The Truth & Addy Loest

by Kim Kelly

  She told her cigarette: ‘I don’t know what Adam was doing with the resistance. For his family’s sake, he had pretended to distance himself from any political activity, but I can only imagine he was continuing to stand up for those less fortunate in his quiet, persevering way. Perhaps he was organising against the slave treatment of workers under the Nazis, from all the unions being banned. Perhaps he was standing up for the Jews that had remained in Darmstadt – their circumstances by that summer of 1939 were unbearable. The district was one where there was a lot of resistance feeling, and not only from socialists, even if it could not be openly expressed. We were civilised people.’

  Frieda Stevenson looked away, far away; she put out the cigarette.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said so plainly, too plainly, into the ashtray: ‘He was killed.’

  ‘What happened?’ Addy couldn’t stop the question from charging out of her, and immediately regretted the rude, harsh sound. ‘I’m sorry, I —’

  ‘Are you sure you want to know?’ Frieda Stevenson looked across at her, her hand hovering over the packet of cigarettes but deciding against another. She sat there on her stepladder, hands clasped on her lap: ‘It is not pleasant.’

  Addy found a few more words, urgently: ‘I’d be very grateful, please.’

  ‘Well …’ Frieda Stevenson looked down at the carpet, into the lines of tiny fleur-de-lis there, lines and lines of them like spent stars dotting a tired, old darkness: ‘They wanted to make a show of it. They had seemed to wait for just the right time, when we were all together – Anna and Adam and little Peter, me and Adam’s mother. There was no warning, only a knock at the door. There were three of them, Gestapo officers – they dragged Adam out into the street. Two of them beat him and the other one made us come out to watch. No one else came out of their houses to witness his humiliation – that’s how much your grandfather was respected. But no one could save him. He was beaten to death, right there in front of his little son. They beat him while Peter screamed – everyone in the town would have heard him. Then they pushed me into the back of their car first, and next Anna as well. We never saw Peter again. I survived what they did to us afterwards. Anna didn’t. I will not describe to you what they did to us – I don’t want to. You must know that your grandmother fought them, she fought very hard. She was always timid, always easy to bend to the demands of others. But she wasn’t then. She fought so hard, and she paid the price.’

  The two women stared at each other, shocked: the younger for the first time, the elder for all time. And then for Addy, the layers and layers of realisation began crashing down around her; the first of them: He knew – Dad knew. He might have only been a small boy, but he saw them kill his father, he saw them take his mother – it was all written on his soul, whether he remembered or not. Her heart at once shattered for him and remade itself with understanding. No wonder he was always so worried, so racked – so intense. She wanted to find a phone, call him, get on the next train home, just to touch him, hug him. Oh, Dad. He wouldn’t break from work for a scene like that, though. Someone might get killed – there could be a fall from a high gantry, a scalding from a gust of steam, a fatal shower of molten steel; a coke oven might explode – if he wasn’t watching, carefully.

  Every emotion crashed then, too: love, grief, anger – anger so sharp and vastly wheeling, she had no word for it at all.

  ‘So yes,’ Frieda Stevenson sighed from some place beyond sadness, ‘your grandfather was a lawyer from Lindenfels, and your grandmother was my dearest friend.’ She picked up the packet of cigarettes and put it back beside the ashtray again, resisting yet another as she asked, carefully: ‘And your father, he is happy in his life?’

  No. Addy ached all over at that question. Dad is permanently shattered because, on top of that total sackful of arsehole sandwiches, when he finally found happiness with the love of his life, she died as well. I don’t know how Dad gets up every morning, if you want to know the truth. She wasn’t going to further sadden this woman with anything like that, though, so she told her the other, better half of the truth: ‘He’s the best father in the world. He’s a foreman at Port Kembla Steelworks. Everyone loves him there.’ Except when he shouts, but he only shouts because he’s permanently terrified something bad will happen if he doesn’t. And then, like her father’s daughter, she quickly deflected further conversation on the subject, mostly because she thought she might start crying for about a thousand years if she didn’t: ‘It seems like some kind of miracle that I’ve met you – now, here – doesn’t it?’ she blurted inanely. ‘Something good? A little bit of something magical?’

