Beyond the Storm

by Diana Finley

  ‘Daddy!’ Eve hisses at Sam in a loud whisper. She pauses in her step and frowns up at him. With her eyes, Eve indicates his hand. He realises suddenly that he is crushing her small hand in his firm, rigid grip. He releases her and smiles down reassuringly.

  Most of the doors they pass are shut, but one or two are open, revealing simple bedrooms inside. In one, a young woman sits motionless with her head clasped in her hands; in another, Sam glimpses an older woman, very thin, her face drawn and beaky, pacing back and forth.

  Monika halts outside a closed door. She knocks on the door and enters immediately, without waiting for a response.

  ‘Visitors for you, Anna.’

  She is standing by the window. A faded, greyish cotton shift clings to her shoulders and hangs limply to her knees. Sam knows all of Anna’s dresses; he doesn’t recognise this one. How pale she is as she turns towards them. Her look of bewilderment changes slowly into a wan smile. Sam and Anna stand and stare at one another, frozen into inactivity. Eve has no such inhibitions. She pushes past Sam and runs to her mother, her arms outstretched.

  ‘Mamma, Mamma!’ she shouts. Anna crouches down, hugging Eve, kissing her, stroking her hair. She buries her face in the child’s neck and breathes in deeply, as though trying to absorb her into her own body.

  Monika has withdrawn. Sam leans against the doorframe, watching. He hears a strangulated sob, and realises to his alarm that it has come from him. Anna stands up and looks at him, her hands still clasping either side of Eve’s head.

  ‘Sam,’ she says, ‘Sam.’

  In a moment he crosses the room and wraps his arms around her frail body, and holds her, holds her.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Eve is sleeping in the large bed in their hotel room, as dull and dreary as the hospital had been. Sam watches her unconscious, vulnerable form. A small, pathetic version of Anna, her curls dark against the white bed linen.

  Eve had cried desperately when it was time to leave Anna. She had clung to Anna, her arms fixed around her mother’s waist, hanging on like a limpet when he tried gently to draw her away.

  At her bedtime he tries to cheer her up. He reads some of her favourite stories and tries to amuse her with her beloved ‘Creepy Crawly’ tickling games. She smiles, as if to please him, but remains largely silent and unresponsive.

  ‘I want Mamma to be with us.’

  ‘Soon, darling, she’ll be home soon.’

  Eve frowns at him. ‘Why does she have to stay in the hospital?’

  ‘Mamma’s sick.’

  ‘Then they should give her medicine to make her better,’ Eve retorts without hesitation. ‘Why don’t they do that, those doctors?’

  ‘Well, she’s sick in a special way – not with anything like flu or measles, but she’s been sad in her heart. And that’s a kind of sickness too.’

  Eve’s face shows her struggle with this concept. A sudden look of panic enters her eyes. ‘Mamma said Herr Eisen was sad in his heart – before he died.’

  ‘Mamma’s not going to die, sweetheart. But she has had some sadness.’

  ‘Who’s made her sad?’ she asks accusingly. Her face clouds with anxiety. ‘Is it me? Have I made Mamma sad?’

  Sam shakes his head and holds her closer. ‘No, Eve. It’s not you, not at all.’

  ‘Can’t you make her happy, Daddy?’

  ‘I am trying very hard. But the sad things happened to Mamma many years ago.’

  ‘Before you got married?’

  ‘Yes, before we even met.’

  Eve’s eyes wander around the room, as though searching for a solution. ‘Maybe you could buy her something nice, Daddy? Or we could take her out for a picnic. Would that make her happy again?’

  ‘It’s a good idea – it certainly might help.’

  The questions and answers follow round and round, exhausting them both. Sam suggests Eve draws a picture for Anna, to take to her the next day. She settles at the desk with her coloured pencils. Sam leans back in the chair and tries to relax. He can think of nothing but Anna.

  Once, early in their relationship, before Ben was born, Sam had told her that sometimes he feared he was turning into his father, grim and sombre. Anna had surprised him by claiming that the very opposite was true.

