by Susan Firman
CHAPTER 4
The Turners
Hans stepped over the Miss Turner’s front door sill and felt as if a monstrous jaw was snapping shut, and he would be in its bowels forever. There would be no escape. What a summer holiday he would have!
“There is no point in trying to go back to the other house, young man, because there is no way in, now. The place has been locked up and will remain empty until the college find new people to move in. You can’t run away from here, either, because there is nowhere for you to run to. The police would catch you in an instant. Our people help the police and you would be handed over before you could get very far. Put your bags down there and stay here a minute. One of my maids will show you up to your room.”
Hans gulped. He knew she was right. He felt as though he were her prisoner and yet, at the same time he was slightly relieved by her protection. Many students still had not accepted him, especially when they had found out that he had come from the country of their former enemy.
We don’t want any Fritzies, like you! they would shout. Why don’t you go back to where you belong!
Boys could be very cruel, especially teenage ones. It was not only the bantering and name-calling that had made him lash out but also the readiness for some boys to take him on. He had been involved in fist fights even though he knew he could not win for it was many against one. However, he still managed to get in some good nose shots, sending several of his opponents away holding their heads back so that they had to be led home. All he had to do was to keep them at bay and put in a good hard punch when one of them made a mistake and got too close. Several times Robert had tried to pull him away but that only seemed to escalate things and if the skirmish happened anywhere in or near the school grounds, as it inevitably did, the fight dissolved as soon as the lookouts caught sight of a master. The bullies always knew when to run so that it was Hans, and sometimes Robert as well, who found themselves standing outside one of the senior master’s door.
While he was standing in the corridor a few weeks before the end of the school year, Hans thought he heard two staff members discussing Miss Turner and saying that Miss Turner would be a bit short staffed as her younger maid, Ellen, would be leaving next month. As to the reason why Ellen had to go, Hans didn’t hear.
Maybe, she’s a bit broke, Hans thought. Maybe, that’s why she’s got me a a boarder. I bet Uncle Karl is paying her sufficient, though.
Robert Brinkwater was one who wanted to put the past war differences behind him. A cousin, eight years older than Robert, who had been one of the last young men to have been drafted and sent over to France, had talked quite frankly to Robert about his experiences in the trenches. He did not blame any of the young men who were thrown on to the Front to be slaughtered in the madness but, instead, laid the blame at the feet of the elderly generals and politicians who had been itching for a fight for some years before. Robert was beginning to see that it was now the responsibility of the younger generation to make a far better world than their own parents and grandparents had done.
“You know, Hansie old boy . . .” Robert and Hans had been semi-lying on the grass together. “If you really want to be accepted by the lads, why not try your hand at cricket? Remember when Moose-head gave you the ball to bowl? Well, you did. And you were really good at it. I’ve never seen anyone bowl like that. Not on his first try.”
“Mr Moore didn’t seem to be impressed!” Hans made the comment with haste but Robert could sense that there was genuine disappointment in his voice.
“Don’t think of him. He had it in for you that day. You were good, damned good! Look, you don’t have to play for the team, or anything serious like that. Just the odd game or so. It’d go down a treat with the boys. It’s a spiffin’ good game, really.”
“Really?”
Hans brightened up. He had always thought of cricket as being a strange game but he was now interested enough to ask Robert whether the idea could work.
“I think it would. It’s worth having a go. It’ll give you something to do and keep you fit at the same time. Our games are never as slow as those during sports lessons. So, what about it?”
“All right, then. But when?”
“I’ll introduce you to my captain and we’ll see what he thinks. I’ll tell him you’ve got the makings of being a top-notch bowler. That’ll get him interested.” Robert spoke with excitement in his voice. “And with the summer holidays coming up, we often play in the evenings and eat sandwiches on the lawn. You’ll get to meet more of the locals and be part of our group.”
Hans wanted to be accepted by the others. He wanted a chance to prove that he could be friends with them. If only he did not have all the other pressures to contend with as well. Now that he had ended up at the Turner house, supervised and monitored every minute of the day and night, cricket with Robert and the cricket boys might give him the opportunity to escape for a few hours. It might work and was worth considering.
