Summer at Gaglow

by Esther Freud

  Wolf pinched her. ‘Shhh, I know those people. They are the Goldsteins from Charlottenberg.’ But before they could call out to them, a guard in gold-embroidered uniform helped them down and escorted them to their appointed place in the Pope’s private rooms, where he left them standing under a painting of the finding of Moses.

  Clerics in robes of blue, green and purple silk filed through the room and it was announced that when His Holiness passed by, the assembled company should drop to their knees and be ready to kiss the Fisherman’s Ring of St Peter. Shortly afterwards the Pope himself appeared. He was dressed in snowy, glinting white and made the sign of the Cross before holding out his hand for the kiss, over which no one was meant to linger for more than a second. Marianna’s neighbour, a French woman with a stricken face, detained him with a long lament about her sick son. ‘Pray to the Good Lord,’ he told her, but she snapped back that she’d already done that and with very little success. Either he couldn’t understand her quickly spoken French, or he simply did not want to prolong the conversation, Marianna wasn’t sure, but he moved on with only a mumbled response in Italian, which the woman couldn’t understand. Marianna kissed the air above his ring and let him pass.

  ‘Well, how about that?’ Wolf laughed, when afterwards they sat with the Goldsteins in a trattoria by the Spanish Steps, and toasted with red wine to a more enlightened future where all religions might happily overlap. Marianna raised her glass and thought of the sick son left all alone while his mother made her pilgrimage from France. She let the rich red wine warm her and found her heart lifted by thoughts of her own children, healthily at home, even if, for this one month, there had been no alternative but to leave them under the supervision of Gabrielle Schulze.

  It was only on their return from Italy that the Belgards learnt of the unlikely gift of Gaglow. For three generations the estate had been owned by the family of Hans Dieter, who over the years had amassed a small fortune in unpaid debts. Wolf had supplied him with grain on credit for four consecutive seasons, never doubting he would pay up, but Hans Dieter’s gambling finally caught him up and ruined him and, to avoid official bankruptcy, he began distributing his assets. ‘Take the house as payment,’ he offered, ‘the stables that go with it, the carriages . . .’ and here he blushed, stumbling over himself, ‘and also the fields that stretch down to the village.’

  Wolf was unsure. ‘Why shouldn’t we accept the land?’ Marianna insisted when he told her, sitting at her dressing table, skimming the waves of her hair. ‘We should say no because we are Jews?’ And she’d laughed a joyful laugh that stayed with him for several days.

  Wolf and Marianna drove out to Gaglow, leaving one morning just as dawn was breaking. It was a journey of three hours, and Wolf, who had travelled on this road before, pointed out sights, ancient, black-beamed inns that sloped to one side, and a tree that had been struck by lightning.

  Hans Dieter was not a married man and had only used the estate for summer shooting and the entertainment of his friends. It had a grey, abandoned look, but Marianna still gasped at the beauty of the house as they drove up the straight, steep drive. ‘You didn’t tell me it was on a hill.’

  She turned to her husband, who smiled at her enthusiasm and shrugged. ‘Does it make a difference?’

  They wandered around the overgrown and meadowy lawns and looked down on every side at the farms with their neatly planted fields stretching out below. The house looked severe and dark, with nothing behind it but sky, and Marianna began to plan how she would plant vines along its walls and edge the cold stone window-sills with flowers.

  Hans Dieter had driven out to join them. The moment Marianna saw him she could tell that he was eaten up with prejudice. He was straight and civil with her husband, but at her he glanced sideways, his eyes full of undisguised disgust. Marianna felt herself looked over, up and down, as if she were a foreigner. It made her even more determined to accept the house, and she met his gaze straight on and without pretending to return the cold smile in his eyes.

  ‘He’s a decent enough fellow, for all his weakness,’ Wolf said, once they were alone, and Marianna pressed his arm, and told him tenderly that he was too good and stupid for this world.

