by Valerie Volk
‘Nothing else. Just … Anna. You are all I have ever wanted.’
He ran his hands wonderingly over my body and cupped my breasts.
‘How can your body still be so young? Mine is old in comparison.’
‘Yours? Old? No old body could do what yours has just done. I am sure of that.’
‘And wants to do again. And again.’
His lips brushed my nipples and I felt them harden and grow.
‘Oh yes,’ he murmured. ‘For me too.’
This time it was slower, gentler, but just as satisfying, and I cried out in pleasure in the ecstasy of the moment.
‘It has never been like this before for me,’ I said, almost shyly, as we lay together afterward. ‘Never.’
‘Truly never?’
I thought again of Kurt and the young Anna in the forest. What had that child known of passion? All that I had thought then seemed a distant dream, and I knew he was gone from my life forever. I looked at Carl’s face close to mine, shining in the moonlight from the verandah window, and knew I could answer honestly.
‘Never.’
CHAPTER 26
Jindera, New South Wales, 1890
Kurt had been right. I did like Emma, when we met. That was still to come, and the months before seemed to disappear in a mist.
It had been strange facing Carl on Christmas morning. When I woke, very early, he was gone. It was a relief, for I needed time to think about what happened. It seemed strangely dream-like. Perhaps a schnapps-induced hallucination? No, not hallucination. I lay back and stretched lazily, reliving the moments that had been. What now?
At breakfast Magda looked from one of us to the other, and allowed herself a small smile before turning back to feeding Fritz in his highchair. I found it hard to meet her eyes, and busied myself serving the porridge that she had already made. I knew Carl and I would need to talk, but with the Christmas morning service to come, there would be no time. I had questions that needed answers. They would wait.
When the time came, and we sat together that night, I waited anxiously. There was so much I feared. Perhaps this had been a night when, carried away, we had risked too much, and there would be regrets. But no, the gift. Surely that had been planned.
‘There is so much that I must tell you, Anna. I had thought to see you leave here without speaking, then I found I could not do it.’
I waited for him to continue.
‘You know a little of my life before you came. You do not know how empty it has been. Always wanting something more.’
I feared what might be coming. Its potential to destroy my fragile happiness. I had to find out. ‘I know how you felt about Maria, that she was the one you wanted. And it is possible for you to marry her, now she is at last on her own. Magda has told me. She is hoping you might bring a new mistress into your house. Then she can marry Lars.’
He gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Maria! What on earth has Magda been saying? Yet Kurt hinted at the same thing when I spoke to him this morning.’
‘What does Kurt have to do with this?’
‘I would scarcely have this conversation with you if I had not consulted him.’
‘So you do not plan to ask Maria to marry you?’
‘Oh, Anna! What do you think! That is all so far in the past; only a romantic like Magda would even contemplate such a thing. Yes, there was a time I might have wanted it. But old affections can wither. Maria has become an overfed hausfrau. I would not be able to put my arms around her as I can with you.’
My face reddened at the memory of our night together, and the things we had said to each other.
‘No, Anna. There is only one woman I want to marry, and it is not Maria. Before that, there are things I must tell you. I have made many mistakes in my life, and I do not want to make another one. I need to explain my marriage to Eda …’
‘There is no need, Carl. Magda has told me that there was a child coming.’
‘I married Eda because I needed someone here, and I knew she was a good worker. Even though I could not be sure the child was mine—and yes, it well might be my child. I am not proud of what happened between us. All I can say is that I was very lonely, and I am a man. When she came to my bed after Frieda’s funeral, I did not send her away. I should have done so.’
‘This is all in the past. And you have Fritz who looks so like you.’
‘I have not only Fritz, but five other children. How can I ask you to share my life? How can I make it clear that I am not looking for a housekeeper, for a mother to my children? You know I have married before for this reason.’
Any woman might well have wondered. I had contemplated the question. Would I ever be sure?
‘Last night you did not seem to be looking for a housekeeper. Or a children’s mother either.’
‘It was why I did not speak earlier. I have wanted you since the night you arrived, so weary from travel, but so lovely. How could I ask you, you with your background, to come into a life like this?’
‘ Magda needs to leave, to marry Lars. She is desperate to get away. I was planning to seek employment in Albury. Would you like me to stay here instead as your housekeeper?’
He looked at me in blank surprise.
‘Mein Gott, woman. Aren’t you listening to me? I do not want you here as a housekeeper. I want you as my wife. I am asking you to marry me. First, I must know that you understand the life you will have. It will be so different from what you could have elsewhere.’
‘I do not want that other life you are painting. I want only to be here with you. Does that sound too forward? ‘
He smiled lovingly. ‘No, my dear one.’
After that it was easy. ‘Yes, Carl, I will marry you.’
It was time, I knew, to write to Melbourne, and ask that my big chest be sent to me here. I knew that the friends I had made there would understand what this meant, and I wrote also to those in other places. To August Eberhardt, who would put aside the thoughts he entertained. The affection I had felt for him seemed trifling in the light of my new happiness, and I did not think he would be deeply grieved. To Hanna, who had been happy I had found Kurt, but had made it clear she was expecting my return soon. To Lydia, who would be amazed at the outcome of this journey she had helped me take.