His thoughts were interrupted by Miss Turner’s voice instructing Mary to take his bags upstairs. Servants of any sort were difficult to find these days, especially men, for after 1918 young men were in short supply. Many young women had found jobs in factories, jobs that before the war had been jobs only the men ever did. The girls did not want to be servants or maids any more.
Mary had been in service for twelve years now, ever since her father had thrown her out claiming that his meagre pay did not stretch to feeding all his large family, especially a daughter of working age. Now she was a mature twenty-six year old and had been with the Turner household for just on ten years, long enough to have been considered part of the family. Her main duties were cleaning and organising the collection and return of the weekly wash. Ellen, on the other hand, was far younger; only fifteen and three quarters and still inclined to giggle for no obvious reason at all. Her mother had insisted she become a domestic as such a position would not only provide her daughter with a steady income but keep her out of harm’s way and out of any temptations out in the modern world so as soon as Ellen had left school, she had gone into service, first as a kitchen maid and then she had graduated to being the cook’s assistant. In a year and a half she had learnt enough to be able to prepare simple dishes and present them adequately for a small household. She had helped her own mother in the kitchen since she was ten and now, still very young, was able to dish up plain food that was not only acceptable but tasty as well. She still needed to improve and when she arrived at Miss Turner’s, she had been provided with a copy of Mrs Beeton’s Cookbook. As well as kitchen duties, Ellen was sometimes called to help Mary make the beds as the expense of another full-paid household maid would have stretched the college finances too much.
It was Mary who showed Hans into the front room downstairs. Hans watched as Mary quietly pulled the door closed, leaving him standing in the middle of the room wondering what to do next.
He milled aimlessly around, looking at the ceiling, then the pelmets and thick heavy curtains and a collection of small red poppies that had been pushed into a narrow vase across the room from where he was standing.
“Hans Resmel, I never thought I’d see you here.”
The voice, which had originated from near the fire-place, was mocking. He abruptly turned round. It was Janine Turner. She had let her hair down and he noticed that it fell way past her shoulders. He knew that she had not forgiven him for her broken leg and the inconvenience it was causing and he noted, also, that this time she was using crutches. When inside, she found the large wheelchair far too cumbersome to use with the stairs and narrow hallways that linked the numerous rooms.
He pretended not to have noticed her and looked intently out of the window, deep into the garden with its shrubbery boarded by multi-coloured cottage annuals, together with a splash of deep red and scarlet garden poppies. He half expected Jan to say more; but she didn’t and when he turned round again, she had gone.
I must stop day-dreaming, he thought, unsure now whether he’d even seen her.
His reflections moved from the garden poppies to the artificial ones in the room. Then his eyes drifted around the walls. For the first time, he noticed how dark the room was and how high the wooden ceiling was. The wallpaper was also gloomy and for a minute he was unaware that photographs were hung in a row along the picture rail on the far side of the room. Slowly he edged towards them and looked up. They appeared to be family members . . . firstly, young and older women, dressed in black with white lace frilled collars, stiff like mannequines with severe wax-like faces. It must have been taken at least fifty years ago.
He moved along further until his eyes rested on a more recent photograph showing a small group of soldiers posing together in what looked like a muddy, pitted field. Hans stood only a short distance away from it and immersed himself in the picture. He then noticed that the soldiers were wearing different uniforms.
“You find that interesting?” He heard the dull thud of her crutches move across the floor. Jan had returned into the room to collect some papers she had earlier put down.
“This photograph; it was taken during the Great War. They’re soldiers.” He turned and looked directly at Jan.
“I know. They are.” She brushed her hair back over her shoulders. “My aunt told me it was taken in 1914.” She answered him in a matter-of-fact, unemotional tone. “The men on the front right are British. Those there are the Boche. You can tell them from the funny spiky lids they’re wearing.” She turned on her crutch and faced him, triumph on her face at having him at a disadvantage. “Don’t you think they look silly?”
She watched him closely to see what his reaction would be but his face remained as unreceptive as the faces in the photograph.
“What? The spikes on the helmets?” he asked.
“No. Not just them. The soldiers.”
“Which ones? The German . . . or . . . the English?”
“The Fritzies!”
She cleared her voice in triumph and, putting more weight on one crutch, adjusted her glasses in much the same way as her aunt was seen to do. She eagle-eyed him, waiting for his reaction. He hated the word ‘Fritzies’ but this time he was determined to ignore the insult.
