The Rose Gardener

by Charlotte Link

  She would stash her luggage in the car and drive off the next morning, right after Michael had left. Still to consider was whether she would leave him a note with the details of where she was staying, together with some kind of explanation. Actually, she thought, for the time being he doesn’t have to know where I am. Let him worry for a few days. I can always call later on.

  She spent the day in a kind of trance, taking care of what needed to be taken care of. Panic was constantly lying in wait as she did so; she took two pills to keep it under control. She was sure that after last night’s clash, Michael would be home at the usual time. She set the table, prepared dinner, put a bottle of wine on ice. It gave her a taste of the triumph to come to imagine sitting at the dinner table across from Michael — silently, most likely; to look into his guarded features and to know that the next day he would be confused and unsettled when he realized she’d run off. This time she was one step ahead of him. She knew something he didn’t know. This thought, together with the pills, gave her an almost victorious feeling.

  Michael didn’t show up at all that night. Eventually, Franca tossed the leftover food in the trash can, drank the last of the wine by herself, and considered whether she should clear the table. But she left everything as it stood. Michael should see what he had in store with the housekeeping from now on. It wasn’t her problem anymore. She lay down in bed. As she’d already guessed, morning came and Michael still never showed. Franca didn’t sleep, and at the first light of day — it was five o’clock — she got up and got ready to leave. The feeling of riding high had vanished, making room for feelings of deepest depression and fear. She had to get away before panic took firm hold of her, otherwise she’d never make it.

  She swallowed two more pills. This would impair her ability to drive, but without this support she wouldn’t have had the strength she needed. She sobbed as she steered her fully-loaded car out of the driveway and looked back towards the house. It sat solid and peaceful in the morning sun and seemed to her the one safe place in a world of malice and peril. She cried for fear, and her knees were shaking, but she turned at the next intersection and drove on. She drove faster and faster, and cried even harder. Already, she knew that she would never turn around.

  2

  Helene wore a white summer dress with puff sleeves. It was far too youthful-looking for her, and made her appear somewhat grotesque, but for some unfathomable reason it meant a lot to her. She wore it on occasions she felt to be particularly important. Clearly, a dinner at Kevin’s ranked among these rare events.

  “How do I look?” she asked as she came into the kitchen, executing a few dancerly steps that weren’t, Beatrice had to admit, entirely without grace. “Is everything alright? My hair? My jewelry?”

  “You look perfect, Helene,” said Franca.

  She sat on a chair in the corner. She had a glass of wine in front of her and seemed very tired. She had made it to Guernsey the previous evening; even now she couldn’t quite comprehend that she’d managed to get through the adventure without any problems. She had driven away on her own accord and had arrived exactly where she’d wanted to get to. She felt somewhat dazed and was stuck in a state of confusion about herself.

  The compliment left Helene beaming. “Thank you very much, Franca.” As always, she spoke German in Franca’s presence; Beatrice did as well. “I always feel so young and sprightly in this dress.”

  Too bad it stops at the feeling, thought Beatrice. You look old as hell, Helene!

  Helene took a glass out of the cabinet and poured herself a small bit of wine. She wore beautiful, old garnet jewelry — a gift from Erich for their anniversary one year, Beatrice knew. The jewelry shone a gleaming, fiery red, caught in the light of the setting sun that came through the kitchen window.

  “Franca and I are going to have us a nice, cozy evening,” said Beatrice. “We’ve ordered pizza, and luckily we’ve got enough wine in the house. Too bad it’s still a bit too cool to sit outside.”

  It had been another very warm day, but no sooner had the sun begun to set than a cool breeze blew in from the sea. It had them all shivering a bit.

  Helene hummed to herself. Beatrice leaned against the counter. She watched the old woman with a mix of irritation and reluctant amusement.

  A few minutes passed without anyone saying a word. Before the tension in the small kitchen could expand any further, however, they heard the sound of a car driving up outside. Kevin was here.