  ‘No, Sam. You are not like your father, from all you have told me about him. Not one bit. You take much more after Mother.’

  ‘I see. You mean long skinny legs, and losing my marbles?’

  ‘That’s not fair, Sam – Mother still has many marbles. She remembers everything very well. Anyway, you know I didn’t mean those things. I mean that you are an emotional man – you have so much love and affection to give, just like Mother. Only she hasn’t had the chance to give it, and I think it’s been the same with you.’

  How could Anna have perceived this, when he himself had not? Her entry into his life is a continuing wonder to him. Her willingness to express her feelings, and her absolute expectation that he do the same, has changed his life, and sometimes takes his breath away. Yet, though she is so open and communicative in some ways, Sam always has a sense that there is something at the very centre of her being which she does not – which perhaps she cannot – share with him, even now. Perhaps it is always so. Perhaps no two people can ever expect to know everything about one another. We all select what thoughts, feelings and experiences to reveal, even to those closest to us.

  Sam knows much about Anna and her former life; he knows about her great distress at having to separate from her family, about her marriage to Jakob and their flight to Palestine; he knows of the tragedy of Jakob’s return to Austria. Anna has never uttered a word of criticism against Jakob, but Sam is aware that she felt loyalty rather than true love for him. Somehow Sam feels no jealousy of the poor devil. It is almost as though Jakob’s role had been to bring Anna to Palestine for him, for the two of them to be together, although of course Jakob wouldn’t have seen it that way. Before Anna’s arrival in his life, Sam had given up all thought of children. Now there is the miracle not just of Anna, but of Ben and Eve too.

  Eve finishes her picture and brings it to show him.

  ‘That’s beautiful, Eve darling. Mamma will love it. Tell me what’s going on here.’

  ‘That’s you and Mamma, and that’s me and Ben doing somersaults on the grass. And that’s Emil chasing a butterfly. We’re all having a picnic in the country. It’s lovely and sunny. I did Mamma wearing her turquoise dress, ’cause it’s your favourite and she looks so pretty in it, even though she wouldn’t really wear a long dress for a picnic.’

  Sam pulls her onto his lap.

  ‘Shall I read you a bedtime story now?’

  ‘Will you tell me a story, Daddy? Tell me a story about when you and Mamma met. I want the story about Mamma and the mice. Do a Mamma voice.’

  It’s an old favourite; she’s heard it many times before. So Sam leans back in the armchair, cuddles her and begins.

  ‘Long ago, when Mamma and I first met in the far-off land of Palestine, I thought she was the most beautiful lady I’d ever seen.’

  ‘Was she like a princess?’ Eve interrupts.

  ‘Well, not the sort of princess with long golden hair and a crown, but she was a princess to me. We fell in love and after a while I asked her to marry me. I was so happy when she said yes. We came from different countries and had different ways. Mamma had grown up in Vienna and I had grown up in England. We didn’t speak each other’s language perfectly. We had to learn about one another.

  ‘One evening we had been to the cinema to see a film, and when we came out and walked in the streets, Mamma said she was hungry. I asked her what she would like to eat and quick as a flash she replied “Mice!”

  ‘At first I thought she was joking, but when I looked at her I saw she was deadly serious. I asked her where she could get mice to eat – I suppose I was playing for time. Mamma was getting a little impatient – she was hungry after all. She frowned and replied that we could buy them at a
ny street stall.

  ‘“And how are they cooked, these mice?” I asked. I was feeling a little worried about what my future wife was going to serve me up for dinner, I can tell you. I knew these foreigners had funny ways, but eating mice was going a bit far!’

  Eve chuckles and snuggles in to Sam’s chest.

  ‘“Oh,” Mamma replied, “they can be boiled, but I like them best roasted over a fire, with lots of butter on.”

  ‘Then Mamma led me to a stall in one of the little cobbled alleys, where a man was roasting great heaps of corn on the cob over a fire in a brazier.

