In Search of Anna

by Valerie Volk

  ‘I know very little more. I think there is someone he came to know in Jindera—but who or just what happened I have not been told. All I know is that for a time he was asking me for use of a horse to go to the village.’

  ‘You are fortunate your children have not yet reached that age. You wait, my friend, your time will come.’

  ‘I can only hope that by then I will have someone to share the burden with. It would be hard to do it alone, and I cannot expect Magda to stay forever. She will go to her Lars, and you will return to your family. It will be lonely.’

  A silence fell. I felt only an unaccountable pang that he was taking my departure for granted. It had to be broken.

  ‘Who knows what the future brings? I said as lightly as I could. ‘You may find it easy to gain a companion.’

  His dark eyes were troubled as he looked at me. ‘With six children and two marriages behind me? I think not.’

  Again the silence. ‘You might be surprised,’ I ventured finally. And I meant it. I had seen the way women looked at him outside the church. There would be many willing to provide friendship—and more—to this man. He was an attractive man with his height and bearing, easily commanding respect and attention.

  Not just respect, I had come to feel. He was a man who could charm and stir, and if I had not known from Magda that his heart was still with his first love it would have been easy to allow myself to think of him more dearly than would be prudent. Perhaps I already felt more than was wise. I chose to not consider this too closely.

  Magda had given me other insights into his marriage. She was, as she admitted, far too free with her talk. One could not blame her. Left here with little company, conscious always, as she had told me, of the passing years and a fiancé who was as eager as she for their marriage, she needed to share her feelings.

  ‘I am getting older,’ she worried. ‘I am thirty-seven and Lars is forty. He wishes to have children. And so do I. I fear that if I do not set a wedding date soon, he might decide to look elsewhere.’

  ‘Surely not,’ I said with conviction. ‘I have seen the way he looks at you.’

  ‘Carl needs me here. If only he had married Maria when he wanted her so much … she would be here now, and I would be free.’

  ‘She is still alive?’

  ‘Oh yes, and now widowed. I have said to him that it is not too late. He should try again.’

  I found the idea distasteful, and was immediately repentant. ‘What does he say?’

  ‘He simply smiled at me, said that the past was past. I had the feeling that he might consider it, provide an answer to our problems. And I believe it is what he has wanted all these years.’

  ‘Magda, he married and had children.’

  ‘ The marriage with Frieda was always a second-best and she, poor woman, knew her sister was the one he yearned for. And then Eda. That was such a mistake, but Maria’s husband was still alive. Now he has gone …’

  That conversation burned into my mind. ‘Do not delude yourself,’ I spoke the words firmly in my mind. ‘He has loved this woman all these years and is still in love with her.’ It was not a happy thought.

  It stilled my tongue when we sat together and talked of my return to my family. I would need to find the funds for a return ship; I knew that Kurt would be hard-pressed to provide money for me. I could return to Melbourne and look for employment. Or I could seek work in Albury. I knew from the weekly paper that it would not be a problem. That solution would keep me close to Kurt—and to Carl.

  Foolish thinking. Matters of the heart so often are.

  I turned my mind to the son I had come so far to find. It was his life that I should be concerned about. I needed to find out more about his feelings. Our time together had become easier since we had talked openly about our relationship, and I had schooled myself to look elsewhere for closeness. For too long I had relied on him.

  He was surprisingly ready to tell me, when I finally asked him what he had meant about his reasons for wishing to leave.

  ‘I have never felt deeply about anyone—except for you, dear mother. I had never imagined I could feel this way. There have been girls, of course. In Breslau, in Bremen. There are always girls available. I do not want to shock you, and this is not a talk one has with a mother. I can say that until now there has never been anyone I cared for like this.’

  Once this thought would have distressed me. Once I would not have wished to share my son. Now I was only interested to know that his feelings had been at last engaged. Perhaps we were both breaking free.

  ‘Tell me about her.’

