Caging Skies

by Christine Leunens

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Part I Preface

  Chapter i

  Chapter ii

  Chapter iii

  Chapter iv

  Chapter v

  Chapter vi

  Chapter vii

  Chapter viii

  Part II Chapter ix

  Chapter x

  Chapter xi

  Chapter xii

  Chapter xiii

  Chapter xiv

  Chapter xv

  Chapter xvi

  Chapter xvii

  Part III Chapter xviii

  Chapter xix

  Chapter xx

  Chapter xxi

  Chapter xxii

  Part IV Chapter xxiii

  Chapter xxiv

  Chapter xxv

  Chapter xxvi

  Part V Chapter xxvii

  Chapter xxviii

  Chapter xxix

  Chapter xxx

  Chapter xxxi

  Caging Skies

  Christine Leunens

  Christine Leunens has a Belgian father and an Italian mother. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, she moved to France at a young age and became a top international model — the face of Givenchy, Paco Rabanne, Nina Ricci, Mercedes Benz and House of Fraser. She has a Master's Degree in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University. Her first novel, Primordial Soup (1999), published in the UK, was described by the Sunday Times as 'a remarkable debut novel'. An earlier version of Caging Skies has been published in Spanish, Catalan, Italian and French, and the latter edition was shortlisted for both the Prix Médicis and the Prix FNAC. Christine and her family now live in New Zealand, where she is working on her third novel.

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 978 1869792299

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Leunens, Christine.

  Caging skies / Christine Leunens.

  ISBN: 978 1869792299

  Version 1.0

  I. Title.

  NZ823.3—dc 22

  A VINTAGE BOOK

  published by

  Random House New Zealand

  18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand

  www.randomhouse.co.nz

  Random House International

  Random House

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road

  London, SW1V 2SA

  United Kingdom

  Random House Australia (Pty) Ltd

  20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney

  New South Wales 2061, Australia

  Random House South Africa Pty Ltd

  Isle of Houghton

  Corner Boundary Road and Carse O'Gowrie

  Houghton 2198, South Africa

  Random House Publishers India Private Ltd

  301 World Trade Tower, Hotel Intercontinental Grand Complex

  Barakhamba Lane, New Delhi 110 001, India

  First published in English 2008

  © 2008 Christine Leunens

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  Design: Elin Bruhn Termannsen

  Cover photo: gettyimages

  Cover design: Clint Hutzulak, Mutasis Creative

  Author photograph: Tanguy de Montesson

  Acknowledgements

  For research material, my gratitude remains with Axel de Maupeou d'Ableiges, Florence Faribault and Carole Lechartier from the Memorial Museum for Peace in Caen, France; the late Simon Wiesenthal and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Vienna; Paul Schneider from the Foundation of the Memory of the Deportation; Georg Spitaler and Dr Ursula Schwarz from the DÖW (Foundation of Austrian Resistance Documents Archives); Eva Blimlinger from the Historical Commission, Vienna; Jutta Perisson from the Austrian Cultural Forum in Paris; Dr James L. Kugel from the Harvard University Faculty of Divinity; Vera Sturman and Elisabeth Gort from RZB Austria; as well as Anneliese Michaelsen, Amélie d'Aboville, Dr Antonio Buti, Monique Findley, Dr France Grenaudier-Klijn, the late Dr Morris Weinberg, Andreas Preleuthner and his father, the late Johannes Preleuthner. I am much indebted to Harriet Allan for her critical insight, and to Rachel Scott and Claire Gummer for their editing suggestions. For their faith in the long adventure from first draft on, I wish to offer my affectionate thanks to Laura Susijn and Berta Noy.

  To my husband, Axel

  Part I

  The great danger of lying is not that lies are untruths, and thus unreal, but that they become real in other people's minds. They escape the liar's grip like seeds let loose in the wind, sprouting a life of their own in the least expected places, until one day the liar finds himself contemplating a lonely but nonetheless healthy tree, grown off the side of a barren cliff. It has the capacity to sadden him as much as it does to amaze. How could that tree have got there? How does it manage to live? It is extraordinarily beautiful in its loneliness, built on a barren untruth, yet green and very much alive.

  Many years have passed since I sowed the lies, and thus lives, of which I am speaking. Yet more than ever, I shall have to sort the branches out carefully, determine which ones stemmed from truth, which from falsehood. Will it be possible to saw off the misleading branches without mutilating the tree beyond hope? Perhaps I should rather uproot the tree, replant it in flat, fertile soil. But the risk is great. My tree has adapted in a hundred and one ways to its untruth, learned to bend with the wind, live with little water. It leans so far it is horizontal, a green enigma halfway up and perpendicular to a tall, lifeless cliff. Yet it is not lying on the ground, its leaves rotting in dew as it would if I replanted it. Curved trunks cannot stand up, any more than I can straighten my posture to return to my twenty-year-old self. A milder environment, after so long a harsh one, would surely prove fatal.