  He walked right into the kitchen. The front door had been unlocked, and after all, Kevin considered himself a member of the family. He had cleaned up for the evening — he knew what mattered to Helene on occasions such as this. His freshly blow-dried hair had a crisp sheen, and the tie he wore was especially fancy.

  But he looks awful, thought Beatrice. He doesn’t sleep enough, and he has the air of a man plagued by all manner of worries.

  Kevin gave Helene a few effusive compliments on her dress. He hugged Beatrice, and the smile he gave Franca was full of warmth.

  “Franca! How nice that you’re back here again. Beatrice didn’t even mention that she had a guest!”

  “It happened on short notice,” Beatrice said casually. “Kevin, we’re both filled with envy, of course, that you’ll be cooking for Helene tonight while we’ll have to be content with pizza. Hopefully you’ll invite us over soon as well!”

  “I promise I shall. Certainly while Franca is still here. You must get to know my cooking, Franca. Afterwards, you won’t want anything else.” He smiled and took Helene by the hand. “Come on, then. We’ve got to go, otherwise the whole meal will fall apart. We’ll have a wonderful evening. Beatrice, I will be sure to bring Helene home safe and sound afterwards.”

  Helene’s expression made it clear that she felt like a young girl whose admirer had come to take her out dancing, a girl filled with the magic of a bright spring night and all it promised. She seemed to keep in check her awareness of the fact that she was over eighty and Kevin in his late thirties — and likewise, that Kevin wasn’t interested in women anyway. From time to time she needed to immerse herself in a fantasy world. She needed the feeling that life still was ahead of her, that it would lay all it had to offer at her feet. Beatrice had never once managed to delude herself in this way, and she wavered, as she often did, between contempt and a certain envy.

  Once the two had gone, Franca said, astonished, “It’s strange, the effort that Kevin is making, don’t you think? I mean, he’s a young man. I’m sure he has better things to do on a Saturday night than to cook for an old woman — and to dote on her, too!”

  Beatrice lit a cigarette. “Sure, he has better things to do. But you needn’t find it touching that he’s giving Helene so much of his time. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Fact is that he’s borrowed money from her again and again over the years, and because she, likewise, continues to fall for his charm, he makes out rather well. He’ll never be able to pay back the amount he owes her, but the way Helene is devoted to him, she’ll never press him on that account. She could never bring herself to do it.”

  “Does she really have so much money that she can keep on lending to him over and over again?”

  Beatrice shook her head. “Indeed she does not, and for that reason I really don’t think it’s right what Kevin’s doing. Helene receives a relatively meager pension, but she’ll have put some of it away over the years. It’s from this that she draws the sums for him. She buys herself attention with them. Kevin knows this, and he exploits it. His argument, of course, is that she doesn’t have to give him a thing — but it’s obvious that with a lonely old woman you can do whatever you want. In certain respects she’s completely defenseless. You’ve just seen what this evening means to her. She’d give him her last penny for that feeling.”

  “Is Helene so lonely?” Franca asked. “I thought …”

  “There are lonelier peopl
e than she, lord knows. She lives here with me, Mae looks after her, Kevin. But I think …,” Beatrice knocked the ash from her cigarette into the sink with a distracted air. “Suffering is always subjective, no matter what kind. If Helene suffers, she suffers — even if everyone who knows her thinks things are actually going rather well for her. It seems to be a very particular kind of loneliness that she feels. She thinks that life has passed her by, that she missed out on everything that’s essential in life. She wants to have her youth back, and because, of course, things don’t work that way, she at least wants to grab hold of the illusion of youth. You’ve seen that ridiculous young girl’s dress she picked out for tonight. Well, there you have it: the fatal spot where she can be exploited. Kevin has a rather good sense for this sort of weakness. With Helene, he’s the old-fashioned cavalier. He kisses her hand and tells her how captivating she looks. And right away he’s got her swooning.”

  “All things considered, the arrangement might make perfect sense,” Franca said thoughtfully. “Of course you can say it’s a bit low of Kevin to take money from Helene in exchange for his attention, so to speak — but at least she gets something from him that makes her old age easier to bear. I can’t help but think that the last years of a person’s life aren’t so easy, and evenings like this, combined with the days of happy expectation that lead up to them, are worth more than any amount of money.”

