coins in his pocket, playing with them for a moment, liking the way they jingled.

  The door opened and Maxim turned his head. When he saw his father standing in the doorway he flew to him at once, crying, ‘Papa! Papa!’

  His father caught him, swung him up and kissed him, and carried him in his arms as he strode across the floor.

  ‘Good evening, Mother,’ Sigmund said.

  ‘Good evening, Sigi,’ she responded, her clear blue eyes so like his lighting up at the sight of him. He was her youngest son, the third one she had borne. His two elder brothers were both dead over twenty years now. Killed in the trenches of the Somme in the Great War when only boys. Two sons she had sacrificed for the Fatherland.

  Sigmund put Maxim on the sofa, went to kiss his mother before sitting down next to his small son. He said to her, ‘I understand from Ursula that Hedy is not coming this evening, that she’s not feeling well. Nothing too serious, I hope?’

  ‘A cold, Sigi, that’s all.’ Frau Westheim sighed. ‘There’s always something with Hedy these days. That girl would be better off living in a warmer climate, I do believe.’

  ‘Wouldn’t we all,’ Sigmund murmured, and continued, ‘She’s not seemed well since she broke off her engagement to Paul.’

  ‘No, she hasn’t,’ Frau Westheim agreed, and turned her head, looked into the fire, a faraway expression flicking onto her face.

  Watching her, Maxim thought: Gangan looks unhappy. I wonder why? He glanced up at his father, his wonderful Papa, and smiled at him adoringly.

  Sigmund stared down into the small, bright face upturned to his, smiled back, and said, ‘Do you remember what I told you last Friday evening? When I was speaking to you about the standards I want you to have when you are a big boy, and when you are a man?’

  ‘Yes, Papa, you said a gentleman never tells a lie.’

  ‘That’s correct, Maxim, but now I’m afraid I must amend that statement.’

  ‘Oh.’ Maxim looked surprised. He was not sure what the word amend meant, but he was reluctant to admit this, so he kept silent.

  ‘I don’t suppose you know what amend means, do you?’ Sigmund said, as if reading his mind.

  ‘No.’

  Sigmund took his child’s hand lovingly. ‘I thought as much. It means to change or revise. And I wish to revise what I said to you last week, change my opinion… I believe it is perfectly all right for a gentleman to tell a lie, if it is a matter of life and death… if it is to save his life. Or the lives of others, of course.’

  Maxim nodded.

  ‘Do you understand me?’

  ‘I think so, Papa.’

  ‘Very good, Maxim. You’re a clever boy, I know that, and you are learning quickly. Now… there is something else I want to tell you, and it is this. A man must have valour, honour and nobility if he is to be of great character. I want you to remember that when you grow up.’

  ‘Yes, Papa, I will.’

  His grandmother said, ‘Your father’s brothers Heinrich and Peter had valour… they were very courageous… they went to fight for their country in the Great War and they were not afraid. That is what valour means.’

  ‘The dead uncles… they were brave,’ Maxim said with a little frown.

  ‘Yes, the dead uncles were,’ his grandmother answered. ‘And your grandfathers were both men of honour because they never did anything that was cruel or wicked, unjust or dishonest—’

  ‘Dinner is ready everyone,’ Ursula announced from the doorway. ‘Marta is waiting to serve.’

  ‘We shall come at once, my darling,’ Sigmund said, rising immediately. ‘Now, Maxim, run along with your mother. We will follow.’ He lifted him down from the sofa, then reached into his pocket and took out a slip of paper. ‘Here you are. I have written out the new words for you, as well as their meaning.’

  Maxim took it, put it safely in his pocket. He kept all of these pieces of paper which his father had been giving him for the last few weeks. ‘Thank you, Papa, and I will remember. Always.’

  Sigmund gazed down at him, marvelling at the beauty and brightness of the boy. He really was exceptional, highly intelligent and articulate for his age, an extraordinary child. He smoothed his hand over Maxim’s blond head, and then went to help his mother out of the chair, escorted her slowly across the room.

  Maxim ran ahead to Ursula, who stood waiting in the doorway.

  She took his hand in hers and together they crossed the baronial marble entrance hall, walking in the direction of the dining room.

  ‘And what was Papa telling you tonight, my darling?’

  ‘He said that when I grow up I must be a man of valour, honour and nobility.’

  Ursula said, very softly, ‘If you are, then you will be exactly like your father.’

/>   Maxim shut his eyes tightly and listened as his mother performed the ritual of blessing the shabbat candles.

  ‘Baruch-ata Adonai Elohaynu, melech ha-olam asher kid’shanu b’mits-votav v’tsivanu l’hadlik nayr shel shabbat,’ she said slowly in her light clear voice which he always loved to listen to, and most especially when she spoke Hebrew. She made the words sound like music.

