by Valerie Volk
Only three weeks. And they had made me so welcome. Kurt had realised, I think, that I had a different picture in mind. A burly farmer, rough of speech and limited in interests, absorbed in his horses and cows and sheep and pigs, looking only at weather patterns and the effect on his ripening crops. From the first night and Carl’s quiet welcome on the front verandah I had had to readjust my picture of this household.
‘Thank you,’ I had said as we met. ‘Without you this reunion would never have happened.’ It was simple, heartfelt. I think he knew that.
‘You must love your son very much to have come this distance. He is very fortunate.’
Kurt had gone to unyoke the horses and stable them, so my host picked up my bags and led me inside to the bedroom.
‘There is an oil lamp; we will light it after supper. You must be very tired. I expect you will want to eat then retire early.’
He was right. I felt exhausted by the events of the day, and barely noticed the quiet chatter of children at the table. A good German Abendessen with a variety of cheeses and sausages, and familiar black bread. I was so tired I could hardly lift my knife. It was good to leave the table and unlace my clothes and fall into bed, pulling the light cover over me on this warm summer night.
Early nights are customary in this household, except at harvest time, when every moment of daylight is precious. Days begin early, and when the older girls and the housemaid returned from milking, Magda had breakfast ready.
‘I would like to help,’ I told her firmly, and she looked at me with appreciation.
‘There is more than enough to do,’ she said. I soon saw the truth of that, as we organised the older children for school, their lunches packed in their small bags.
‘Elsa is almost fourteen,’ Magda commented. She will be finishing at the school, though there is talk of her becoming a pupil teacher. Herr Wendt, the schoolmaster, speaks highly of her. Adelina and Hermann also are bright—like their father.’ Magda smiled fondly, clearly attached to her brother and his family. She must have been. She had delayed her own wedding to help him with his baby.
‘What about the others?’
‘Willi is almost seven; next year he will begin at the school, and Helena soon after. Already they play at being at school during the day. They are good children, easy to look after.’
‘It must have been difficult for them, losing two mothers in such a short time.’
‘Their own mother was ill for so long that her passing seemed to happen gradually. The other one, Eda, was never really a mother for them.’
‘She was very young.’
Magda sniffed. ‘That marriage was a bad idea. If she had not been pregnant—’
She paused uneasily, and looked alarmed. ‘I should not have said that. Carl would be very angry. Please forget it. My tongue gets out of control.’
I soon learned the routine of this hard-working place, and saw the many ways I could help. Much of the work of the household took place in the Old House, as it was always called. It fascinated me, I felt at home there. A house that could have been in Lewin, with its timber uprights and mud and clay infill for the walls.
‘And straw and horsehair,’ explained Kurt. Carl had sent him to take me on a tour of the farm. ‘Horsehair keeps the earth sections solid. Then they whitewash the outside, which is why it looks so like home. The big verandahs are for this climate. You will be surprised how hot it becomes as the summer develops.’
The broad verandahs were indeed important, as the rooms all opened on to them, with few interconnecting doors. The house reminded me of a train carriage with its separate compartments, and deep steps led down to the coolness of the dairy and cellars below the rooms.
‘That was Carl’s mother’s room.’ Kurt opened the door to a square area with a wooden floor, unlike most of the rooms with their flattened earth underfoot. It too had one small window, and through the glass she would have been able to watch the development of the New House across the garden. I wondered how she had felt as she watched the growth of the new brick building where another woman would be mistress.
Beyond, I could see more buildings and outhouses. A blacksmith’s shop, with the forge already in full use as one of the workmen shod a draught horse, which neighed furiously as we walked past. Then another mud-brick building for winemaking.
‘Yes,’ said Kurt. ‘The vineyards are now producing good crops each year. Vintage time is busy, and the wine good.’
The strong smell of wine from the big barrels along the wall backed up his words. Past the stables and other outbuildings, with their timber pole uprights and thatched roofs. Then the bails for milking and the clamorous activity of the poultry pens and roosting sheds. As we walked, I saw what had been achieved in these twenty years.
‘All Carl’s work,’ said Kurt, in admiration. ‘Now he wants to use steam power for some of his farming. That is why I was here.’
‘Why move on then?’ I asked. ‘If you were happy here …’
‘A girl,’ he said briefly.
‘Can you tell me?’
‘I will. Another time. It’s a long story. Complicated.’
‘When you want to.’
I had become aware of a familiar smell. ‘Isn’t this a pig yard?’
‘Yes, see the sty? Well, actually there are three under that thatched roof—Carl is very proud of his pigs. And of the sausages they make at killing time. You would be familiar with that.’
‘And the sausage making?’
‘Of course. Made the old way. See there, behind the Old House.’
It was a smokehouse, a small grey building for the sausages and sides of bacon that would hang there while the charred embers sent up the aromatic smoke to cure them. A familiar sight indeed.
‘It is like a small village. I had no idea this was the sort of place you had come to.’
Kurt looked uneasy. He could see where this conversation would lead.
‘You want to know, don’t you, how all this happened. And why I did not contact you.’