  “Helene is a spoiled creature, and the demands she makes know no bounds,” Beatrice replied angrily. “She’s always believed that life has to treat her with kid gloves, and with all her whimpering she has in fact always managed to find people to pamper her and care for her. There is simply no sense in throwing money out the window this way. In the end it’s entirely possible that I die before she does and that she becomes unable to live independently. She’ll be in need of care and therefore also in dire need of money. She simply doesn’t think ahead, that’s the problem with her.”

  “How long has her husband been dead?” Franca asked.

  “Erich? Since May of ’forty-five,” Beatrice answered tersely and stubbed her cigarette out on a plate. “He left us exactly fifty-five years ago.”

  Her harsh voice intimidated Franca, but she asked nevertheless. “And was it difficult for Helene? Was it difficult for you?”

  “Difficult?” Beatrice asked. She immediately lit her next cigarette, blew smoke in the air and looked thoughtfully at the gray plume. “You know, it’s a shock when someone is dead all of a sudden. It could be that the person was at an age where it’s something you might expect, but with Erich of course that wasn’t the case. He was forty-four when he died, and it was indeed a shock. For Helene perhaps more than for me, but by any measure for me as well.”

  She was silent for a moment. Franca looked at her, waiting. She was eager to hear more about Erich, more about the things that had gone on in this house so long ago. She didn’t know for certain if her interest was genuine or if she only wanted to drown out the voice within her. The voice spoke of Michael; it flooded her with fear and never stopped telling her that by running away she had done something unacceptable, something that could only end badly. She didn’t want to listen. She was too exhausted to face all the problems that might come upon her.

  I’ll think about them tomorrow, she thought. Or the next day. Sometime when I’m not tired anymore.

  “But the shock faded,” Beatrice continued. “And in the end we were relieved. I can’t say that Erich was a bad man through and through, but he truly was a harmful man. He brought harm to other people even when he actually meant well. If I’m to be completely honest, I can’t say it was really a shame that he died.”

  “Did he continue treating Helene so badly in the years before his death?”

  Beatrice shook her head. “He made more of an effort. Her suicide attempt had been more of a shock to him than he would admit. Perhaps he also feared for his reputation. It would have cast him in a bad light if his wife was always trying to slit her wrists. Naturally the story had spread like wildfire all over the island. And so he got his act together. He made an effort to give the appearance of a happy marriage. It didn’t exist of course, but in fact he no longer lit into Helene for no good reason. He didn’t reprimand her arbitrarily. He did become unpleasant in another way, though. Extremely unpleasant even.”

  GUERNSEY, JUNE 1941 TO JUNE 1942

  Beatrice was relieved at first that things between Erich and Helene had grown less combative. She soon realized, however, that the same tension was still there, it was just under the surface, and that this unexpressed form could sometimes be even more frightening. It was like sitting on a powder keg that could blow at any moment.

  Things got worse in the summer of 1941. Erich had been depressed all throughout that spring; he had been despondent most of the time, lost in himself, and so quiet he was almost docile. Now he seemed to be entering a new phase. He had gotten past the despair; his energy and drive were returning. He could be generous and jovial, but also aggressive and spiteful. Since he no longer dared to take his anger out on Helene, he took to abusing Julien and Pierre more and more. He gave them malicious nicknames and was never satisfied with their work, no matter how much they exerted themselves.

  “You’re lazy, both of you. Lazy filth,” he said after surveying the garden and discovering that the paint on a newly painted bench wasn’t dry yet. He attributed this to their work being too slow. “Do you know why that is? You have it too good, and it makes you heavy and sluggish. You eat too much and you sleep too much, and that has to change. Yes? Don’t you agree it’s got to change?”

  Pierre and Julien said nothing. They stood before him, hats in their hands, heads bowed. Beatrice, however, who was watching the scene from a distance, saw Julien look up for just a second. She saw his dark eyes flash with fury, and she realized how violently he rebelled inside against this humiliation he was forced to bear in silence.