  ‘Amen,’ he sang as she finished, joining in with everyone else. And then he opened his eyes.

  They all sat down around the large table with its snow-white cloth and silver candelabra and crystal goblets which sparkled in the candlelight. Papa was at the head, Mutti at the other end facing his father, and he and Theodora sat together opposite Grandmama.

  Now it was his father’s turn to perform the ritual.

  He blessed the red wine in a little silver cup and said the Kiddush in Hebrew, and then he murmured another blessing, this time over the chollah, the two twisted loaves of bread in the silver basket under the embroidered linen napkin.

  Once the blessings were finished, his father lifted the napkin, made a little ceremony of breaking the bread, and passed it around to everyone at the table. And at last Marta was allowed to serve the food, which Frau Muller had been cooking all afternoon in the big kitchen. Marta always served the dinner on Friday because it was Walter’s night off, when he went to see his daughter and her children. He knew a lot about the butler’s grandchildren. Walter told him many things when he sneaked into the kitchen on baking days. Walter would sit him at Frau Müller’s baking table and give him a Berliner Pfannkuchen, oozing jelly, and a glass of milk, and talk to him, and slip him another jelly doughnut when no one was looking. Except that Frau Muller always noticed. ‘You spoil that child,’ she would tell Walter, who fortunately never paid any attention to her. Walter and he were very good friends.

  Maxim settled back in the chair, waiting.

  Everything always happened the way he knew it would, and as it had for as long as he could remember. ‘The rituals of the sabbath are important to us all, and should be properly observed,’ his mother had often told him. He liked rituals and looked forward to them. They were special, somehow.

  Friday was his most favourite night of the week, and for lots of reasons. For one thing, he and Teddy were permitted to have dinner with his mother and father in the grand dining room, instead of eating alone together in the nursery as they generally did, except on Teddy’s day off. For another, he was with Mutti, Papa, Teddy and Grandmama, the four people he loved the most in the whole wide world; also, he got to stay up late; and finally the things he enjoyed the most were served. Piping-hot chicken soup, then a roasted chicken, all golden and crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside, or beef flanken or perhaps steamed carp, and there would be little potato pancakes and apple sauce, or sweet shredded carrots and potato dumplings. And at the end of the meal there was always something wonderful, such as apple strudel which melted in his mouth.

  Yes, Friday was the best night of the week. It was like the beginning of a holiday. His father did not go to The Bank on Saturday and Sunday, and so they did many things and had such a lot of fun together. Friday night was… was… festive. Yes, that was it exactly. Except that tonight no one seemed very festive. His mother was quiet, so very still. She had been like this for ages, and he kept wondering why. He had asked Teddy, just the other day, and she had not really given him an answer. All she had said was that his mother had things on her mind, and even though he had pestered her a lot she had not told him anything else.

  Mutti did not laugh very much any more, and her beautiful face was sad, like when Grandfather Neuman died. He thought she was cross with him, but Teddy said this wasn’t so, and he believed Teddy. She always told him the truth. Besides, he hadn’t been a bad boy. In fact, he had been an angel lately, so Teddy said.

  The tantalising aroma of chicken soup floated delicately on the air, and Maxim’s nose twitched when Marta placed one of the steaming porcelain bowls in front of him.

  ‘Danke schon, Marta,’ he said, and picked up his silver spoon. He dipped it in the clear golden liquid, scooped up a sliver of carrot and a curly bit of noodle, and took his first mouthful. It tasted delicious. This was definitely the soup he liked the best. He wished they had it every day.

  His father and his grandmother talked non-stop about this and that, and occasionally his mother joined in, but he and Teddy were as quiet as mice, as they always were, not speaking unless they were spoken to, when they had to reply.

  After they had all finished the soup, Gerda, the other downstairs maid, took the bowls away and Marta came gliding in from the kitchen carrying a silver platter on which there lay a huge steamed carp.

  Maxim could see the fish if he sat up really straight in the chair and craned his neck. Marta showed the fish to his mother, who nodded and said, ‘It looks wonderful, Marta. My compliments to Frau Müller. Please be kind enough to serve it.’

  ***

  ‘It seems to me that it would be a nice change for you if you went to stay with Renata at the Schloss for a few days,’ Sigmund said, looking down the long stretch of table at Ursula as the dessert was being served. ‘And I’m sure Maxim and Teddy would enjoy it too.’

  At the mention of his name, Maxim sat up in the chair and looked from his father to his mother alertly. His dark eyes gleamed, and before he could stop himself, he exclaimed, ‘Oh yes, Mutti, please let’s go!’

  Ursula glanced at him. A faint smile touched her mouth. ‘Would you really like to do that, Mein Schatz?’