Suddenly, he spun round back to the wall. Something in the photo intrigued him. His eyebrows shot up. He felt a thousand hammers pound his temples. It seemed like minutes, yet only a few brief seconds had really passed.
Slowly, very slowly he turned round on his heels. His fists were clenched and his face muscles had become taut and hard. Jan’s mouth dropped open and horror filled her eyes. His lips had lost their form and colour and were now tight and white. His eyes had become cat-like, glassy and cold as if they were made from ice. Then, she saw that the small muscles in his face began to twitch slightly under the strain.
“What did you say? What did you mean by that?” His voice was loud and excited.
“Nothing!” She covered the lenses of her spectacles with her fingers but he could see she was still watching him.
“Then, if it was nothing why did you say that?”
“I’ve heard some of the boys say that,” Jan answered removing her hands and biting on her bottom lip.
Hans observed her a while and then said,
“You stupid, beastly girl!”
She found her lack of mobility around the house annoying, not having enough room to easily manoeuvre through the doorways and having to struggle with her crutches up and down the stairs. At this point she wanted to hurt him as he had hurt her. In her mind she wanted to see him squirm like the worm in a bird’s beak.
“I’m not stupid and those are beasts!” she screamed at him.
“Who?”
“The Hun. Everyone was told to beware of the Hun!”
“Stupid goose!” he hissed. “You wouldn’t remember. You were too young for all that!” Jan poked her tongue at him. “Bitch!”
He’d heard others using that word. He was a little uncertain as to its meaning but it sounded as if this was the opportune time to say it; and it sounded satisfying.
“How dare you use language like that in my house, Mr Resmel! Go to your own room, at once!”
Neither of them had noticed that Miss Turner had even come into the room. As Hans was making his departure, he heard Miss Turner turn on Jan. He let the door swing gently towards a close and stood eavesdropping on their conversation.
“Janine Turner.” The schoolmistress always called her niece by her full name whenever she was annoyed with her. “What was all that outburst about? What did you do to make him so angry?”
“Nothing, aunt. He’s crazy. He’s out of his mind. I, I didn’t do anything.”
She did not want to admit that she had tried to badger him. She did not want to share the blame.
“Some thing has upset him, Janine,” Miss Turner commented, the gap between her eyebrows narrowing, expressing her displeasure with the flippant answer.
“Boys always take things the wrong way.”
“You said something to upset him. What did you say?”
Jan knew that look on her aunt’s face. She could not deceive her any longer.
“He was in here looking around . . . looking at the photos. That’s all. I did nothing, Aunt, really. I just told him who they were, that’s all. His eyes went all glassy. Oh, it was horrible. I didn’t know what he would do and then, he called me a . . .”
Jan stopped short. She made sure she did not incriminate herself.
“Janine, that’s enough! I don’t want you repeating what he said. We do not use such language in this house. You know the rules!”
“I don’t know why we have to have him in our house!” She banged one of her crutches hard onto the floor. “He is a Fritzy! Everyone calls him that!” Jan had never shouted like this at her aunt before. Her behaviour had become quite erratic.
“Janine, that will do! I do not want you ever to behave like this again. Saying such wicked things. Mr Resmel is our guest. Remember that, young lady. And, for your information, his grandmother came from around these parts so he is almost as English as you or I. Something you would do to remember.”
“But all the others keep saying . . .” Jan’s voice was continuing to rise in octave as her protest continued to gather momentum.
“I am not interested in what others say, Janine!” Miss Turner cut Jan off. “And neither should you. Lies and gossip. We had enough of all that during the war. I don’t want it entering my house. Do you understand?” Miss Turner glared at her niece until the girl bowed her head and looked at the floor. “And in future I expect you to be much more civil towards him. Mister Resmel is a long way from home and think how it would be like for you living with a different family? And in a different country?”
“I don’t know,” Jan mumbled. In reality she had not thought about it at all.
“Resmel needs your support; not your hostility.” Miss Turner’s voice quietened as she tried to defuse the emotion her young niece was feeling at this moment.
“Why’s he here? In our house?”
“Because I have allowed him to be. This is my house, Janine and I make the rules. You will just have to learn to button that mouth of yours and cope. He is staying here and that’s that so stop your silly behaviour. Hating him for your accident will not change a thing. There are things you do not understand but when you’re older . . . ”
At that point, Hans quietly closed the door and went upstairs to his room.