It was not a question. We both knew that some explanation had to be made. And yet he seemed unable to begin.
‘Let’s sit down. We need to talk.’
We sat on the big log under the pine trees in the horse paddock. For a while nothing was said.
‘Perhaps start with the ship?’ I suggested. ‘Up to then you had written, not often, but enough to keep me aware of your life. Then, suddenly, nothing. And after that just those few brief accounts.’
Kurt hesitated. ‘I think it was, at first, that I could not bear to put it into words. The nightmare of the ship. It was overloaded, and we all knew it. The safety valves were screwed down so much that the boiler was unsafe. No matter what I said, no matter how much I pointed out the danger, he just ignored me.’
‘Could you not have refused? Or gone to someone else in authority?’
‘You do not understand the world of the ship. The captain is the ultimate authority—his word is law. If I refused he said he would have me in irons for mutiny. He would not accept there was danger—I was an ignorant idiot who knew nothing of ships.’
‘So?’
‘I believed that a disaster at sea was imminent. And I could do nothing. So I … left.’
‘That was when you deserted in Melbourne?’
‘Yes, but having deserted I was a criminal. I had no rights to enter Victoria. No papers. And I could be picked up by the police as a criminal, as a deserter.’
‘So why did he not report you?’
‘Then the whole business would have been made public. And there would have been delays and police involvement. He could not afford a hold up; he had a schedule to meet. Those German marines he was transporting were due in Sydney, and the ship’s owners would not have looked tolerantly on a delay.’
‘Why not just ignore you?’
Kurt sighed. ‘I had used intemperate language when we argued. I would not actually report to you the words I said. He was furious—he said I would pa
y for it.’
‘The beating?’
‘I recognised them. Two of the crew. I had never got on with them. They would have been delighted at the chance. They certainly earned whatever reward they got. I think even he would have felt me fully punished.’
I winced. ‘Doctor Menge said it had been brutal.’
‘If the people who found me had not taken me straight to the hospital, I doubt we would be talking about it today. And the real blessing was the Krankverein.’
‘You were so fortunate to have found friends.’
‘It was a long time before I could do anything. And even longer before I recovered my wits. My hearing, you will have noticed, will never fully repair; that apart, my mending has been better than anyone dared hope.’
‘None of this really explains why you did not write to me.’
‘For so long I was not capable. And then, after that—I find it hard to explain.’
We sat in silence while he tried to gather words.
‘I do not really understand it myself. I fell into a sort of blackness. Nothing in life seemed worthwhile. I did not want people. I did not want affection. I was content just to work. Feeling for anyone seemed impossible. Even for you. Especially you.’
I swallowed. ‘Especially me?’
‘I do not know how to put this to you, or even to myself. Always you and I have been close. Even when I went away, you were always there. To Glatz, to Breslau. You came. And I was happy that you wanted to be with me. I needed to become a separate person, yet I didn’t want to.’
He looked at my face.
‘I do not want to hurt you. But it was as if we were too tied. I needed to separate.’
So Hanna had been right. And Kurt had had the sense to see it. I said nothing.
‘How can I explain? I love you so dearly. I wanted to make up for all that you had suffered. At the same time I wanted to be free.’
‘Free of me?’ I whispered.
‘Being here, in this country, I could not bring myself to do more than just tell you I was alive, that I was moving on and did not know where I would be.’ He shook his head. ‘I still cannot explain why I did not write to you from Lobethal. It was almost as if I were in hiding.’
It stabbed me like a knife.
‘So now I have spoiled it—this escape of yours—by following you?’
He shook his head and his voice was vehement.
‘No, do not say that. Do not even think it. The moment I saw you on the platform, it was as if the years had dropped away, and all I could feel was a flood of love for you and gladness that you had come.’
I sat silent on the trunk of the big tree in the horse paddock. What to say? My son turned to face me.
‘Have I hurt you? I do not wish to hurt you, but I don’t know how else to make you understand.’
‘Would you like me to leave here?’
‘Gott in Himmel, no! I am overjoyed you are here. Carl and Magda also, they are happy, not just that we have found each other, but to have you in the house. Please do not even think of leaving. Not for a long time.’
I got up slowly. ‘Kurt, you have given me so much to think about. Let me be for a time, and then we’ll talk again.’
‘You are not angry, I hope.’
I shook my head and tried to sound reassuring. ‘No, not angry. I am disturbed that I have been so blind. Give me time to absorb this.’
We walked in silence to the New House, where the midday dinner was already in preparation. I knew then that the next weeks would be a time of looking at myself and finding what I wanted from my life.
And so they have been.
CHAPTER 23
Jindera, New South Wales, 1889
A curious time, as we slipped into a routine as comfortable as if I had been at Lobethal as long as Kurt. At ease with Magda as we shared the daily routines. Standing with her in the dairy as we skimmed the cream with slotted spoons from the huge pans of fresh milk, at times I would catch her sidelong look, almost appraising.
