Throughout all this wrangling and the constant alarms and crises, we were still going out with our Russian friends and they coming to us. The only difference was that the entertaining was now private. The large-scale Russian receptions and parties had ceased, and we gathered from our friends that they were not encouraged to be on too friendly terms with us now. Nevertheless we enjoyed some splendid evenings with them, at which the subject of the blockade was strictly taboo.
Frau Altmann was upset and agitated one day at receiving a letter from her youngest sister in Breslau. They had two children, and although the Altmann family were constantly sending small parcels they received the briefest of letters of thanks, with very little news. This letter, which had been brought to Berlin by a friend from Breslau, told Frau Altmann that her brother-in-law had been taken away from his home for “work for the Soviet Five Year Plan,” and that she and the two children were in a pretty poor way. The brother-in-law was a scientist, apparently a very useful one to the Russians.
III
URSULA had wanted one of my paintings for her wedding present, and I had done a head of her. I was not satisfied with it, for although a fair enough likeness, it was too static and set for anyone with her changeable and volatile nature. She and Joe were delighted with it, however, and having with difficulty found a frame for it I took it down to her one evening two days before the wedding.
I had grown to like Joe. His devotion to Ursula was absolute and complete.
“She’s the sort of girl who gets under your skin,” he had said to me on one of the several talks I had with him, “and I know right now I’ll never want any other.”
I had asked him how his parents, who were people of substance, would feel towards her. He was their only son.
“Mum knows all about Ursi,” he said, surprised. “I’ve written right from the beginning that I wanted to marry her and bring her home to the States—she’ll give her a grand welcome when we get there. Mum’s all right.”
“And your father?” I asked.
“He’s real glad that I’m settling down and coming home to take over the factory,” said Joe. “He’ll love Ursi. He can appreciate a pretty skirt same as me.”
“You like her, don’t you?” he asked.
I said that it was because I liked her that I was asking—life had knocked Ursula about quite enough—and I would like to know that she was going to be happy in her new home.
“It won’t be my fault if she isn’t,” he said earnestly. “She can start a new life out there and forget all the past—she’s a grand girl—she’s too good for me. I’ll never let her down.”
He wouldn’t—I felt that, and I had told Frau Altmann so.
I had not intended to do more than hand the package containing the painting to Ursula, but when on my arrival Frau Altmann drew me insistently in, I sensed at once that there was a crisis. Max and Joe sat silently on each side of the table in the sitting-room. Ursula was in her room. She had locked herself in and refused to admit anyone. There had apparently been a scene, but her mother did not enlighten me as to the cause, merely begging me to go in and see Ursula.
“She will admit you,” she insisted, and knocking on the door called out imperatively that I had brought her portrait and would she kindly remember her manners and let me in.
There was silence and then the door was opened.
Ursula had been lying on her bed, her hair was tumbled and wild, her face tear-stained and dirty.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, shutting the door carefully behind me.
A storm of tears was the answer, and she flung herself back on the rumpled bed and gave way to violent sobbing, and in this sobbing was something deep and wretched. I sat down and waited. Presently she sat up and began talking. Once started the words poured out in violent jerky spasms, punctuated with sobs.
There had been a scene between Joe and Max. They had come to blows. Joe had resented a remark which Max had made about the forthcoming marriage, and ordered him to take it back. Max had refused, saying that he had been disgusted at the servility of his fellow-countrymen to the Allies, but that he felt differently and that he was not going to apologize.
Joe had taunted him with being only too glad to take their money and food, telling him that most of the food he ate came from America. They had come to blows, and Ursula and Frau Altmann had been terrified. It was unheard of for a German to express such opinions to a member of the Occupation, and furthermore it was very dangerous. Ursula had got between them and forced them apart, but in the struggle she had inadvertently received a blow from Max, which had infuriated Joe. Frau Altmann had been too horrified to intervene, but had insisted that Max either apologize or leave her house. He had apologized very reluctantly, but Joe had taken it very decently.
“Aw, forget it,” was all he had said, offering his hand with a grin.
No one had been deceived as to the real issue, which was Ursula. Max, even if he were not willing to marry her himself, could not bear Joe to have her. It was not really the fact with which he had taunted her—that she was marrying one of the Occupation—that rankled, but that another man was getting her.
“Max is impossible,” sobbed Ursula. “Mutti adores him.”
And here lay another cause of the trouble. Ursula was jealous of Max just as she had been jealous of Lilli. Her mother had always denied her the affection and consideration which she had given her brothers and Lilli. For some reason which she probably did not understand herself, Frau Altmann did not really like Ursula.
I let her run on until it was all out and she was completely exhausted, and then I asked Frau Altmann for a cup of tea for her.
“And now what?” I said mildly when she had drunk the tea.
She said wildly, “Max doesn’t want me himself, but he won’t leave me alone. He says disgusting things to me—he’s always condemning me, and he gets letters from a girl in England. She’s as pure as the snow, I suppose, and that’s what he wants.”
“An English girl?” I asked.
“No, an Austrian girl he met at a farm there,” she said dolefully.