  It was a tangled tale that unfolded as he spoke. His exploration of the village and the discovery of the three graveyards. ‘Not just our own, near our church. The other church also has its own, for their members—and there is a third for other faiths.’

  ‘Well, there are four hotels. I suppose three cemeteries is not excessive.’

  But he did not smile. This was to be a serious conversation.

  ‘You know how I have always been interested in old grave­stones?’

  I nodded, recalling our times in Glatz and Breslau. He had come in search of the ones at Jindera. At one of these, he told me, he had seen a girl, a beautiful girl, weeping at a grave as she placed fresh flowers in the vase.

  ‘They were lilies,’ he said, recalling. ‘And she was one of those girls who could cry without looking tear blotched and red faced.’

  A lucky creature, I thought. He went on to describe how he had ventured to approach her, and offer help. It was refused. ‘That time. But I went back at other times, and found she came regularly at that time of day. Always with fresh flowers.’

  ‘Whose grave?’

  ‘The headstone meant nothing to me, except to surprise. It was not one of the farmers’ sons that she mourned for, but another man. A young man, our age, and titled. A minor member of the Prussian nobility.’

  ‘Why was someone like that buried in a little country cemetery?’ It seemed inconceivable.

  ‘You are asking my question. Bit by bit, over weeks of our meeting there … not every day. I could not have explained to Carl why I was visiting Jindera so often. Fortunately, he was accustomed to me finding my way around the area when not needed at Lobethal, so I met her often in the graveyard.’

  ‘An odd place for a romance.’

  ‘This was no romance, Mutti. Not mine, anyway. It was her romance with this man, the Graf zu Stolberg, who had followed her from a chance meeting in Albury. He had come to Jindera to find work near her, and they had been so much in love that her father had given way and agreed to the marriage. Her eyes filled with tears as she described their happiness.’

  ‘Now he is dead?’

  ‘Well clearly,’ my son was impatient. ‘He died of diphtheria three weeks before their wedding. He must have been popular. A large crowd came to the funeral. Even his friends from Albury.’

  ‘That’s terrible! It’s not surprising she is still grieving.’

  ‘The words on his tombstone were touching.’ I looked up enquiringly.

  As for man, his days are like grass;

  he flourishes like a flower of the field;

  for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

  and its place knows it no more.

  Kurt recited it easily, and I saw that he must have dwelt upon the words.

  ‘A verse we all know well,’ I mused. ‘He must have been very young.’

  ‘Only twenty-five. He would have been five years older than I am. They were the same age. But here is the remarkable thing. His name too was Kurt.’

  I suddenly felt there were too many Kurts in my life. Yet I had hardly given thought to the first one for many months, unlike my time at home when he had been a constant silent presence beside me. He had haunted me for too long, I now realised.

  ‘What is her name?’

  ‘Emma.’ His voice softened, and the word came lovingly through his lips.

  ‘And she has told you all this?�
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  ‘I had thought we were growing closer. I had asked her permission to call at her home. Her father has a blacksmithery in the village and their house is beside it. To my dismay she made it clear I would not be welcome. She feels that her betrothal has not been changed by her fiancé’s death. And, as she pointed out, her family belongs to the other church. There would be no point in my becoming attached to her.’

  ‘That was why you decided to move on.’

  ‘There seemed little reason to stay. It would have only hurt more to see her and know she could never be mine. Now that you have come, things are different.’

  ‘While I am here,’ I sighed. ‘Kurt, I must start thinking about departure.’

  Kurt’s surprise was obvious. ‘I had thought you were happy here.’

  ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean I can stay on. Magda will have to leave, and Carl will need to marry again. In fact, he may well have someone in mind.’

  ‘I had thought … I had hoped …’ Kurt’s feelings were clear, so I spoke firmly.

  ‘I need to go back to Hanna and the children. And I think Carl’s affections are already with someone else. Someone he has loved for many years.’