  Hans Dieter had shown them round the house, through the west wing of drawing rooms and out into the courtyard. The kitchens, he explained, were at the back and were so far from the dining room that holes had been knocked in several walls to allow the food to be passed through to servants posted in the corridors. In that way, meals had more chance of reaching the table while still hot. Hans Dieter ushered them upstairs and walked with them through the deserted nurseries, even allowing them to peer into his own private rooms where Marianna saw a bed draped with pelts, tails and claws still attached and hanging like the fringes of an eiderdown. She clenched her teeth and refused to allow the colour to rise in her face. She walked back down the wide, curved staircase, calling over her shoulder that she preferred to be outside.

  The orchard was red and green with early apples and pungent with the unpicked fruit of the year before. The earth squelched and gave under Marianna’s boots. She raised her arms and, clasping a flaking branch, hung from it, allowing her feet to leave the ground and swing gently through the grass. She picked a small hard apple and put it in her pocket. Then she walked round to the back of the house and let herself into the vegetable garden. It was overgrown and for years had been used only by the servants. A dark, gloomy fig tree spread against one wall, impossible to reach for weeds and brambles, and another wall bore the dried traces of vines and one surviving apricot. Only a long strip of the garden had been kept up and this was planted out with row after row of cabbages and potatoes.

  Wolf stood in the doorway and called to her. He laughed as she strode across to him, her leather boots caked in mud, her palms moss green with lichen. ‘It looks to me as if you’ve already made your decision,’ he said, and he took her arm and led her back to the front door of the house where he had forms, already drafted, for Hans Dieter to sign.

  Wolf and Marianna spent that night at an inn in the town. Word had spread that they were the new owners of Gaglow and they were greeted with unreserved curiosity and made to wait a long time for their supper.

  ‘The children will love it here,’ Wolf said, and Marianna smiled and thought of Emanuel in years to come. ‘The girls particularly,’ he added, winking, and he clinked her glass with his.

  Eva, Martha and Bina watched the flushed face of their mother as she broke the news to them. They saw the light in her eyes and the plans for grandeur twitching at her fingers. To spite her they remained unmoved. ‘It sounds distinctly feudal,’ Bina said. ‘I shan’t go there unless I have to.’ And in solidarity her sisters both agreed.

  Bina was ten. She sat up in the dark bedroom of their Berlin apartment and wondered aloud what could have happened to the poor little Dieter children, now that they had been turned out of their own home.

  ‘But Papa would never have allowed that.’ Martha was appalled.

  ‘No,’ Bina agreed. ‘Papa couldn’t know.’

  ‘Do you mean she tricked him?’ Eva asked.

  And Bina whispered solemnly that she had. ‘Schu-Schu says,’ she continued, lowering her voice, ‘that our mother has got far above herself.’ Eva and Martha looked at her, unsure exactly what she meant, but convinced of the necessary depth of the outrage. ‘Now you know,’ Bina said, and having sworn not to be won over, they traipsed back to their own beds.

  When Eva first saw the house, with painters swinging from the window-sills and gardeners pushing back and forth across the grass, she felt an urge to run off round it, dragging her fingers over the texture of the walls and exploring ledges and secret steps that were warmed at angles by the sun, but she caught sight of Fräulein standing, looking dismissively around. ‘Just as I expected,’ she seemed to be saying. And Eva stayed standing where she was.

  The girls walked in an orderly fashion around the house. Bina kept up a mournful appearance
, casting reproachful glances at her sisters when the length of a corridor or the man-sized tunnel of a chimney carried them away. Martha became engrossed by the winding maze of the kitchens and Bina was forced to start nodding like an old lady, muttering, ‘How will they eat now, the little Dieter children, wandering the streets?’

  When both Bina and Martha disappeared into an enormous pantry, Eva seized her chance and slipped up a flight of narrow stairs. She found herself on the first floor, and began walking from room to room, catching rising voices from the ballroom where her mother was ordering drapes and covers and replacements for the missing fragments of a chandelier. Eva continued up the main staircase and found herself in the nursery. She recognized the low white ceiling and the double row of sky blue windows, exactly as her mother had described. One night Eva had lain with her ears muffled by a pillow, while Marianna tried to breathe into her the spirit of the house. She had whispered about swallows and apple blossom, and the fountain, frozen in the winter, but Eva burrowed her head deeper down into the bed and forced her eyes closed with images of tangled forests, wolves, and Hansel and Gretel searching desperately for crumbs.