He was sorting out some clothing to hang in the wardrobe when a knock on the door disrupted his task. He had had to find something to occupy himself, so that his mind would not brood over what had just taken place.
“May I enter?” Miss Turner stood in the doorway. Hans was most surprised that she had even asked for his permission. “What was all that about, that outburst of yours?” Her voice did not seem as hard as when she was in the college. When Hans did not reply, she wanted to know what had happened between Jan and himself.
Hans found his throat tighte
n. He could not speak and looked at her with pain still evident in his gaze. She realised he was very upset.“You two need to sort out your differences. You are going to be here for a long time.” Her voice was much softer than he had heard before. The voice of authority had gone and in its place was the genuine feeling of one who cared. “We will leave that outburst for now.” Her face softened and her posture was far less powerful. She had become a woman and the matron of the college had been put aside. “If you do have any problems, you must come and tell me. Janine’s had the house to herself until now and, well, teenage girls can allow their emotions to make them upset over little trifles. As for the Brymers . . . they have moved out of the county and are living in Essex. Mr Brymer was considering a new job, anyway, so you are not to blame for their departure. He found another position at a larger school where they can pay him more than we can. I’m afraid that is how things stand today. They will not be coming back here and the cottage will remain empty until the school board decides what is to be done. Now, finish what you’re doing and come down to eat. Mary’s just about to serve supper. You would like some browned pasties, wouldn’t you?”
He was moody for a few more days as he tried to avoid Jan as much as possible. He either went out walking alone, or stayed in his room, reading. He wished he had the luxury of a wireless or whisker set, for Robert told him it played some interesting programmes and it would have been one way to have spent the time. He was still upset that no letter for him had arrived from Mrs Brymer in either the morning, or in the afternoon postal delivery. She had promised him that they would keep in touch, if they should ever have to leave. Hans dearly wished for that promise to be fulfilled.
Then, true to English weather, the warm spell broke right in the middle of summer and a whole week of cold, wet weather with heavy showers and howling winds followed. Hans remained in bed for several days. He had caught the bad cold that was laying many a boy low and after going out in the rain and getting wet, the cold had worsened. Ellen ran up and down the stairs bringing him hot lemon drinks and countless bowls of steaming vapour balms and towels to help clear his nose and chest. His head remained groggy and he could not think. But as soon as he was beginning to get over the worst of it, his thoughts returned to his happy, carefree childhood.
He had been just on seven when Vati had uprooted the family upon his promotion. Emperor Franz Josef had wanted representation in the German Kaiser’s Imperial Army as the two countries organised closer connections with each other through promises and treaties. As fears grew over the instability in Russia and the alliances between France and England, the Empires of Austria-Hungary and Germany pledged to stand side by side, come what may. That was the time when his father had moved the family and set up residence near to one of Kaiser Wilhem’s palaces in Berlin. The move meant that the children saw much less of their father than they had ever done in Austria. He was always so busy and their mother always seemed to be occupied with well-dressed, rich ladies draped in fox-furs and large pheasant feather hats. It was left to one of the servants to take the children into the city centre to watch the Kaiser ride along the wide street in his open carriage. But it had been exciting. The boys squeezed themselves between the crowd lining Unter den Linden until they were able to peep round the soldiers who stood between the people and the richly decorated carriage. Hans could remember the huge carriage horses with their proud, arched necks and sleek, shining black backs and behind them sat the Kaiser alone in his beautiful golden carriage and he could also remember the rows and rows of soldiers that went on and on, stretching all the way from the huge grey solemn columns of Brandenburg Gate and reaching well past the statue of Frederick II sitting astride his horse. He remembered how he and Renard cheered in their childish voices along with all the other onlookers until the golden carriage was well out of sight. Such pomp. The Kaiser knew how to impress his citizens.
Hans also remembered the brief appearances of his father after that fateful summer in ’14. Something dreadful had happened back in his homeland but he did not know what. Only that his mother was very distraught and wanted father to take the family immediately back to Austria to be closer to the family. But Papi had his orders. They remained in Berlin and there followed long, ever so long, periods of absences during which they never heard or saw their father from one month to the next. When Papi did come home, it was for such a short period. Hans did not understand why but he was old enough to sense the distress his mother showed each time his father said ‘goodbye.’