“And you are in love with Max, aren’t you?” I said.
She burst into fresh sobbing.
“And you are still going on with this marriage with Joe?” I persisted.
She nodded vehemently. “Yes. I want security, it’s no use staying here. Joe’s had all the joys of the marriage bed, why shouldn’t I have the ring and the marriage licence? It is all finished here, there is no future here.”
“No future here.” How often one heard that now on every hand. Every woman was trying to get away, to get out anywhere—to start afresh. So many wanted to go to Australia, to Canada, to South America, and later on perhaps they would be able to go—they had been told so.
Ursula couldn’t have it both ways. There was Joe with the dollars and Max whom she loved.
I said, “If you really love Max you can get him—any woman can get the man she wants if she really tries.”
“Not Max,” she said bitterly. “He doesn’t love me. So what?”
I thought of Lilli who had lain in this room, and of what she must have suffered, She had had courage, that one, more than Ursula had. As if reading my thought, she said,
“Lilli was in love too, and look where it got her. No. The other thing is much better.”
“What other thing?” I asked curiously.
“Oh, just tagging along with Joe,” she muttered.
“You’ve never known the real thing, Ursula,” I said gently. “So how can you judge?”
She was calmer now and got up to bathe her face. There was an ugly bruise coming up where she had received Max’s blow. We debated what to put on it.
“I don’t want to speak to Max again,” she said brokenly as she looked in the mirror. “I hate him, hate him, hate him!”
IV
THE wedding went stormily from the start. There had been a wrangle over those black gloves and the silver fox. Frau Altmann h
ad ordered the traditional myrtle wreath, although Ursula had declared that she would not wear it. She had implored Ursula to substitute white gloves for the black suède ones. She had never heard of a bride in black gloves; it was horrible, she declared. The orchids were the last straw. A bride should carry lilies or roses or carnations—but orchids! And such queer coloured odd-looking ones at that. Ursula had refused to make any alterations in her outfit. She had seen a picture of one of her favourite American film stars in just such a scheme as hers and she was going to have it as she wanted. As to the orchids, all her life she had longed for some, and Joe had searched Berlin for them. It was, of course, Stampie who had found them. They were always obtainable at one of the most expensive florists, but now with the acute fuel shortage and the money muddle, there had not been any about. Stampie had gone to old Heinrich who knew where to get them. I thought they were lovely in their fragile butterfly beauty, and their queer greenish-brown-pink was just right for both the dress and Ursula’s colouring. She was an unusual looking girl with her strange-coloured hair and slanting greenish eyes, and she had never looked more attractive than she did in her wedding clothes, in spite of the bruise on her cheek. It still showed although she had done her best with cosmetics.
The civil ceremony took place in the morning and was attended only by Frau Altmann and Joe’s best friend, Sam, a fellow-Sergeant in the U.S.A.F.
Frau Altmann had insisted on Ursula’s walking in the traditional style from her home to the church on her bridegroom’s arm, and had planned the procession of guests with great care. Joe hated walking; he said he hated to be made to look a fool, and what was the use of having the car if one had to walk to one’s wedding?
His car was a converted jeep and its springs were practically non-existent. He had put some cushions in it, and he and Ursula found it comfortable enough.
All Frau Altmann’s plans for the bridal procession were ruined by the weather. The day, which had dawned sunny and warm with a cloudless sky, changed at midday. Thunder began in great long rumbles, the blue of the sky turned rapidly to a strange livid grey-green, and streaks of forked lightning illumined the outlines of the huge banks of clouds.
Five minutes before the bride was due to leave for the church the heavens opened and a wall of water poured down on Berlin. She could not possibly walk, nor could anyone else. Joe picked his bride up with a complete lack of ceremony and dumped her on a rug in the front seat of the jeep.
“Come on folks! Pile in!” he yelled, holding his raincoat over his head, and to Frau Altmann’s horror the young people who had assembled for the procession tumbled into the back of the jeep, with shrieks of merriment, sitting on each other’s knees and making the best of discomfort. Frau Altmann and her sister-in-law came in the car which had been lent me, and we picked up John on the way. He was terribly excited at going to a wedding and did not appear to notice the thunder. I had not wanted him to come, but Ursula had begged for him, as it was considered very unlucky not to have at least one child at a wedding.
I asked where Max was, as I had not seen him at the house. He had gone to the church with Stampie, said Frau Altmann. At first he had blankly refused to attend the wedding at all. He and Ursula had not spoken to each other since the scene two nights before, but Joe had begged him to come, and he had finally agreed to go with Stampie.
“It’s all so difficult,” sighed Frau Altmann. “I don’t understand the young people nowadays in the least—they speak a different language from ours.” The storm depressed her even more—it was surely a bad omen for this marriage. I said that probably by the time Ursula came out of the church the sun would be out.
The roof of the church, which had been blown in during the Blitz, had been covered with corrugated iron. The noise of the torrential rain was so deafening that not a word of the service could be heard. The church was so dark that it was not possible to see, let alone read, and the whole thing was inconceivably depressing. It was cold too, for the building had not been heated all the winter, and an icy chill seemed to emanate from its battered walls in spite of all the sun of the previous weeks. John was disappointed. He had pictured a fairy-tale wedding, and here in this dark church he was frightened and miserable.