  ‘“There you are,” Mamma said triumphantly, “Mais!”

  ‘What an idiot I felt! Of course, then I realised the German word for maize sounded exactly like “mice”. It was a great relief, believe me, to know we weren’t going to have to eat roast mouse and gravy for dinner every Sunday.’

  ‘Silly Daddy,’ says Eve sleepily, and allows him to lift her into the bed.

  Later that night she wakes sobbing, as if from a nightmare, her thin chest convulsing. Sam lifts her out, and holding her to him he realises she is wet. He rings the desk staff, and they bring fresh sheets willingly, but he insists on dealing with the bed himself. He washes and changes Eve, and eventually she settles back to sleep.

  He can’t remember the last time she wet the bed. Not for years, not since she was a toddler. Enough, enough – this can’t go on. Anna must get better. He must make sure Anna gets better. Why on earth was she wearing that drab, colourless garment? It totally swamped her sweet body. He thinks of her body with great longing. Anna was so particular about her appearance. He decides to go shopping with Eve and return to the hospital the next day with some new outfits for Anna. That will make her feel better, and Eve would like it too. And surely there must be a hairdresser in that dreadful place too? He would see to it the following day. He kisses Eve’s forehead gently, determined to sort everything out – and to take Anna home.

  * * *

  Anna presses her knees together, the way Esther had always instructed her when they were girls, her feet in the new navy blue high-heels tucked neatly to the left. The skirt rides up a little as she sits. She tugs absently at it to smooth the hem. It’s a good colour for her. How clever of Sam to know her taste so well. How many other husbands could choose perfect clothes for their wives in just the right size? Her hand caresses the silky fabric of the sleeve of her new blouse. The trilling notes of a blackbird outside in the garden drift in through the open window.

  Dr Ehrlich looks at Anna with his patient, gentle smile, and waits. Do they teach patience as part of psychiatry training, she wonders. Would he simply sit and wait quietly for the entire morning if she does not speak? Some patients fall in love with their doctors – she knows that. Anna is not in love with Dr Ehrlich, but she does trust him. It is time. Today she has to speak – she knows it. This is not a game they are playing. Without honesty there can be no progress, no recovery. Sam needs her to get better; he is close to breaking down himself. The children need their mother – and not a sick mother absorbed in herself.

  Take the worries, the painful memories, one by one from your heart, Dr Ehrlich says, and put them on a shelf. Do not hold them inside, to fester and torture you. High on the shelf, where you can see them, take them down and examine them when you wish – but then put them back where they belong, on the outside, at a distance.

  Anna has already told him much: about their flight to Palestine, their lives there, hers and Jakob’s, of Jakob’s return to Austria, his death, and her remorse and guilt. He knows too of her meeting with Sam, how he restored her with his persistent and insistent love, how she came to love him as no other man in her life. She has talked of the difficult time in England following their marriage, and the even more difficult move to Germany, with its consequent adjustments and trials. She has told him more of herself than she has told anyone else, other than Sam.

  Yet a secret remains, a malevolent voice at the very core of her, proclaiming her badness, a secret she has not revealed. She knows it is there, and Dr Ehrlich knows it too. Is there nothing she can keep from him? Perhaps there is not; he wields his benign power over her again and again.

  Anna closes her eyes, and pictures, as so often before, that day of incongruous sunshine and beauty in the Vienna Woods, when she told Jakob of her pregnancy. And as one image follows another in her mind, she opens her mouth and begins to speak. Once she begins, she cannot stop. She tells Dr Ehrlich everything, almost everything. He listens silently, only nodding his head faintly in encouragement. At last she pauses. There, it is done; she has told him. He gathers himself straighter in the chair. His eyes burn into hers.

  ‘And the child?’ says Dr Ehrlich. ‘Tell me about the child. What happened to your child? Please do not be afraid. Tell me, and then, more importantly, you must tell Sam.’

  He is without mercy. Nothing can be withheld.

  Chapter 11

  20th April 1957, München-Gladbach

  My Dear Esther,

  I hope you and Reuben and all the family are well and flourishing.