  Karl paused reflectively. ‘I wonder if you are right.’

  ‘Oh yes, Magda has told me about it. So I need to think about departure. Soon after Christmas. And you need to think about Emma. In spite of what you say, life moves on. Sometime I would like to meet her.’

  ‘I think you would like her. She is a little older than I am, and strong-willed and determined. She reminds me of you. I think you would be friends.’

  Now, as I sat with Carl, I pondered the subject of my leaving. Christmas, I thought. That gives a point of separation—and a way to introduce the topic.

  ‘I am looking forward to Christmas at Lobethal,’ I began. He stopped me.

  ‘So are we all. This will be a very special Christmas for us, with you here.’

  ‘For me, too. Then,’ I steeled myself to continue, ‘I must make plans for my return home.’

  ‘Of course.’ His voice was heavy. ‘You have family awaiting your return.’

  ‘And by the next Christmas you may well have a new mistress in the house.’ It hurt to say the words, yet an impulse to kill pain with pain spurred me on.

  He rose to his feet, and pulled the chain to stop the gaslight. ‘It is getting late. Here is your candle. I hope you sleep well, Anna.’

  As he reached the door to his room, I heard his parting remark. ‘I had hoped that we had made you feel at home here.’

  I felt quick tears come to my eyes. ‘But I do, Carl. I do.’

  It was too late. The door had closed.

  CHAPTER 25

  Jindera, New South Wales, 1889

  I had anticipated a bittersweet Christmas Eve. My last one at Lobethal, where I had been so at home. I recall there were moments of misery that almost blotted out the happiness. Moments when I wondered what I was doing here. Whether I should have left before my heart was involved. For now I had come to realise that it was so. Yet amid my doubts there were also truly happy moments as we prepared for the night.

  I revelled in the wagon ride to the small weatherboard church on Christmas Eve. Here in this new land our old traditions were kept. Even Sir Ruprecht had come and gone at Lobethal, but with bells from the distant forests, forests now of eucalypts rather than pine. Here he came across the dead grass of summertime, not crunching over winter snow. He was not a figure of terror and punishment at Carl’s. This Ruprecht wore a mask that did not frighten even Willi and Helena, and the older children joined in happy affirmation when asked if they had been good this year. As the bags of sweets were handed out and the wagon bells faded into the distance it was not a reprieve from terror, as it had been for Kurt. He looked at me, remembering his childhood.

  When we settled in the wagon and made our way in the long light-filled evening to the church, Kurt and I were recalling a very different journey with a sullen Otto, forced for one night to be with us instead of at the inn. Here, for this night, church customs were relaxed, and Carl sat with us as we watched the children’s Christmas performance, the nativity story told in recitation and play acting. The previous year Fritz had been the baby in the manger; Elsa the demure Mary who looked down at her baby brother. This year there was a new baby in the manger and Adelina was the blue-gowned figure watching over him. Elsa, in her first long dress, product of the Jindera dressmaker’s skill, sat with us, now officially grown up, and Fritz bounced happily on his father’s knee. I looked at these children, and realised how dear they had become to me—and how hard it would be to leave them.

  Like the rest of the service, their performance was in German, and the sound of the familiar words in my own tongue was inexpressibly dear. From the front came the old, well-known words as they sang Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht and with Kurt on one side and Carl on the other I felt as happy as I had ever been. Carl touched my arm gently. ‘A happy Christmas, dear Anna.’

  I looked around the congregation, wondering which of these women was Maria. He felt my stiffening, and withdrew his hand, sighing. Why did I allow this moment to be spoiled, I wondered, filled with regret.

  Back at the house it was a joyous night. For once the drawing room was in use, and the locked door opened at last to the children who had waited impatiently all day for their first glimpse of the Christmas tree Magda and I had spent happy hours decorating.