‘You are enjoying your time with us, Anna?’ she asked. By now we were on close and friendly terms. With the workmen and even with Carl, I still kept the traditional distance. We were still Herr Bergmann and Frau Werner, though to the children I had become Tante Anna; Elsa’s request, and one that pleased me.
Elsa had taught me to drive the sulky, the cart pulled by one of the sturdy horses from the stables. At first the strange conveyance worried me, with its lightweight seat that seemed so fragile.
‘It is quite safe,’ the girl assured me. ‘Even Adelina can manage it, and it is so convenient for going to Jindera for the post, or to the store.’
‘I am sure you are right.’ I could hear the lack of conviction in my voice as she urged me to take the reins. ‘But we do not have these at home, and if you were not sitting beside me I would feel very nervous.’
She was right. It did not take me long to realise how easy this travel was, and although the Bergmann sulky had no sunshade top, it was a pleasant way to travel even in the hottest weather.
The whitewashed post office with its thatched roof made me feel at home, though the curiosity of the Misses Spence, the postmistresses, was at times intrusive. They were kindly in manner, though I have no doubt that Kurt had been right, and that every word I spoke as I gathered the mail was carefully reported. Their reputation for gossip was well known.
What a day for them when I received a letter from Germany, and exclaimed involuntarily, ‘It’s from my daughter!’ I could not resist opening it as I stood there by the mail counter in the small room, nor could I have refrained from sharing the news.
‘She has a new baby, a daughter, born eight weeks ago.’ I had quickly calculated the time the letter would have taken, even on the fastest of the new mail steamers in the Norddeutscher shipping line.
‘And all is well with them both?’
‘So it seems. This is her third child.’
‘It must be hard for you to be so far away at such a time,’ Miss Alberta suggested, and her sister nodded. ‘Will you return now?’
I gauged my answer carefully, knowing that by nightfall the whole community would know it.
‘At present I am enjoying seeing my son before I think of returning.’
Non-committal, I could see no other response to give. It was true. Kurt and I had slipped into easy communication again, but it was subtly different. I no longer felt that all my happiness depended on him. I had come so far to find him; in the process I had also found myself. I was Anna, who had travelled across the world alone. I was Anna, who had made new friends in many places, friends I knew I would keep. I was Anna, who was still attractive enough for men to find interesting.
Going to Wagner’s Store was a pleasure on these Jindera trips. No matter how self-sustaining our way of life at Lobethal, there were still small purchases to make, and it was rare to make the long trip by wagon into Albury. The store, with display cases running its full length and walls lined with packed shelves, was a delight. Along one side the groceries and foodstuffs, with tins and containers, and small compartments for spices and condiments, while underneath the big bins for staples were filled with the flours and sugars that we bought in bulk.
The other side pleased me even more, with ornaments and trinkets, soaps and decorations, and fancygoods—especially the array of small bone buttons and hatpins, as many as I had seen in the bigger stores in Melbourne. Plates and dishes, cooking pots, frying pans—whatever we needed could be found. Presiding over it all Herr Wagner, monarch of this empire, and his tiny bird-like wife, who was only in his absence allowed to use the sacred object, the cash register. This National Cash Register, their pride and joy, was a new invention, one of the very few in the district.
‘Or in the land,’ said a proud Hilde Wagner. ‘My husband’s brother brought it with him from America. In that country many stores are using them.’
She was a hospitable woman, and anxious to show off their new possessions. I suspect she felt
that, coming from Germany, I needed to be impressed by their modernity in country New South Wales. She took pleasure in inviting me to drink coffee with her in the new dwelling just added to the back of their shop, and I duly admired the sitting room with its green velvet chaise longue and ornate carving, and the elaborate arrangements of wax flowers under glass that sat on the small tables in all corners of the room.
We are very up-to-date in Jindera, Frau Werner,’ she assured me, her head cocked to one side and her voice more than ever like a twittering bird. ‘I would not wish you to think us a backward society.’
‘Indeed not,’ I was emphatic. ‘Your sitting room is equal to any I saw at home.’
She smiled, and took me through to the children’s bedrooms beyond; then to the south wing with its kitchen and laundry. Here I was really impressed. A proper laundry room. Different from our Monday wash days at Lobethal, as we scrubbed sheets and clothing on the verandah of the Old House, and carted the hot water from the copper in its kitchen to the waiting tubs outside. Here too the flat irons waited for heating on the side of the oven, just as ours did in the Lobethal kitchen.
Outside, I unhitched the waiting horse and set off down the Four Mile Creek Road. It was, as always, with a sense that I was going home, and I pondered the question of how I would feel when the time came to leave. As I would have to.
The question. Where next? Herr Eberhardt was still pressing in his invitation to join his newspaper in Sydney, yet I knew there was more than just work involved in this invitation. There would be no return to Melbourne. A letter from Margarethe had made that clear. She had written, cautiously at first, of her growing friendship with Dr Menge, and I could sense the implicit question. Would this be a problem for me? Was he a special person in my life?
It gave me pleasure to assure her that he was a fine man and a good friend, and that I would be delighted if my two friends found more than just companionship with each other, a letter that brought an immediate response.