At last it was over—there was no music and, except for the flowers in the church, nothing to suggest a wedding at all. The young couple seemed quite unperturbed by the gloom and incessant echoes of the rain on the tin roof, and Ursula was smiling and radiant as she received the congratulations of her friends as they trooped to the church door.
I was wrong, the rain had not abated in the least; if anything it was worse. As we waited in the porch there was a tremendous crash of thunder which reverberated from the roof overhead, and a brilliant flash of lightning illumined our faces. Stampie was at that moment taking the opportunity of kissing the bride, and addressing her by her new married name. Ursula’s charming upturned face was suddenly ringed with light, as was Stampie’s saturnine one as he bent to kiss her. I caught a glimpse of Max’s face too; he was looking at Ursula and it was completely unguarded. He had not expected that flash any more than had any of us. His feeling for Ursula was written there for all to see, but Ursula’s back was turned to him, and everyone was looking at the bride.
The wedding reception in the home was, from necessity, very simple. The young people were all going on to dine and dance at an American club afterwards. Ursula and Joe were leaving by plane in the early morning for Frankfurt, from where they would travel to Bremen.
The storm showed no sign of ending, and Joe put on the radio to drown the rain. In that small room the wedding cake was on a table with the stars and stripes flag under it as a table-cloth. The idea had been Ursula’s in honour of her new country. She had wanted to cover the walls with U.S. flags, but her mother had said firmly that it would be an insult to her German guests, and that one under the cake would be sufficient. Ursula never did anything by halves. She would, I thought, adopt everything typical of her new country, just as she had adopted its hair fashion and face styles, its music and its dances. She seldom spoke German now, declared that she could no longer read German literature—it was all too long-winded and pompous. She was not taking a single German book with her except a childhood copy of Struwwelpeter which she loved.
Frau Altmann had been terribly concerned about her not having the traditional treasure chest of linen. She had put aside huge sets of everything for both her daughters, but owing to the bombing and the looting and the impossibility of renewing her own household linen for the past ten years, most of it had gone. Ursula had, however, still received what most modern girls would think a large stock of linen, which had already been sent to her new home.
There was champagne provided by Joe, and we drank their health. Was it an accident that the glass slipped from Max’s hand just as he was about to drink? Another quickly took its place, but watching him I saw that he did not drink it, but only put it to his lips and then poured it into Stampie’s ever-empty glass. Then Joe had put on Ursula’s favourite record of Rhapsody in Blue. The incident made me uneasy. He was a strange deep man, this Max, who had spent four years in my country and had gathered from it such disconcerting ideas. His deep-set blue eyes were expressionless now until they lit on John, standing delightedly by the bride and helping her to cut the cake. She had put an orchid from her bouquet spray into his buttonhole, and he had tasted some champagne and was wrinkling up his nose as the bubbles tickled him. Max’s eyes softened as they took in John’s eager little face. He loved children, and missed the two small sons of the farmer on whose land he had worked.
It was stiflingly airless in the small room with so many people and the gramophone blaring and the rain deluging down. I thought that if I stayed much longer I should faint. Stampie caught my eye and, speaking to Frau Altmann, opened one of the windows. The noise of the rain was even worse, but no one noticed it in the chatter and laughter.
Ursula had put her portrait out on view, and it was much commented on. So
me thought it like her, and some did not, but artists are too accustomed to such controversies to be anything but amused by them. Max said to me, “It is a very good portrait of Ursula, and you have caught some of her loneliness and unhappiness in spite of the smiling eyes.”
I was startled, because it was just this which had prevented me from getting the gay irresponsible Ursula one usually saw. The portrait had something too deep and set in it for Ursula, and yet these qualities had been there and had, in spite of my efforts, superseded the more superficial ones.
He said, “I would like to possess it,” and turned away.
We left soon afterwards. I could see that Frau Altmann was very tired and could not stand much more. The noise and constant jiggling about from one foot to another of the guests in time to the swing music from the radio, their jokes which had no meaning for her, their references to events and incidents in their night life, in which she had no part, were not only out of place but ill-judged.
Stampie hustled them off, promising to join them later on, as I had done. We wanted to get them out of the house before Frau Altmann collapsed, which it was obvious she was going to do very soon. She was terribly pale, and great beads of sweat were on her forehead, but she was too well-bred to dream of excusing herself and going to lie down. She could never stand thunderstorms, she told me. She found them unbearably oppressive, and if they went on for long she invariably became really ill. Max was by her side constantly, bringing her water several times, and once a little brandy. She refused to sit, and continued to stand until the bridal couple were escorted with much noise and laughter to the jeep, the guests holding the stars and stripes flag, which they had pulled from under the cake, over their heads as a canopy from the rain. Only then did she sit limply on a chair and allow her sister-in-law to bathe her forehead with eau-de-cologne.
The Dancing Bear Page 18