  It may surprise you to receive this letter from me, but the time has come when I must communicate with you, if only for Anna’s sake. I could not do otherwise. Forgive me that my first direct communication with you has to be one of such length and emotional intensity. When you read this letter I hope you will understand.

  From the earliest time of our marriage, I have been puzzled by Anna’s relationship with you. When she talked of your childhood and early adulthood together, it was clear to me that you were the most beloved, the most special of sisters – that she had always regarded you as her guide, her mentor and her supporter, as well as her very dear companion. Of course, I know that she also feels great fondness for Margaret, but it seemed to me that there was a particular bond between the two of you, which went beyond sisterly affection.

  Why then, I have wondered all these years, was she so reluctant to maintain meaningful contact with you? By contrast, Margaret and her family have visited us here in Germany, and Anna and Ben have been to stay with her in England, especially during the time Artur was living there. There is a regular exchange of letters between Anna and Margaret, and occasional telephone calls. All as you would expect between sisters, particularly those who have been separated for many years by cruel circumstances.

  Yet, despite all my urging and encouragement, she has not wanted to invite you here, nor to visit you in Boston. Letters in both directions have been relatively few, and she has told me little of their contents. I couldn’t help noticing that each of your letters to Anna left her deeply agitated for some time afterwards. The only time I remember her telephoning you was when Artur was dying. I have always known that there are aspects of her life that Anna has felt unable to share with me – with anyone, except perhaps her dear friend Yael in Haifa – and I have sensed that to pressure her too much could have greatly distressed her, and perhaps driven her further from me.

  In the last year or two, Anna’s vulnerability and emotional frailty has gradually overcome her. Things came to a head a few months ago when she had a complete breakdown and spent some time as an in-patient in a German clinic some distance from here. As you can imagine, this was greatly upsetting, not just for me, but for Eve too. At least Ben is at school in England, and so has escaped much of the trauma.

  Part of the therapeutic process recommended by her excellent psychiatrist was that Anna should try to share the distressing events in her life, which she has kept hidden all these years, and which have been eating away at her. So, Esther, I am glad to say that in the past few weeks I have learned the full truth: of the birth of Anna’s baby in Switzerland, and of how you and Reuben so willingly took the child with you to America, adopted him and raised him as your own.

  Please understand that I am not judging Anna and will never judge her – though, God knows, she judges herself harshly. Anna is the woman I love beyond words, and I will always do so, no matter what e
merges from her past. My only concern now is to restore her health and sense of equilibrium, and to do that I believe she must acknowledge the events of the past openly – and get to know Shimon. This may be a disturbing prospect for you and Reuben, having brought Shimon up as your own child from his earliest babyhood. In that sense you will always be his mother and father, and Anna knows that.

  Really, it should be Anna who writes to you and not me, but although she is so much better than a few months ago, she is still very fragile. She is full of fear, guilt and shame, though no one has given her cause to feel these emotions – they are all her own. With encouragement from myself, and from Yael, who is due to visit us shortly, and from yourself, Esther – if you can bring yourself to communicate it – I hope that she will not only write to you herself, but that she will agree to visit you and Shimon in time. So I beg you to write to Anna, in the knowledge that I know all about Shimon and that she has nothing to hide and nothing to fear. Please try to reassure her and to tell her about the child she has missed so desperately and yearned for these nearly twenty years, as she has missed and yearned for you, her sister.

  With most sincere regards to you and your family,

  Sam

  May 29th 1957, Boston

  My dear Sam,

  I cannot tell you how much joy your letter brought me. As soon as I saw the envelope, I knew somehow that it was from you. My hands trembled so much it took me some time before I could open it. I have waited for that moment for over twenty years. Over the last year, when I heard nothing from Anna, I have been almost mad with worry. In the past, when Anna did write one of her rare letters, she told me very little of herself, but she did tell me what a warm, affectionate and sensitive man you are – and through reading your letter, I have seen that for myself.