  Eva took off her shoes and slid along the corridor from one room to the next. The floor had been planed and polished so that it felt as smooth as butter, and in each room was a large white fireplace and a row of high windows. In the farthest room, down by the skirting board, a faded, childish hand had written, ‘This is my room and I love it.’

  Eva knelt down to inspect the message. She imagined it might have been left there by one of Hans Dieter’s children, or Dieter himself, or if, as Bina had told her, the family had lived in this house for hundreds of years, it might even have been his grandfather when he was a small boy. Eva wanted to cover up the message and keep it for herself. She looked around and, finding nothing in the unfurnished room with which to guard it, she peeled off the paper words and put them in her pocket in a strip, leaving a narrow length of exposed plaster underneath.

  Chapter 6

  ‘I’ve had another letter,’ my father said, ‘about the property.’ He waved it in front of me, and for a moment I was surprised to see it was in German.

  ‘Does it mention the theatre?’ I asked, lumbering towards the sofa, fully clothed.

  He peered over it, his glasses on his nose, translating as he read. ‘“The descendants of the daughters of Marianna Belgard . . . are entitled . . . but only on agreement of a set commission.” Oh, he’s come down to forty per cent.’ And he moved gleefully over to the easel.

  ‘And no news of Gaglow?’ I went through to the bathroom to undress. It was February, and for the first winter of my life my hands and feet were warm. My shoulders hadn’t risen up to fight the cold and great flows of blood gave colour to my face. ‘I feel fantastic,’ I whispered to myself, and in a sudden rush of joy I unclipped my dungarees and dropped them to the floor. My vest had rolled up to my ribs and my stomach stuck out at an angle like a bean. ‘Couldn’t you make a bargain?’ I called, standing sideways at the mirror, seeing how far out I’d have to lean to see my toes. ‘If he finds Gaglow for you, then you’ll consider paying his commission on the rest?’

  ‘I’m ready,’ he said instead, and I walked through to find him waiting, brush in hand, the easel wheeled round into position.

  ‘But then again,’ my spirits were much too high for quiet, ‘I don’t suppose it’s just up to you.’ As I lay down on the sofa, old springs and strips of cloth sang out with the strain.

  ‘No,’ he agreed, ‘it’s not just up to me. There are all my ghastly relatives.’ And he set about mixing more paint.

  As soon as we stopped for our first break I scrutinized the letter. ‘Gottfried Gessler.’ The signature looked sly, and I wondered if my father’s various cousins, whom I’d never met, had also heard from him.

  Pam met me at the hospital. ‘Are you all right?’ She held my hand, and each time a door flew open we both looked up.

  The baby was due in four weeks’ time and it still hadn’t turned round. ‘It’s a big baby,’ the doctor had warned, ‘and not likely to move now on its own.’ He’d prodded my side, feeling for its feet, and my stomach, smooth and tight as calf, lurched a little to the left.

  ‘Apparently my doctor is the king of baby turning,’ I whispered to Pam. ‘He has an eighty per cent success rate,’ and then, lowering my voice still further, I told her that I knew my baby wasn’t going to turn.

  ‘Don’t say that.’ She winced, thinking of the alternatives, but I was busy with a hot sensation of pride.

  ‘It’s you.’ Pam pulled me up. ‘It’s you,’ and at the end of the corridor a nurse was calling for Miss Linder.

  Pam stood back and gazed into the swirling screen hoping for some hint of the sex. The heartbeat thundered, fast and loud, while Dr Mok bent by my side. ‘I’m trying to get it to flip over like this,’ he explained, and he began to knead and squeeze. The baby, as I’d predicted, dug in its heels and refused to move. Soon its whole small body was squeezed up under my ribs but its head would not slip down. ‘It doesn’t want to turn,’ I pleaded, looking to Pam to intervene but the doctor insisted on one last go.

  ‘Stubborn little fellow,’ he huffed then, giving up, and I laid protective fingers on my baby’s head, feeling its back uncurl while two small feet stretched luxuriously down to trample on my bladder.

  ‘I’m badly in need of tea and cake,’ I gasped as soon as we were out.

  Pam took my arm. ‘Not unattractive, your doctor, don’t you think?’

  ‘He’s the worst type of man.’ I laughed her down. ‘I see your taste hasn’t improved.’

