The Road Beyond Ruin

by Gemma Liviero

  It was not until their wedding night that Rosalind wished she had made an effort to be closer to Monique, who was worldly, who would have given advice and told her not to worry so much.

  After the wedding, a small affair, Georg had taken her to a hotel for the night, and she had been shy and he perhaps even more so. It felt like they were performing a deed that was required rather than desired. The act of lovemaking was cold and painful, and there was no loving embrace afterward. In fact it had been almost brutish, the way he forced himself harder when she had cried, thinking it was a call for more. If that was a part of marriage, then she would need to be stronger, she felt. After this very brief act, he had sat on the side of the bed with his naked back to her and smoked a cigarette. And when he had walked to the window to view the street below, she modestly eased back into her slip.

  Was he all right, she asked, and he had turned and smiled. Of course, he said. The response seemed genuine, she thought, she hoped. She loved him so much. She had for so long, and now they were married, and this was marriage, and she had burst into tears. He had stubbed his cigarette out and rushed to her side. “What’s wrong? Why the tears?”

  “I don’t know why,” she said, and it was truthful because she didn’t understand the feelings of loving and not knowing whether she was being loved back. She could not put that into words to Georg, not at that moment anyway.

  “It’s a shock the first time,” he said, “but it’s going to be fine.”

  She had leaned her head against his bare chest, and he held her and kissed the top of her head. And she had felt his heartbeat and felt comforted, and warm, though the words rang through her ears long after the wedding night. The first time? Who was Georg’s first time? She had to wonder.

  After they had two more nights together in her bedroom at her parents’ house, he announced suddenly that he was leaving, his unit about to embark for another battle on foreign lands.

  “I heard from Monique by letter,” he said as she watched him dress in his dashing gray uniform. He was trying to sound casual, but in the attempt the words had come out forced, unnatural. “She said Erich will be taking some leave at the end of the summer, and they are both keen to catch up with us then at the river houses. Erich said he will use his influence and make sure I have the same week of leave.”

  “Might you be in the middle of battle?”

  “Perhaps.”

  He had kissed her on the cheek, told her he loved her, and rushed from the room.

  Several days later, she found his small brown leather folder, which he carried everywhere, wedged between the bed and the dresser. In his haste he had forgotten it. She looked inside to see if there was anything important and found the papers for his next commission. She also discovered the date of departure for his commission was two days after he had rushed off to leave her. Two days, she thought, he should have spent with her.

  Present-day 1945

  She stops to view the wall Stefano has created, her skirt nearly touching Stefano’s arm. She looks at his hands, wonders at the strength of him, after what he has been through. The corner is a patchwork of bricks in varying shades of brownish reds and whites. But it has been done evenly and with precision.

  “If you do not choose to have an academic life with your languages, then I’m sure the damage this war has done could give you countless hours of work.” Her words to her ears do not sound sincere, but she was never good at compliments. She means it, though. The work is excellent.

  She sees Georg out of the corner of her eye, watching them from the doorway. He looks large, like a predator sizing up its prey. He has the look of defeat most of the time but not today. Minutes later he returns inside.

  He is not Georg, not the one she spent time with as a child. And the memories of their marriage are stained with deceit. All this is coming to her. All this in a moment. She wonders whether Stefano has been sent here; if he is the catalyst that will change the course of her future. Wonders if there is a future, if she deserves one, and whether Georg should be part of it. She remembers Erich’s advice about sending him to a hospital. She has begun to question her own decisions. Perhaps it is time to take some of his advice.

  “I was wondering if you would like to share another meal with me this evening,” she says suddenly to Stefano.

  He looks at her and doesn’t answer straightaway as if he were thinking or calculating. She cannot tell whether he is pleased with the invitation or whether he thinks she is mad the way she lives. Once she may not have cared what anyone thought of her and Georg, but she does now. She is developing feelings for someone other than her husband, a thought that several weeks ago would never have entered her head.

  “And Erich?” he says finally, looking up toward the woods on the hill.

  She blinks several times at the mention of his name. She saw Erich earlier behind the house, clearing the debris from the damaged shed. They have been bound by the past, but those bindings could unravel at any moment. If Stefano knew her, knew her past, she would lose him, and somehow the thought of losing him frightens her. She does not want him to leave here. She does not want him in Erich’s clutches. For some reason that frightens her even more.

  “I can’t . . . ,” she says.

  “Why not?”

  “It is difficult to explain.”

  “Is it Georg?”

  And she looks at him then, wondering what he sees, what he knows.

  “Erich said he was dangerous,” Stefano says.

  “He is not so dangerous. It is only Erich who thinks that way.” She does not trust herself to explain further.

  “Then why not? If there is something from the past, maybe the two of you can bring it to an end tonight.”

  He wears a small thin smile, though it is more a cynical one; smiles he has yet to master. And she thinks that they still need each other, she and Erich. That they made a pact, that they must learn to live with the past, move on, perhaps together in a distant way. But not just that. It is better to watch an enemy, see where he is, than to not see him at all, to speculate.