‘I owe you so much, dear Lydia. Without you I would not have this new chance of happiness.’
‘Anna,’ she replied. ‘I am so glad for you. And yes, if I am truthful, envious. You understand what I am saying. We have never needed to put into words what our lives have been.’
To Margarethe, who I knew, in her new happiness, would recognise the value of what we both had found.
It was enough. There was much gossip, of course. There were those in Jindera who believed that I had come to Lobethal simply to take advantage of a lonely man’s need. Those who knew us could recognise the truth, and those closest to us, like Kurt and Magda, rejoiced in our happiness.
‘Dearest Anna,’ she said. ‘It is not only that I can now leave here, though I admit it was my first wish. I was not greatly concerned who would take my place. That it is you, and that my brother is now happier than I have ever seen him—that is such a joy.’
When she proposed the idea of a double wedding I did not demur. In fact, I was relieved. At least it would be different from what either of us had known before. I did not want to recall that marriage to Otto, and I had told Carl so much of my earlier life that he understood why I would wish this to be unlike my first marriage.
‘Can we still call you Tante Anna?’ asked Helena.
‘For as long as you wish,’ I told them. ‘Some day, if you wish to change that, I will be happy.’ It was not to be too many months before that happened.
‘So Mutti,’ said Kurt. ‘I am to have a new father.’
‘How do you feel about it?’
‘When he asked my blessing—he said it did not seem necessary to ask my permission—I told him that nothing would make me happier. And I meant it.’
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‘One day your own time will come, I promise you.’ I knew that no one would satisfy him but Emma. ‘Give her time. She is still grieving.’
I came to like the young woman I met over the wedding festivities. On occasions like this, both churches joined in celebrating and theological divisions faded in the general rejoicing that weddings brought.
The night of the tin kettling, another custom from our homeland, brought scores of horses and traps to the home paddock of Lobethal, and food and drink to the great tables for the noisy merry-making. Magda and I kept well away, trying to occupy the children and knowing by the time the last revellers departed it would be well into the next morning. And our wedding day.
I had not expected Emma to come to the church, perhaps only to the village hall for the wedding feast. It had seemed to me that her plans, so sadly cut short, would cause too much pain. However, she came, dressed for the first time no longer in black, but in a soft dove grey with a matching bonnet. It was a lovely face, with its determined chin and firm and resolute mouth.
We talked a little, and she mentioned that Kurt had approached her blacksmith father to see if he could work in his forge. I was not surprised.
‘It is his passion—steam.’
She nodded. ‘I know. He has told me of the plans he has. He foresees a future in which steam engines will propel not just trains and ships, but many things in farm life.’
‘His father was the same.’ I could at last speak of Otto with respect. ‘He was a gifted man, and Kurt has inherited his talents.’
‘He wants more than just farming life, I think,’ the girl continued. ‘I like that. He is different from the young men here. Just as my fiancé was different.’ Her face was sad, and I thought that Kurt would have a long battle to win this one.
It was another year before she yielded, and I suspect it was only her mother’s urging that brought it about. Her younger sister was eager to marry, and convention said the older sister must be married first. Kurt was quick to take advantage of the argument, and if Emma had to marry at all, he was acceptable. My slightly built son was different from the big farmers of these parts. He was a man of different interests, a man who had travelled, read, had ambitions. A German, as her first love had been. And the same name. I could see why she agreed to marry him.
I wondered. I feared that her strong will and determination would not make for an easy life in the home they would now establish. I could sense that power and decision-making would lie with her, and I questioned what their future would be. Would she lie in Kurt’s arms and murmur the familiar name, seeing not my son’s face but that of the man she had loved so much? As I had done in Otto’s bed.
Should I have counselled her? Told her that I had for too long cherished memories that made my marriage bed a place to endure? That it was not wise to hold too firmly to the past, that one must let it go? No, it was not my place to interfere, and I did not want to spoil Kurt’s happiness.
He was happy and if at times I pondered on their marriage, his life seemed contented. When their first child came the joy on his face gave me peace. Emma too seemed happy in her own way, managing her household with a brisk efficiency I admired. But still making her pilgrimage to the graveyard each week with fresh flowers for the love she had lost.
‘Does this disturb you?’ I dared ask my son one day.
‘I know she will always honour his memory.’ He answered me carefully. ‘Today she is my wife, and he is long gone. A few flowers will not change that.’
I wondered if he, like Otto, had to fight to blot out another figure in their marriage bed. Perhaps this was why so much of his life seemed bound up in his work, and why he allowed Emma to rule the household.
‘She is a very strong woman,’ Magda commented when we discussed Kurt’s coming marriage. ‘She will always be in control.’
‘Perhaps he needs this. Perhaps this is what he wants.’
Even their marriage had been her plan; in her own church, which Kurt now joined. There was no thought that she might have come to ours. That wedding in the grey stone building her forefathers had erected was perhaps a symbol of their future.
