The Foreigner

by P. G. Glynn

  The words, Marie felt certain, had come directly from God to reassure her. With them came a kind of peace, along with the certainty that Charles was somehow here, his hand on her shoulder. Of course he was here with her, mourning their daughter!

  “It is time,” said Father Theer.

  Shivering involuntarily, Marie leaned over the silk-lined coffin and kissed Carla’s cold forehead. “This isn’t ‘goodbye’, it’s Auf Wiedersehen,” she whispered. “Some day we’ll be together again.”

  “Amen,” said the priest, before helping Marie to her feet.

  It had been agreed that he would carry the coffin to the Berger mausoleum in the castle grounds and now he and Marie led the mourners through the garden to Carla’s last resting place. Otto and Marta were behind them, with the rest of the family following on in a sad little sunlit procession. Ludwig and Lenka walked in front of Rudolf and Anna, who had at their rear relatives from Kruh as well as from Mohren and Oberaltstadt. Everybody there had brought flowers that they bore for Carla: marguerites shaped into a teddy bear, an elephant made from Augentrosts, a doll consisting of pink Katzenpfoetchen … There were altogether quite a dozen reminders of the toys the child had left behind. Accompanying her within the coffin was the baby doll her Mama had bought her in Prague.

  The tomb’s interior was dark and damp. Marie had insisted that her daughter’s remains were not committed to perpetual darkness. Instead their container would be placed on the windowsill, where light could reach it. Carla must have light and, after these ‘wreaths’ had died, would have a continual supply of fresh flowers on her tiny coffin. This was something – the only thing – Marie could still do for her … and she would do it, whatever the season and despite the fact that the doing would tie her for life to Herrlichbach.

  In discussion with the young priest Marie had chosen the form of the funeral service and finally he, in deepest sympathy, departed from Catholicism to close with a poem. It was one Pa had taught her and that she had recited to Carla in Gilchrist last spring, little knowing the circumstances in which she would next hear it. Feeling as if her heart would burst Marie heard:

  “When to the flowers so beautiful the Father gave a name, back came a little blue-eyed one (all timidly she came); and standing at her Father’s feet and gazing in His face, she said in low and trembling tones and with a modest grace: ‘Dear God, the name Thou gavest me, alas! I have forgot.’ Kindly the Father looked Him down and said: ‘Forget-Me-Not’.”

  35

  “There was once, a very long time ago, a small girl who used to play in the valley that lay in the shadow of the Schneekoppe. It was a wonderful valley. Some said that it was enchanted. The girl found it so, as she romped in the flower-filled meadows and climbed on the rocks that had been put there especially for her to climb.

  On her sixteenth birthday the rocks were removed from the valley and were replaced with crystal clear brooks and waterfalls. At the very heart of her valley there appeared a marble pool in which pale pink water sparkled. The girl – who had never seen pink water before – dived down into it.

  A friend tried to follow her but was prevented by the water becoming a whirlpool that whirled her back to the surface. The girl had gone from the valley of her past life and nobody could go with her.

  Her father - the Duke of Silesia - sent out a search party. There was now no marble pool, though, and there were rocks again where the brooks had been. So the Duke knew that his daughter was lost to him and he grieved.

  She meanwhile had swum through the pink water to a glass palace where a handsome prince awaited her. He had been waiting since her childhood, when she first played in the valley formed by two of his mountains. He was not a prince, in fact, but a giant in disguise. He wanted nothing more than to make her happy, for he had loved her all her life.

  Yet she could not love him and complained quite soon of loneliness. So he brought her a basket of turnips along with a magic wand and told her to touch each turnip with the wand, at every touch saying the name of one of her valley friends. Thus the turnips turned into people from her past and she was less lonely … until the season changed. For the people lived only as long as turnip plants and then wilted.

  She asked the prince to bring her a new crop but it was the wrong time of year – the time to sow, not to harvest. So more turnips were sown and he asked her to wait for them to mature. He also begged her to marry him.

  But she was betrothed to a boy she loved with her whole heart and had to find a way back to him and her valley. While pretending to consider the prince’s proposal she sent a message to her loved one in the mouth of a passing magpie.

  ‘Count all the turnips in the fields,’ she told the giant at harvest time, ‘and then I shall marry you. But be sure to make no mistakes for I must know how many guests to expect at our wedding.’