  I have found the solution. If I simply tell the truth, the cliff will erode chip by chip, stone by stone. And the destiny of my tree? I hold my fist to the sky and let loose my prayers. Wherever they go, I hope my tree will land there.

  i

  I was born in Vienna on March 25 1927, Johannes Ewald Detlef Betzler, a fat, bald baby boy from what I saw in my mother's photo albums. Going through the pages, it was always fun guessing from the arms alone if it was my father, mother or sister holding me. It seems I was like most babies: I smiled with all my gums, took great interest in my little feet, wore prune jam more than I ate it. I loved a pink kangaroo twice my size that I troubled to drag around, didn't love the cigar someone stuck in my mouth, or so I conclude because I was crying.

  I was as close to my grandparents as to my parents — that is, my father's parents. I never met my grandparents on my mother's side, Oma and Opa. They were from Salzburg and were buried in an avalanche before I was born. Oma and Opa were great hikers and cross-country skiers. It was said that Opa could recognise a bird from its song alon
e, and a tree from the sound of its leaves moving in the wind, without opening his eyes. My father also swore that Opa could, so I know my mother wasn't exaggerating. Every kind of tree had its own particular whisper, he said Opa once told him. My mother talked about her parents enough for me to grow to know and love them well. They were somewhere with God, watching me from above, protecting me. No monster could hide under my bed and grab my legs if I had to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, nor could a murderer tiptoe up to me as I slept to stab me in the heart.

  We called my grandfather on my father's side Pimbo, and my grandmother Pimmi, then added on the suffix 'chen', which signifies 'dear little' in German. These were names my sister made up when she was little. Pimbo first set eyes on Pimmichen at a ball, one of the typical fancy Viennese ones where she was waltzing with her handsome fiancé in uniform. The fiancé went to get some Sekt and my grandfather followed to tell him how beautiful his future wife was. He was told he was her brother, after which Pimbo didn't let him in for another dance. Great Uncle Eggert sat twiddling his thumbs because, compared with his sister, all the other ladies were plain. When the three of them were leaving, my grandfather led the others to the Benz motorwagon parked just behind the carriages. Resting his arm on the back of the open seat as though he were the owner, he then looked up at the sky dreamily and said, 'A pity there's only room for two. It's such a nice evening, why don't we walk instead?'

  Pimmichen was courted by two fine matches in Vienna society, but married my grandfather thinking he was the most handsome, witty, charming of all, and wealthy enough. Only the latter he wasn't. He was in truth what even the bourgeoisie would call poor as a churchmouse, especially after the expenses he suffered taking her to the finest restaurants and opera houses in the months prior to their marriage, compliments of a bank loan. But this was only a white lie, because a week before he'd met her he'd opened with the same bank loan a small factory that produced irons and ironing boards, and he became wealthy enough after some years of hard work. Pimmichen liked to tell us how lobster and champagne transformed to sardines and tap water the day after their wedding.

  Ute, my sister, died of diabetes when she was four days short of twelve. I wasn't allowed to go in her room when she was giving herself her insulin shots. One time, hearing my mother tell her to use her thigh if her abdomen was sore, I disobeyed, caught her with her green Tracht pulled up past her stomach. She forgot to give herself her shot once when she came back from school. My mother asked if she had, and she said Ja, ja, but with the endless shots her response had grown into more of a refrain than a confirmation.

  Sadly, I remember her violin more than I do her, the glazed back with ribbed markings, the pine smell of the resin she rubbed on the bow, the cloud it made as she began to play. Sometimes she let me try, but I wasn't allowed to touch the horse hairs, that would make them turn black, or tighten the bow like she did, or it could snap, or turn the pegs, because a string could break, and I was too little to take all that into account. If I was lucky enough to get as far as drawing the bow across the strings to emit a noise that delighted only me, I could count on her and her pretty friend bursting into laughter and my mother calling me to help her with some chore she couldn't manage without her brave four-year-old. 'Johannes!' I gave it a last try but could never move the bow straight the way Ute showed me; it ended up touching the bridge, the wall, someone's eye. The violin was wrenched from my hands and I was escorted out the door, despite my enraged wailing. I remember the pats on the head I got before Ute and her friend, in a fit of giggles, shut the door and resumed their practice session.

  The same photographs of my sister stood on the side-table of our living room until one by one, with the passing years, most of my memories were absorbed into these poses. It became hard for me to make them move or live or do much other than smile sweetly and unknowing through the peripeteias of my life.

  Pimbo died of diabetes less than two years after Ute, at the age of sixty-seven. He had never been, to his knowledge, diabetic. When he was recuperating from pneumonia the disease had arisen from a dormant state. His sorrow was incurable; he felt he was the cause of my sister's death by having passed it on to her. My parents said he let himself die. We took Pimmichen in a month after. She was against the idea because she felt that she would be intruding on us, but she didn't want to die like Pimbo in hospital. She reassured my parents at breakfast every morning that she wouldn't bother them long. This didn't reassure them or me — none of us wanted her to die. Every year was to be Pimmichen's last, and every Christmas, Easter, birthday my father would lift his glass in the air, blinking his moist eyes, and say that this might be the last year we were all together to celebrate this occasion. Instead of believing more in her longevity as the years went by, we strangely believed in it less and less.