I could not help contrasting their lives with what I now had. The casual touch of Carl’s hand on my arm as I worked in the kitchen, the way in which his eyes sought my face when he came into a room, the slight smile across a dinner table as we listened to the chatter of children.
So different, our marriage. As Magda and I had walked down the aisle of the small weatherboard church it was hard to say which waiting bridegroom looked more lovingly toward his bride. Magda, in the dress the two Spence sisters had made for her, the material Carl and I had bought on that shopping trip to Albury. Mine too a black dress, although I had considered a colour, a break from tradition which would have shocked the good ladies of the congregation. A thought to put aside, for I wished only to fit in with this new world. No veil, just a wreath of orange blossom in my hair, piled high.
Magda had shaken her head. ‘No veil, Anna? Why not just a bonnet? Or one of the new small hats we have seen in Albury?’
I held firm. ‘No, Magda. You must of course have it all. The veil, the flowers, everything. For me it is different. I will keep to tradition and wear a black gown, though much simpler than yours, but not the trappings.’
‘You are so fortunate,’ she lamented. ‘You can wear the high neckline so well with your long neck. On me even a choker—the sort that the English princess wears—makes me look as if I am being strangled.’
‘They say that Alexandra wears this jewellery to hide the scar on her neck.’
‘Who knows? It has certainly become a fashion, as with everything she wears. As for the bustle,’ she continued, ‘if I have a properly fashionable dress, I will look like a circus figure. You, dear Anna, have the figure of a girl.’
‘I still will not have a bustle!’ I said firmly. ‘A compromise perhaps. I will have the skirt draped to the back.’
‘Not even a bustle petticoat?’
It was a little like being with Lydia, and I recalled our planning of Hanna’s wedding dress. It all seemed so long ago. And so far away. While our letters told something of our lives, and my daughter kept me aware of the children and what they were doing, there was still no real closeness between us. It grieved me. Now I had a new family to think of and plan for. There was little time for regret.
It was a busy household, and with Magda gone, my life was full. When Kurt married and moved with his Emma to the house in the Jindera township, I had little time to notice his absence. I looked back with wonder on the time when he had been the centre of my life.
Yes, he was still dear to me, and I followed with interest the life he made in this young country. Emma’s father had welcomed his new son into the blacksmith’s shop, acknowledging the opportunities to expand his business into the new age of steam. It was a thriving business, and Carl spoke approvingly of the way Kurt was using the skills of his training in Glatz and Breslau, and exploring the rapidly changing world.
Kurt was becoming known through the area as the expert on matters of steam engines. He was frequently called away to distant parts, and often on the steamships that travelled the Murray. That river was still the lifeline for goods and transport in this land, like the barges criss-crossing the fatherland with their loads of people and produce.
‘You are away from your family so much,’ I chided him. ‘You will miss your children’s growing up. What does Emma say?’
‘I think it matters little to her. She runs the household, and more and more she is helping her father in his work. She is an excellent businesswoman. Her attention to the accounts is more than his sons could give. Besides, they have all left. It was not the life for them.’
‘Is this suitable for a woman? A woman who is also a mother?’
He laughed. ‘Emma is like you in many ways. She is not too concerned with what is suitable. She likes to be in charge.’
‘I worry for you. Are you happy togeth
er?’
‘Happy enough. As happy as any married pair, I suspect. We have the children, and I have my work.’ His eyes shone. ‘I am working on something new. A different sort of steam engine. Some day come to the blacksmith’s and I will show you.’
As happy as any married pair. I thought about his words. I felt almost guilty when I thought of Carl and me. Our lives were happier than I had believed possible.
In the busy routines of everyday life, in the companionship of quiet evenings as we read and talked, in the glow of the passion of our lovemaking, as he held me, murmuring only that he was besotted by me, in the quivering response of my body to his, our lives seemed complete.
‘I could only wish that we were younger,’ he said one night, running his hand down my arching body. ‘I would have loved to have given you children. How I would have loved to feel life grow in you, to have seen you swell and have felt a child within you, my child within you, move.’
‘No matter, my love. What we have is enough.’
Words that I had read came to life for me in ways I had never foreseen. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places—yes, the Psalmist had put it well.
Part Five
CHAPTER 27
Jindera, New South Wales, 1894
So Emma was with child again. Kurt had come to me, his face joyful, to tell me the news. ‘This little one will be a girl—I am sure of it. We will name her for you, dear Mutti. The boys have been named for Emma’s forebears, and this one, she says, will have your name.’
‘Surely you are jumping ahead of yourself,’ I chided. ‘You cannot be sure that this child will be a girl. And a little boy will not thank you for the name Anna!’
He laughed. ‘No, I wouldn’t do that to a son. This one, she says, is not the same as our two boys. She is carrying differently, and is sure it is a daughter.’
With these children I could at last feel myself a true grandmother. I thought guiltily of my lack of closeness with Hanna’s three. For Liesel and Theo seemed like someone else’s relatives; I found it hard to see myself in them. And I had never seen the new one, the baby, so when Hanna’s mail came, with its photograph of the family, I studied it with a sense of wonder.