  “Yes. Erich also,” she says, her chest tightening with apprehension.

  “That is good,” he says. “Then this lovers’ tiff can be put to rest, finally.”

  She starts to protest but thinks it will look worse if she objects to the comment. She leaves Stefano to wash her hands in the tub at the back of the house.

  “Georg, I have a special request tonight,” she says on entering the house to find Georg at the table. She is wondering if the others will set him off. She is becoming more afraid of him, fearful of what he carries in his head. “We are having dinner guests, and I would like you to be on your best behavior. Can you do that?” She is also thinking it would be better he stays sleeping with a sedative, perhaps the dose increased for tonight, though she must be careful. Stock is running low and Erich is giving her less. She can’t think what life would be like without the drugs.

  Georg turns to look at her. His eyes clear, stubble appearing, a small dribble from the corner of his mouth, and then something hits her. This is not her Georg. Not the one she fell in love with.

  He can’t see her. He never could. Even before the injury. She thinks of Stefano. Of his dark eyes that see her, really see.

  She walks to her room and opens her wardrobe. There are dresses there that belonged to someone else. She takes out one and holds it against her in front of the bedroom mirror: a navy dress with pale-yellow flowers embroidered onto the lapels.

  Odd that after all this time she would think about how she will look. It is Stefano of course. Her heart beats strangely at the thought of him, at the warmth of his skin. She wanted him gone two days ago; now she wants him here. She is rash, altered, even a touch mad, she thinks.

  She carries a sack and a hammer to the goose hut. There is little food. One day soon, she expects, Erich will be gone, and she will go back to queuing for rations. The thought of it terrifies her, of leaving Georg for hours, without the medi
cine that will eventually run out, to queue for a few vegetables and sausages that are barely enough for one, and to avoid the Russians again in the streets.

  The bird will die eventually. Better it be by her hand than by the hand of a thief.

  The goose has hardly moved at all, and she squawks submissively today, a quiet pleading, and graceful, with her long neck and beseeching eyes that turn from side to side to view Rosalind. It is unlikely she will heal. When Rosalind was small she saw a goose with a similar ailment and asked her grandmother if they could take it to the doctor.

  No, dearest Rosalind, said Oma. God has already made his plan for this one. She had believed her grandmother at the time, though now she can see things for herself: death has nothing to do with God or heaven; death is decided by the living.

  She puts her hand out, but the goose does not snap today. She knows it’s the end, thinks Rosalind. She is just waiting now.

  Without any more thought she throws the bag over the goose’s head. The goose flaps around within the bag, and Rosalind feels the shape of her head through the hessian. With a hammer she hits the head, and the goose releases a faint, involuntary squawk but still squirms within. Rosalind hits again twice, harder this time. She has never killed an animal before. She saw her grandmother use an ax on the birds, but she could not bear to kill that way, with such bloody violence. She watched her grandmother kill, then pluck and chop and stuff, and as a child, Rosalind never once considered that she might one day experience it, too.

  She sits back on her haunches and hugs her knees to stare at the sack, thinking back to the miracle eggs. The sight of the suddenly lifeless bird within makes her feel ill, but mostly sad.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and several tears escape.

  Rosalind puts one hand on her heart and the other on the sack to feel the contents that are still warm, before realizing what she is doing. She can’t afford to attach herself to dead things.

  She picks up the bag and heads back to the house to prepare the goose for dinner.

  CHAPTER 19

  ERICH

  For most of the morning, Erich has been clearing the rubbish from the property and depositing it near the broken houses across the road, all the while his mind on Stefano, who is working on Rosalind’s property. The clearing is not something he needs to attend to, but he likes to be near, to keep an eye on Stefano where he can. They conversed earlier over coffee. Erich advised he will return at sunrise, and they will leave shortly afterward for the station in Dresden.

  At the top of the ridge above the houses, he stopped to briefly watch Stefano working. Stefano did not appear to notice him there, too focused on precision, on the task. He is careful and methodical, smoothing the mortar between each brick with gentle but firm strokes.

  Stefano and Michal left earlier with a bucket, heading toward the woodland on the far side of the clearing to collect clay and dry grasses, ingredients to make a crude mortar as a temporary patch to other minor damage in the house’s brickwork.

  Erich watches Rosalind carefully whenever she leaves the house. She has found reasons to walk past Stefano and to stop and talk. She seems eager to gain his attention. Normally he would think she was suspicious and keeping an eye on him, but just from the encounters he has witnessed, she seems comfortable, even curious like him. The fact she is doing this irritates him. Just the sight of her stirs animosity, the resentment in her face reminding him she knows too much.

  Once finished with the clearing, he sets about removing engine parts from the car, and cleaning them. He helped his father do this many times. He could become his father, he thinks. He has much of him: he has his passion for machinery, his fascination for the way things work. He replaces the parts, then covers the car with rugs and once again with branches.