The Kaiser and his ministers know what they are doing. It will all be over by Christmas. You’ll see, everyone had said.
Christmas 1914 came and went and with it, his father. Papi did come home at the beginning of December for a week. An early Christmas. The joy they felt, the excitement of being able to share this time together had stuck in his mind. He remembered the exhilaration of hanging small fruits and biscuits on their tree which Uncle Karl had found for them, and after dinner sitting in the soft glow of the crackling fire, singing together, Papi’s deep voice leading the melodies of Stille Nacht and Tannenbaum. It had seemed so long ago when they had been together like that, a happy family . . . Papi and Mutti and their two little boys. Yet, in an instant, it had passed and Papi was dressed in his uniform and walking away into the freezing, snow-covered street. Their Christmas was over.
Mutti, why does Vati always have to go away?
He’s gone to do his duty.
Why does he go to do his duty, Mutti?
Because your dear Papi is a soldier, that is why and all soldiers must obey their emperor.
He had noticed that his mother’s voice appeared sad and tired. And each time Papi came back, he seemed more and more remote as if he belonged to another world. And then, there were the years of waiting . . . waiting for his father’s letters to arrive, waiting for Mutti to read them the part where Vati told them to be good children and help look after Mutti. The boys always looked forward to that part. One day, Mutti took the boys back to Salzburg where they stayed for several months with Oma while Mutti grew fatter and rounder, and more tearful as the weeks slipped by. Then, as the Spring of ’17 began to stir, Mutti took to her bed and Aunt Laura came and looked after everyone and a short time later, Aunt Laura took the boys in to their mother’s bedroom and told them the stork ahd brought them a little brother. Mutti was holding Axel and from that day, they became three. But Vati never wrote. He would never write again. Several weeks after that a telegram arrived and Mutti cried and cried so much that she became really ill.
Both his parents were now gone and it made him sad to remember. And he remembered hearing that it would never happen again and that children would never lose their fathers like that again. He resolved to push the thoughts to the back of his mind.
As soon as Hans recovered enough to move around again, Miss Turner kept him occupied with jobs around the house. First, she got him to take the books off the shelves in the library so that they could all be dusted before returning them again, and next she got him to repair several wooden seats that sat out in the garden. Jan Turner also asked him to do several little things for her but she never remained around him for very long. She did not speak much to him and he, in turn, had very little to say to her. They now had an understood truce. It allowed them time to come to terms with their own thoughts and feelings with regard to each other.
He was rubbing down a small occasional table top with a piece of sandpaper, preparing it for a new coat of varnish, when Miss Turner, who had been planting some small plants in the kitchen garden, leaned her head through the kitchen doorway.
“Resmel,” she said. She had dropped the more formal ‘Mr’ but on many occasions still called him by his surname. “Do you mind fetching the clock from the front-room? I’ve got my gardening boots on and cannot come inside.”
The wooden carved clock with its gold-rimmed glass face stood on a shelf close to where that war photograph hung. He was drawn to it once more and he stood gazing at th
e small cluster of sepia figures with the grey, gloomy background. He had not noticed Jan until she spoke.
“Hans Resmel, my aunt’s calling you. Aren’t you going?”
He mumbled something but didn’t budge. Jan noticed his attention was drawn in to that old photograph again and she came over.
“That’s my aunt’s brother.” She pointed to one of the English soldiers. “That one. Those are the enemy ones. You know.” She closely observed him for any reaction. Hans gave no indication that he had heard her. He remained quite still and silent. So, she continued, “You’re one like them, aren’t you? The other boys say you are. Irving calls you a ‘Fritzy’, doesn’t he? Like that one there in the spikey helmet. And like that one, too.”
Her finger pointed to one of the men standing on the mud-splattered terrain close to her aunt’s brother. The man was dressed in a different uniform and it was clear that he belonged to the others on left: the ones with the spikes on their helmets.
Jan watched intently for any reaction as Hans turned away from the photograph. He peered into her face with same glaring stare as the men.
“That officer there . . . ” He stiffened and drew himself to attention. He sucked back his lips so that his cheeks were drawn tight against his teeth. “That one. The officer. He is my father!”
With that, he clicked his heels and stormed out of the room.