  Lars had joined us, and he and Magda sat, hand in hand, as Carl, our Saint Nicholas, called names from the labels and distributed gifts. We watched the opening with pleasure and listened to the squeals of delight. Carl and I looked at each other; we had done well with the present buying. My gift for him was small; there was no money for lavish buying, yet he seemed as pleased with the pocket watchcase I had embroidered as if it had come from an expensive store in Albury.

  ‘I will give you your present later,’ he whispered among the general melee of the presents. For the children, there was Lebkuchen and the special treat of Schweppes lemonade, which Carl had asked his friend, Gottfried Wagner, to get into the store for this night. For us, the traditional Stollen and eggnog, with schnapps for the men. The candles on the Christmas tree burned steadily while we watched carefully in case one of the brass candleholders slipped, and the nearby bucket of water became necessary.

  I looked around as Magda played the piano and all joined in the familiar carols. The glow of happiness I felt had nothing to do with the eggnog, and impulsively I touched Carl’s hand. ‘Happy Christmas, dear Carl.’ It was atonement for my earlier response, and he knew it.

  The next day would be an early start for Christmas Day service, so we sent the children to bed, Elsa protesting vehemently that as she was now grown up she should not have to go. Sad that she was yawning widely as she objected—it rather spoiled her case. Magda and Lars had disappeared for a moonlight walk on this warm summer’s night. Carl and I had looked at each other knowingly and had seen Magda blush. With Kurt’s help we restored the room to order before he too made his way to the Old House where the workmen were having their own celebrations. Noisy ones, we could hear.

  ‘A schnapps with me, Anna, to finish our work?’

  It was not a drink I was used to, and the fiery liquid burned my throat. ‘You drink this for pleasure?’ I asked, coughing.

  ‘It gives you courage,’ he murmured. ‘You are drinking it too slowly. It should be like this. He poured another one and tossed it back in a gulp. ‘That is the way to drink schnapps.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Perhaps I needed courage to give you my gift. I hope that what I have chosen will not offend you.’

  As I opened the small jeweller’s box, I recognised the name on the label. We had passed this shop in Dean Street and I had admired the display in the window.

  ‘I gave you so little,’ I protested, hesitating.

  He had walked to the window rather than watch me open the box, and I was touched by his withdra
wal. No matter what, it would give me time to plan a response. I could not prevent the small cry of delight when I saw the exquisite pendant on the velvet bed of the box. It was in the shape of a heart, enamelled and lovely.

  He had turned back to me and suddenly I recognised the look on his face. A mixture of apprehension and longing.

  ‘Anna. Have I offended you? Is it too personal a gift?’

  I shook my head. ‘It is so beautiful. How could I be offended?’

  ‘Ach, do you see what it means? I am offering you my heart, Anna. You have had it for so long. How could I tell you? What could I give you?’

  I found it impossible to speak, and his face fell.

  ‘I was so afraid of this. That if I said anything, you would leave. And I cannot bear the thought of you going away.’

  He turned back to the window. I knew I had to go to him. But I knew if I did, my life would change. Was this what I wanted?

  There was no hesitation in my voice as I turned him towards me. I could say nothing except his name.

  ‘Carl.’

  It seemed to be enough.

  I look back now on that moment with wonder. I had thought I had known one sort of passion with Kurt all those years back in the pine forests of Rauschwitz; I thought I had known another sort of passion in Otto’s frenzied lovemaking; now I found I had never known passion at all.

  When he came to my bed that night, I felt as if this was a first time for me.

  ‘Be gentle,’ I begged. ‘It has been a long time.’

  Then I found I did not want gentleness; my body craved his nearness. When he entered me I throbbed in every cell, or so it seemed. Surely this was not the Anna Werner I had known, had been, this creature who gasped in wonder as the tides of passion overcame her. This was like being born again. Renewed. New.

  ‘You are wonderful,’ he said. ‘Your body is a treasure chest. What I am feeling is unlike anything I have known before. Your warmth. The way you take me into you. Anna …’

  ‘Yes, my love?’