  ‘Magical?’ The old woman chuckled, nodding, somehow smiling to herself before she replied: ‘It can only have been a little bit of magic that brought me here. He was a ship’s mechanic, in fact – an Australian. We met in Hamburg, when I was —’ She waved the thought away. ‘Anyway, I didn’t know a thing about Australia. I wasn’t sure I even liked him for the right reasons, at first – I wasn’t sure I would ever like any man. But he was a wonderful person, and he made me laugh every day. We had twenty-four years together, two sons, and now, five grandchildren. I lost him in 1973, to lung cancer, and I thought I would die then also. One of my sons told me I should have a shop, because beautiful things that remind me of more beautiful times stop me from being depressed – a good book does, too – and so here I have been since then. A lot of magic, yes.’ She chuckled again. ‘A lot of magic has brought me here.’

  They sat there smiling at each other like old girlfriends for a moment, kindred spirits meeting in the preloved dusty air between them, before Frieda Stevenson said: ‘Stay where you are.’ She got up and disappeared around the far side of the bookcase again; a door hinge creaked and a draught swept in, eddying around Addy’s ankles, before the woman returned, rustling, with the dress over her arm – Addy’s lay-byed garden frock. She said: ‘I want you to have this now.’

  ‘Oh, but I couldn’t. I’ve only paid —’

  Frieda Stevenson shook a finger to shush her. ‘And I have only been clearing out my wardrobe of old favourites I will most definitely never wear again. I must be honest. My husband, Derek, bought me this dress in 1955, from a very expensive boutique in the city, far too expensive for us at the time – it was a surprise, for our seventh wedding anniversary. And it was in every way inappropriate. I had not recovered my shape from having my second baby a few years before, and I had been feeling frumpy and old. I was old, so I thought – I was forty-five, almost forty-six. So, my husband buys me a dress I will never fit into – that is how stupid men can be. I had thickened around the waist – there was no going back. I’ve never worn this dear, dear gown. Someone should. And it should be you. This is magic.’ She held out the dress and the folds of tulle swished as if within a spell she had woven herself.

  ‘I …’ Addy touched the poppies where they tumbled down to the grass at the hem; she didn’t know how to respond, and couldn’t in any case, as another emotion rushed in: that here was something of her own mother, too, that in that same year, 1955, she was dancing into Peter Loest’s arms for the first time.

  It was as if the poppies spoke themselves as she was told: ‘I only ask that when you wear this dress, you remember that you are perfect and important, just as you are – no matter your burdens or blemishes. Live well, enjoy the best of life, especially for those who are no longer here.’

  Addy looked up at Frieda Stevenson not at all confident she could promise that, but she said, at last: ‘I will. Thank you.’ For everything.

  ‘And most importantly, come back. Come back to the shop. I …’ The woman frowned as though distracted by some thought of her own.

  Addy was keen to make this easy promise, though, frock addict that she would always be: ‘Of course I’ll come back. I think we can be sure I’ll pop in at least once a week.’ She would also have to try to find out what Frieda Stevenson herself did during the war – what she meant by no one needs to know.

  ‘Goo
d.’ They smiled together for a moment once more, some heartstring mended, some long-lost friends separated by life and death and somehow bundled together again, before Frieda Stevenson turned and began marching the dress up to the front of the shop in her straight-backed, spritely way: ‘I will put this in a bag for you, dear. Hang it up immediately when you get it home – it is impossible to iron.’

  Addy felt she was being ushered out of the shop, as if Frieda Stevenson had such brain-stopping exchanges every Friday morning and this one was over. ‘You have a busy afternoon ahead, I have no doubt,’ she said, ‘but do take care with this gown, please.’

  ‘I will,’ Addy said; she didn’t have anything else to do except take it back to Flower Street and hang it up. She glanced over at the zebra, hesitating. She didn’t want to go; she wanted to ask something else, but she didn’t know what. She fumbled at it: ‘By the way, what’s the story with the zebra?’