  Our house, one of the older, stately ones painted that Schönbrunner Yellow common in Austria, was in the sixteenth district, called Ottakring, on the western outskirts of Vienna. Even though it was within the city limits we were partially surrounded by forests, Schottenwald and Gemeindewald, and partially by grassy fields. When we came home from central Vienna it always felt as if we lived in the countryside rather than a capital city. This said, Ottakring was not considered one of the best districts to live in; on the contrary, it was, with Hernals, one of the worst. Its bad reputation had come about because the portion of it that extended towards the city was inhabited by what our elders would call the wrong sort of people. I think that meant they were poor, or did whatever one does not to remain poor. But we lived far away from all that. From the windows of our house we could not actually see the hills covered with vineyards, famed for the fruity Weißwein they'd produce after the grapes spent a summer of basking in the sun, but if we took our bicycles we would be zigzagging along the roads just below them in a matter of minutes. What we could spot from our windows was our neighbours' houses, three of them, in Old Gold or Hunter Green, the most used alternatives to Schönbrunner Yellow.

  After my grandfather's death, my father ran the factory. When Pimbo was the director my father had worked under him, supervising the workers. My mother warned my father of the dangers of the firm getting too big; nevertheless, he decided to merge the company with Yaakov Appliances, which was not bigger than Betzler Irons but exporting all over the world, bringing in impressive profits. My father argued that one hundred per cent of zero was zero, whereas any way you looked at it, a thin wedge of a lot was more. He was satisfied with his partnership, and soon Yaakov & Betzler was exporting its modernised irons and home appliances to strange lands. My father bought a globe and, after dinner one night, showed me Greece, Romania and Turkey. I imagined Greeks, Romans (I thought Romans were what one called the people who lived in Romania) and Turks in stiffly ironed tunics.

  Two incidents from my early childhood stand out, although these moments were neither the happiest nor saddest in those early years. They were superlatives of nothing, and yet they are the ones my memory has chosen to preserve. My mother was rinsing a salad and I saw it first — a snail housed among the leaves. She threw it in the rubbish. We had several bins, one of which was for rinds, peelings and eggshells, which she buried in our garden. I was afraid the snail would be smothered; it could get quite juicy in there. My mother wouldn't let me have a dog or cat because she was allergic to animal hair. So after some begging on my part and some hesitation on hers, she, with a queasy look on her face, consented to my keeping the snail on a dish. She was as sweet as mothers get. A day didn't go by without me feeding my snail lettuce. It grew bigger than any snail I ever saw — as big as a small bird. Well, almost. It poked its head out of its shell when it heard me coming, swayed its body, moved its antennae at me, all this at its own slow rhythm.

  One morning I came downstairs to find my snail was gone. I didn't have to look far to find it. I detached it from the wall and put it back on its dish. This became a habit: every night it escaped and went further. I would spend the onset of my day looking fo
r and detaching it from table legs, the Meissen porcelain on display, the wallpaper, someone's shoe. I was running late for school one of these mornings, so my mother said I could look for it after breakfast if I had enough time. Just as she said this, she set the tray down on the bench. We both heard the crunch. She turned the tray over and there was my snail. I was too old to cry the way I did. I didn't even stop when my father came running, thinking I'd got myself with the carving knife. He was sorry he couldn't help, he had to leave for work, so my mother promised to fix the snail for me. I was in such a state, she finally conceded I didn't have to go to school.

  Iran for the glue to stick the pieces of shell back together, but my mother feared the glue would seep through and poison the snail. We kept it moist with drops of water, but within an hour my poor pal had shrunk to something miserable. Then Pimmichen suggested we go to Le Villiers, a French delicatessen in Albertina Platz, to buy escargot shells. We rushed back and left a new shell on its dish, but nothing happened: my snail wouldn't come out of the old one. Eventually we helped the withered bit of life into the new shell, with fragments sticking to its back. After another two days of care and grief it was clear my pet was dead. If I took its death harder than I had my sister's and grandfather's, it was only because I was older — old enough to understand I'd never see it or them again.

  The other incident wasn't really an incident. Friday evenings, my parents went out to dinner parties, exhibitions, operas, and Pimmichen and I would melt a whole bar of butter in the pan with our schnitzel. Standing in front of the stove like that, we'd dip bits of bread into it and bring them directly to our mouths, our forks getting devilishly hot. Afterwards, she made us Kaiserschmarrn for dessert, scooping and sprinkling into the pan each ingredient I wasn't allowed to have and could, in a jiffy, feast more than my eyes on. Normally I was forbidden even to dream of such things — my mother was afraid anything rich could cause diabetes. If only she'd known. But somehow it tasted better without her or anyone else knowing.