  Stefano steps up to the tub near the back door to wash off the dirt.

  “Rosalind has asked us both to dinner,” says Stefano.

  “I can’t. I have to work tonight.”

  He does not want to spend time with her if he can help it. He does not want to be near Georg.

  “But you said you are not leaving till late. Perhaps you have time.”

  “I should get there earlier.”

  “They are working you hard it seems. You hardly sleep.”

  “It is a very busy factory.”

  How one lie can grow to two and two to four, thinks Erich, who must turn the conversation.

  “I will be back in the morning, as promised. In the meantime I hope that you will enjoy the evening. Just be careful.”

  “I sense no danger there,” says Stefano. “I believe your dislike is for other reasons. Every time I mention Rosalind’s name, it seems to upset you.”

  Erich remembers the last time he and Rosalind spoke alone. Rosalind turning her back to him to be rid of him quickly. Erich is disappointed in himself that he has exposed certain feelings. He is wondering what else he has shown.

  “There are a lot of things in the pasts of people who have known one another in different situations,” says Erich. “Sometimes it is better just to move on. To begin anew. We did not have a strong connection in the early years. I see no need to have one now.”

  Evasiveness was one of his strengths, but he finds himself answering Stefano, not by the means of manipulation, but because he wants to.

  “I think that if you can spare time before you start work, then perhaps it is a good thing, for both of you.”

  And Stefano is looking at him, searchingly. The Italian is commanding and engaging even when he is saying little, even just standing there. He does not have the order, the short hair, the grooming that Erich is used to in those he looked up to, and Erich has been conditioned to distance himself from those who are different in color, in background. Yet at this moment, perhaps for the first time, he questions the motive of such a stance. He questions why Hitler had got it so wrong. The question would shatter his mother if she could read his thoughts.

  “All right, I will come,” he says. “For a short time. Perhaps we must celebrate the end of the war, at least, even if it was not the outcome some of us would have hoped for.”

  Erich believes his own words. They are not flippant. He must continue. It is Stefano’s company he craves, but there is another reason to be here this evening. He loathes the idea of leaving Rosalind to speak to Stefano alone any longer. She is not as guarded, less cautious. She could ruin his chances to leave with Stefano if he learns the truth. Perhaps it is best that Erich is there to observe, to make sure she says nothing.

  Erich suddenly notices that Michal is still missing. He has not seen him since the earlier walk with Stefano.

  “Where is the boy?”

  Stefano shrugs. “He is just exploring. He will not be far way. I will go to Rosalind and let her know you will be there, too.”

  1941–1942

  In Berlin, shortly after they were married, Monique became a weight in Erich’s daily life, and their time together was strained. The foreign posting in the months ahead would likely change things for the better. He would hopefully be traveling often and not have to spend much time with her. He didn’t understand people like Monique, nor did he want to. They would make small talk, and he endured it at first. She was charming at functions, and Erich was the envy of many men. There had been whispers at first about her behavior, that she had been naively open to other vices, but they had quickly died down after the wedding, when people saw that she was good enough for a senior officer. She was good at acting, at playing the part of acknowledging her wrongs, should someone accidentally bring up a reference. Though Erich was not completely fooled. There was more to her than she was letting on, and, from past experience, he knew people rarely changed their beliefs.

  She was intelligent, he was to discover. He had married her, thinking that she was flighty, emotional, and fanciful, and she would know very little about the world, because of the topics she raised in the early days, the desire to spend idle time at play. But he had discovered that s
he understood many issues about war. She was curious, too, about people in the party, the measures they were taking in securing all the territories, and the future of Germany. Erich was careful not to provide too much detail, but she would ask intelligent questions, and he told her some things to humor her. Not about his work but about the processes, the German military, the power of the tank that his father had helped design, which he was pleased to speak of because so few people asked. He had misjudged that about her, but it was still not enough to build a relationship, and when conversations ran dry, it might be days before they would find common ground again.

  They slept in separate rooms, and most nights he would choose to work late. In the morning when he left for work, his breakfast would be ready, and she would have left for the markets. She was no longer required to work. His position, power, and finances were enough to keep both of them in better circumstances than many.

  He rarely took Monique to his mother’s. His father was the only parent who liked her, and since he was home very little these days and Erich’s mother showed her disapproval of his wife, without even knowing the truth, he was reluctant to bring her. Claudine had grown into an independent, pretty girl, and spent most days away from home with her university friends. They were self-indulgent, his mother had said, and added nothing to this country. Erich agreed. His mother asked if he could find out what she was up to, use his hunting skills. She had asked the same of Horst, who had been quite angry at the suggestion, who had said Claudine was old enough to choose her friends.

  Somehow the pair had coexisted, though Erich’s job was getting more intense, and his particular work was something he did not discuss with Monique, knowing her previous disposition on those expelled on race, the same type of people that Erich helped remove from Germany. At first, she believed he was simply policing the streets, and part of the security team for rallies and speeches in Berlin, until later learning the truth.