  ‘I would, Mutti, and so would Teddy. Wouldn’t you, Teddy?’ He turned to Theodora, gave her a pleading look.

  Teddy said, ‘I think Maxim would benefit from a change of air, a few days in the country.’

  Sigmund smiled. He was delighted to have his son and Teddy as his allies. He had been quite certain that Ursula would object, that she would not wish to go away, although in his opinion she truly needed a break from Berlin and its tensions. Maxim’s enthusiasm would undoubtedly sway her, he now believed.

  Just as Sigmund had thought, Ursula nodded her assent. ‘All right, Maxim, we’ll go in the middle of next week, let’s say on Wednesday.’ She focused her gaze on Sigmund, and added, ‘But only if you promise to join us on Friday, Sigi.’

  ‘I do promise,’ Sigmund said at once. ‘I understand from Reinhard that Renata is going to invite Arabella and the children if you accept, so it will be nice for Maxim to be with them.’

  ‘Yes, it will,’ Ursula agreed. The thought of the trip to the Mark Brandenburg and being with her two best women friends cheered Ursula, and she suddenly felt lighter in spirit. Turning to Maxim, she said with a loving smile, ‘It’s been snowing in the Mark so we’ll be able to play outside with the other children. We’ll go toboganning and perhaps we can even skate on the lake.’

  Maxim nodded excitedly. The prospect of this trip thrilled him and it showed on his animated little face. Laughing gaily, he cried, ‘And I will build you a beautiful snowman, Mutti, and one for you too, Teddy.’ He looked from one to the other, and his mother smiled at him as Teddy murmured her thanks, and this made him glow inside.

  As he picked up his fork and cut into his apple strudel, he thought he was going to burst with happiness. Friday night had been extra special this week. They were going to stay at the big old castle where he always had fun with Gretchen, Diana and Christian, and his mother was smiling again, which was the most important thing of all.

  THIRTEEN

  The forests of the Mark Brandenburg, once the domain of the conquering Teutonic knights, stretch for miles in the marshy region of Prussia where they are located. Drained by three rivers, the Havel, the Spree and the Oder, this area has many lakes and is also crisscrossed by countless canals and little waterways which connect its quaint villages.

  At the edge of one such old and charming village stands the great Schloss of Graf Reinhard von Tiegal. The back facade of this ancient and picturesque castle faces slop
ing lawns and formal gardens, and beyond these are the pine forests which are part of the immense von Tiegal estates, owned by the family since the sixteenth century.

  On this Sunday morning, early in January of 1939, these forests looked quite magical, completely garbed in white. Snow and dripping icicles covered the trees, weighted their branches down in places, and underfoot the narrow, winding paths were obscured by new layers of snow which had fallen during the night and then frozen. In the brilliant, golden sunlight streaming in through the trees everything glistened as if it had been dusted with silver.

  The only sound in this vast and silent white wonderland was the crunch of heavy boots sinking into the crisp snow as Sigmund and Kurt ploughed forward through the forest on their morning walk. Both men had come to the Schloss to join their wives for the weekend, Sigmund driving down to the Mark from Berlin on Friday evening, Kurt on Saturday afternoon.

  Heavily bundled up though they were, in thick green loden coats, Tyrolean hats, woollen scarves and gloves, and with their trousers tucked inside their ski boots, they nevertheless moved at a relatively brisk pace since there was an icy, cutting wind.

  Neither of them spoke for a while, wrapped in their own thoughts yet perfectly comfortable in their mutual silence, as old friends frequently are.

  It was Kurt who finally broke this silence when he said, ‘I have news for you, Sigi.’

  Sigmund looked at him alertly. ‘You do? Please, tell me quickly.’

  ‘I will have the exit visas for you tomorrow or on Tuesday. However, there has been a slight snag. I can only get three.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Sigmund’s heart sank. He came to an abrupt standstill and stared at Kurt, unable to keep the dismay from showing on his face. ‘What happened? What went wrong?’

  ‘Nothing went wrong. Very simply, my contact feels he must move carefully. For the moment, at least. To avoid arousing suspicion.’ Kurt took hold of Sigmund’s arm. ‘Come, let’s keep walking. We don’t want to freeze to death out here.’ The two men set off again, and the prince continued, ‘Eight visas are a lot to get all at once, Sigi, and especially since only a week or two ago my contact managed to help a large family leave, after numerous delays. Nine people, actually. But quite aside from his own sense of caution, his contact at the Foreign Ministry is somewhat nervous just now. Nonetheless, my friend promises to have three more exit visas for you in a couple of weeks, and the last two by the end of the month. No later. Please don’t worry, it’s going to be all right. Now, we need to know who will be using the first three visas. I presume you want to get Ursula and Maxim out immediately. Will you go with them?’