  ‘Ah!’ Frieda Stevenson laughed, a light laugh, high and bright, like a tinkling of small bells, as she handed Addy the bag, ballooned now with frock. ‘That was another anniversary present from Derek – for our thirteenth. He and one of his old navy friends stole it from a travelling circus, at the showgrounds. It lived in our dining room for as many years again. I was so sure the police would come for it – and Derek. Only they didn’t. Zebra is not for sale, of course – he is Derek, for me. I need him every day.’

  I want that kind of love, Addy made a wish for it there and then.

  ‘Enjoy the rest of your day – Adrianna, isn’t it? Such a pretty name for such a pretty girl.’ Frieda Stevenson had her hand on the door; she added, an afterthought: ‘You’re at the university, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Addy replied, but she didn’t get the chance to elaborate.

  ‘See you again soon,’ Frieda Stevenson said, the bell on the door jingling as it opened, giving Addy another less-subtle suggestion to be on her way.

  ‘See you, then …’ She could only leave it at that and step out onto the street, back into the day. She could barely believe it was the same world here, shining grimily under that high sun, as though nothing had happened, nothing had changed. She crossed the road through gridlocked, mad-busy traffic, and at the kerb opposite, she glanced back, but the lights had been switched off in The Curiosity Shop; the door was shut once more; the ‘closed’ sign remained there, too; a shop unseen, a shop to walk past.

  What was Frieda Stevenson doing now? Addy wondered. Probably having that second cigarette. Addy thought about getting herself a hamburger, with extra onions, but she needed more than the comfort of food. She quickened her step: she needed to write all of this down – find the words, chase them down, catch them, before any could escape.

  SPECIAL FRIED RICE &

  TRUE ROMANCE

  By the time Addy’s key met the lock at Flower Street, however, she’d decided three and a half times that she had no choice but to forget any foolish ideas of writing – Writing what? – and return to studying law. How could she not? It was a matter of honour. This was more than merely a need to please her father in light of all the happiness he’d been denied. She was destined to take up her grandfather’s fight. Wasn’t she?

  Fight? No one was going to beat her to death for wanting to take up the workers’ struggle here; no one would murder her for wanting to cure the causes rather than the symptoms of poverty, not in sunny Australia. Socialism wasn’t illegal here. She’d just be ignored – derided for her left-wing bleeding heart, especially by the right wing of the Labor Party. The worst that would happen was that she’d have Chubs Keveney sliming up to her in Manning Bar, the uni’s beer barn, wanting to know why she didn’t want to suck his sausage roll. This was the eighties: God had been reborn in the form of greed. The welfare state was being cheerfully dismantled by those it had raised up from the dustbins of empire and the rubble of war: We’ve enjoyed our free university fees very much, thank you, and now the next generation must pay, because we’ve decided the money should go to tax cuts for business and top-earning white-collar workers, such as lawyers, who are good, deserving people that can’t be expected to be always giving handouts to those who are lazy and dirty and poor – ew, poor people. Last year, at a Young Labor meeting, Addy was told by an older, recently graduated know-all, that there were no ‘real’ poor people in Australia. There was no fight to be had. It was hard enough trying to have a sensible conversation about it with anyone, never mind consider making it her life’s work.

  And yet, she had just been informed that her grandfather was more than a little bit extraordinary – that small-town lawyers and their otherwise timid wives could be brave and noble and true. Pride alone should carry her through law school.

  And yet …

  I don’t want to be a lawyer. I’m so sorry, Dad. She imagined herself in court, pleading a worker’s compensation case for an injured non-union concrete-layer against the solid travertine edifice of a carpark property developer: Excuse me, Your Honour. Hello? Can you hear me? All she could hear in response was the spooky, space-station synth of ELO’s ‘Telephone Line’, and no one answering with anything except for eternal loopholes stacking justice in favour of the rich. I can’t make a difference there. I’m too small to stand up for myself, let alone anyone else. I’m too crushed. Too —

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’ It was HRH, her head in the hall as Addy came through the door.

  Oh, fricken hell. Addy realised only now she had forgotten to buy her that bunch of apologies. She’d sailed straight past the florist without the slightest thought. Think now: ‘Harriet …’ she began. Be a big girl, Addy, and suck this one up. ‘I wanted to talk to you, about the food processor – I’m so sorry.’ Make it unconditional, even to her smug, hoity face: ‘What I did was uncalled for.’ Lie: ‘You didn’t deserve that.’