  “You’ll get nothing more to eat or drink today,” said Erich. “And from tomorrow on you’ll receive half the rations you receive now. We’ll see then if your work doesn’t improve.”

  It was early in the morning. As usual, Julien and Pierre had received a cup of coffee and two slices of bread each for breakfast. The day would drag on for a long time, and on top of that it promised to be very warm. Normally, the two prisoners could at any time come to the kitchen door, which opened onto a porch overlooking the garden, and ask for water. They also received lunch and dinner. Helene was horrified when Erich informed her that she was to provide absolutely nothing to eat or drink.

  “That’s inhuman, Erich. They at least have to have water! They haven’t done anything to make you torment them this way.”

  “They both have to learn what it means to work,” Erich answered curtly. “And if they won’t learn it another way, then this is how it’s going to be. You’ll see, their discipline will improve massively.”

  He paused for a moment, then went outside again and announced his decision that construction on the rock garden should begin that day. Erich had spoken of this plan a few times already. He had fallen in love with the idea of stacking rocks at the base of the driveway, where the garden went down at a steep incline towards the road. Between the rocks, individual rose bushes would be planted. The rocks would be brought over from the ocean at Petit Bôt Bay.

  The soldier who guarded the Frenchmen was instructed to accompany them on the trips to and from the bay and to make sure they didn’t get any “dumb ideas.”

  “They’ll have to make a fair number of trips,” he said, “and when I return this evening I want to see a respectable result. That means no long breaks for rest. It’s imperative that the two of them learn what it means to earn your keep. I don’t get anything for free either.”

  He got into his car and was driven off by Will. The occupation force had begun construction on an underground hospital not far from Le Variouf, and E
rich was in charge of supervising the project. He would be gone all day.

  Beatrice went to school and couldn’t stop thinking of the two Frenchmen. Mae noticed that she was distracted and asked what the cause was. Beatrice answered that she was worried about Julien and Pierre.

  “My parents say that many of the captive laborers have it very bad,” Mae said, lowering her voice. “Sometimes my father has had to treat some of the sick ones. Normally, the Germans have their own doctors but those times there weren’t any around … My father says many of them are in bad shape. A lot of them die.”

  She bit into the cheese sandwich she had brought from home and looked at Beatrice with concern. “You don’t think Mr. Feldmann wants to let the two Frenchmen starve or die of thirst, do you?

  “Of course not,” Beatrice said angrily. Sometimes Mae’s wide-open blue eyes and her high-pitched voice annoyed her. “But he wants to torment them, and that’s nasty too. You never know with him what’s going to come next.”

  School let out early, at midday, which happened often now on account of the shortage of teachers. It was very hot, the air was undulating, and a fine veil of mist was building over the sea. They had had German class last, but Mae had understood almost nothing, and while they tramped from St. Martin back home over dusty country roads, Beatrice did her best to explain. The language gave her no trouble at all anymore. She spoke almost fluently with Erich and Helene, and sometimes she even dreamt in German. Mae on the other hand, had great difficulty. She tied her tongue in knots trying to speak; nobody, English or German, would have understood her spluttering.

  When they arrived at the entrance to the village where the Wyatt’s house was, she still didn’t understand a thing. They made a plan to meet earlier than usual the next day and go over the material once more. Beatrice made her way home alone. The high June grass was swaying in the gardens of the houses on either side of her. The last dandelions were fading; everywhere there were thick ferns and pale pink foxgloves. The days were now endlessly long, and the nights were bright and had something wild about them that might have sprung from the insomnia that plagued both people and animals alike. Beatrice remembered something that Deborah had always said, that in June she always felt like she’d been drinking champagne. “And I’m so wistful!” she had said. “Always so wistful! When it’s late at night and there’s still this bright stripe of sunlight in the sky, then I think there’s something beyond it waiting for me. Something calls for me, tempting me, and I’d so like to follow that call …”