  But she only raised her eyebrows at me to show I didn’t stand a chance. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘OK, OK. You win,’ and we hurried across the road towards a cafe.

  ‘Pam?’ She knew what I was going to ask her. I was sitting sideways in a booth, watching as our plates of strawberry cake sailed high towards us. ‘Could you . . . would you be able to bear it, you know, to be at the birth, if it turns out to be a – an operation?’

  ‘You’re not seriously telling me you’d be awake?’ She looked down at the veins of juice marbling her cake.

  I nodded.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t want Mike, after all . . . or your mother, or . . .’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you can’t stop Mike, not if he wants to come.’

  ‘Who says he wants to?’ And then, overtaken by a rush of fear, ‘you haven’t been in contact with him, have you?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t.’ While she blew smoke over her shoulder I finished every last crumb of my cake, scraping up the pool of cream with the flat side of the fork.

  ‘So,’ Pam leant towards me, grinning, ‘you still think it’s a girl?’

  I shook my head, my hands hovering to clamp over my ears.

  ‘Because from looking at that screen . . .’

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘. . . I could tell absolutely fuck all.’

  I laughed. Relieved and disappointed. ‘Would you really want to know if it was you?’

  ‘Would I?’ Pam lit another cigarette. ‘I’d like to know now and I’m not even pregnant.’

  ‘Pam.’ I was tired suddenly. ‘If you really can’t face it . . . I would understand.’ But she was reaching for my hand, insisting there was nowhere in the world she’d rather be.

  Pam bought herself a mobile phone and rang me several times a day to check I wasn’t trying to get through, ‘I was on the tube for almost an hour, getting to some stupid audition,’ and I felt guiltily hopeful each time she didn’t get the job.

  We never discussed the possibility that she might be called away. Almost every day there was another threat. An advert in Istanbul, a play in Hull, a small part in a film, which lost its backing just in time. Dr Mok wanted me to book in for a Caesarean but, stubborn as my child, I had to wait and let the baby choose its day. The midwives frowned and fussed, not wanting to be bothered with an emergency in the m
iddle of the night, but there was nothing they could do to force me.

  And then, just when I was all prepared, I had a call from Mike. I was sitting on the floor deep breathing, taking air in through alternate nostrils, when I reached over and picked up the phone.

  ‘It’s me.’

  My heart thumped and for a moment I was tempted not to recognize his voice. ‘Oh, hello,’ I offered instead, in a cheery, casual tone. There was a pause. For all he knew I’d already had our baby and it was lying sleeping on my arm.

  ‘I bumped into Pam . . .’ he stammered, ‘and she told me . . . she said the baby’s breech . . .’

  Suddenly I couldn’t speak. Why was I sitting all alone leafing through a book of yoga poses, skipping out the ones where men massaged their pregnant partners’ feet?

  ‘I just wanted to tell you I was breech as well.’ He sounded triumphant. ‘I was a Caesarean, and my mother insists it’s the best way by far to have a baby.’

  All my self-pity dropped away. ‘So what you’re saying,’ I lunged into the phone, ‘is that this baby is already taking after marvellous you?’ and winded by my rage I slammed down the receiver.

  For a moment I sat cross-legged and serene, staring hard at the next exercise, and then, unable to pretend, I rolled on to my side and sobbed until the tears had mushed a soft patch on the floor and the salt against my face began to sting.

  I never mentioned Mutti to my sisters. For all I knew there had been other visits, similarly disastrous, which we all kept to ourselves. But when we next met up I inspected them more closely. Natasha was the eldest. She had thick dark hair that turned wild when it was brushed and her eyes were lashed with black. She was tall, her shoulders straight and high, her nose just like our father’s. Kate was only four months younger. She was fairer than Natasha with honey-coloured skin, and although they’d never met as children, the mannerisms of their lips and hands were unusually alike. Until now I’d considered myself the odd one out. I was two years younger, slight and brown, with olive eyes and a lopsided mouth. ‘My little changeling,’ my mother had once called me, but now with my new eye for family traits I saw that this was not the case. It was even possible I was the real Linder. ‘You do look like my mother, it’s true.’ I hummed over my father’s words, and it gave me new confidence in his heart.