  Harriet raised her nose in the air and said, with an imperious shake of the head: ‘I wouldn’t expect anything else from a little guttersnipe like you.’

  Guttersnipe? Who the fuck says that? Miss Edwardian Parody 1985?

  Harriet had worse to deliver, though: ‘It’s one thing to be ugly on the outside, but ugly on the inside is a form of self-mutilation.’ And she closed her bedroom door on Addy’s stuck and steamrolled frown.

  Fuck you. Addy knew that Harriet was only offloading, only indulging in some pot-calling-kettle-black; she knew that Harriet was undoubtedly suffering some truly if only relatively dreadful anguish at the hands of Maaaarhtin Arseface; nevertheless, the barb made its mark.

  I’m not ugly, Addy told herself as she trudged up the stairs. I’m not ugly.

  You’re a fricken horror show and you know that best of all.

  Shut up. Please.

  She laid the garden frock across her bed.

  You don’t deserve anything so lovely. And you didn’t even pay for it – you should take it back to the shop.

  Shut up. Please.

  She opened her wardrobe to find a spare hanger, but the first thing she saw as she parted the wall of frocks was Luke’s jumper, abandoned and lonely beneath their hovering hems.

  Is there anyone you’ve ever known that you haven’t disappointed?

  Please.

  When she turned back for the garden frock, No Name had pounced upon it and had begun to knead. ‘No!’ Addy shrieked, scaring the poor cat, and giving herself only more proof of her ugliness.

  She hung up the dress, trying to concentrate on doing as she had been instructed, carefully shaking out the tulle and the charmeuse beneath, placing the folds of the skirt neatly between the press of all the other frocks.

  You’re too ugly for such a pretty dress.

  She called back the words of Frieda Stevenson: Such a pretty name for such a pretty girl.

  That old lady was lying – people lie about that sort of shit all the time. Making small talk, making ugly girls feel fine. She only felt sorry for you.

  No, she didn’t.

  Keep telling yourself that – loser. She couldn’t get you out of the shop
fast enough, could she?

  That was undeniable; it was also utterly implausible that Addy had been hurried from the shop for being too ugly. Or for being a loser. It was much more likely that the woman had been upset by the retelling of those bad memories. Hideous, heartbreaking memories which Addy had brought forth. Good on you, idiot.

  In a whirl of frustration and need to put right all her imagined wrongdoing, she gathered up her dirty clothes for washing – her jeans and Tuesday’s shirt, Wednesday’s tights, sundry undies; Luke’s jumper as well – and she took them downstairs to the laundry.

  It wasn’t really a laundry so much as a cupboard off the kitchen, behind a sliding door by the fridge, room enough for the machine and tub and not a lot more. She shoved her washing in around the agitator, then fished out Luke’s jumper again, to check the label. Although she knew it wasn’t wool, she had to be sure – yes, it was thirty-five percent cotton and sixty-five percent polyester, fully machine washable. It was just a posh sloppy joe, all told, but the last thing she wanted to do was destroy it. Soap powder in and dial pushed on, she left the washing to itself and returned upstairs to her desk, clutching at words as she went, trying to gather every skerrick of story she’d hoped to scribble down – for her grandparents, for her father and her mother, for the too-real bravery and sacrifice that had made her own life possible, whether she was an idiot or not.

  From the drawer, she pulled out one of her large, foolscap notebooks, and from her bookshelf she took her Jumbo Family Reference World Atlas, opening it at the map of West Germany. She scanned the web of red roads for a moment, until she found what she was looking for: Darmstadt. Of course, Lindenfels wasn’t on this map – it was too tiny – but she knew from other maps she’d found in various libraries that it was approximately equidistant between Darmstadt and the town of Weinheim, and slightly to the east of another town called Bensheim. She also knew from her research so far that Lindenfels had indeed been a pretty, postcard town, nestled in the Odenwald, a range of picturesque subalpine mountains, in the state of Hesse; it had been a tourist resort before the war, a favourite of hikers and city holidaymakers, and afterwards, a Jewish refugee camp was set up there. All facts that had seemed so disconnected from her, until now.