  There were thousands of turnips and it took days to count them all. As soon as he had finished counting he hastened eagerly to claim his princess – only to find that she had fled.

  As she married her sweetheart the giant, in his anger, hurled stones about. To him, huge as he was, they were stones though in fact they were mountains. But he could not bring himself to harm a hair on his lost love’s head. So she was able to tell the story of the turnip-count to her wedding guests and it was thus that the giant became known as Ruebezahl. He does not like this name, of course, and is angry with anyone who uses it.”

  As Grossmutti finished telling him his favourite story Hugo said to her earnestly: “I shouldn’t like to be called Turnip-Count either. The Duke’s daughter was unkind to the giant, wasn’t she?”

  “People are unkind sometimes, without necessarily meaning to be.”

  “The giant is never unkind. You’ve told me how he helps poor children, protecting them from cruel grown-ups, and how he punishes wrong and rewards right.”

  “Giants are different from humans.”

  “Yes, they are! They’re bigger … and they’re better at disguises. Ruebez … I mean, he,” Hugo corrected himself hastily, “can be anybody he wants to be. I wish I could be a prince, or a shepherd, or a hunter, without anyone knowing I’m really me.”

  “Why do you wish that, Liebchen?”

  “Because then I could be … my sister.”

  “You’d choose to be Carla?” his grandmother was aghast. “Whatever for, Hugo?”

  He swallowed, irresolute. But he had started now, so must continue. “If I were Carla, lying in my silver coffin, Mama would love me … and she would bring me flowers every day. I like flowers. Is it wrong, for live boys to like them?”

  “Of course it isn’t wrong! But please don’t wish yourself in Carla’s coffin. You don’t have to be dead before being given flowers. If we’d known that you liked them we would have given you flowers just for Hugo … and now that we do know we’ll give some to you.”

  “Mama won’t.”

  Marta’s heart was heavy. “Why won’t she?”

  “Mama gives all her flowers to my sister, because she misses her. Would she love me, and miss me, if I went to heaven?”

  “Hugo, my dearest, there’s no need to be in heaven to be loved and missed. Your Mama loves you, even if she doesn’t show it – and missed you most dreadfully when you and your Papa went off skiing last month.”

  “Did she say that she missed me?”

  He was a solemn small boy and old beyond his years. He would not believe a lie. So his grandmother said: “Not in words, but she cried.”

  “Are you sure it was me she was crying for, not Carla? It’s usually Carla that she cries over. That’s why Papa goes away so often – because she keeps crying. He hates seeing her cry, but I wish he didn’t go away. He’s my friend, just as you are – and Helga.”

  Helga was the head gardener’s granddaughter. Marta was not sure that she was a good influence on Hugo. However, the boy needed friends … and he needed his mother. Marie must at long last pull herself together. “We’ll have to help your Mama be happier then,
won’t we?” she suggested lightly, wondering how Marie could so neglect her son, letting him feel unloved. He was such a special child: intelligent, affectionate and extraordinarily wise. His good looks, too, drew others to him. He had his mother’s colouring, his father’s eyes and a smile that positively lit up lives. But it was a rare treat to see him smile. There was a solemnity in Hugo that was truly shocking in a boy not yet five. “Let’s start by picking her some snowdrops.”

  They left the bathroom, where they had been feeding two orphaned goosanders, and removed their footwear upon reaching the door to the garden, Marta having long believed that walking barefoot in the snow was good for the feet. Holding her grandson’s hand she led him past the kennels where the hunting hounds were kept and on beyond the stables, where Herr Beck was busy with the blacksmith, to the little clearing in front of the apiaries. The first flowers of the year could invariably be found here, where the snow was less deep than elsewhere, and it always seemed miraculous to probe with one’s fingers and find these sweet harbingers of spring. Hugo asked her: “Is this where we should dig?”

  “Yes,” Marta said, “remembering to be very gentle so that we don’t damage them. A koruna for you if you find a snowdrop before I do.”

  If he found her some snowdrops Mama might possibly be pleased with him. Doubtful about this, Hugo was still glad of the game he and Omama were playing. Earning a koruna would help him buy Bobo a new collar. Bobo didn’t live here any more because he had been Carla’s and Mama didn’t want him forever reminding her of happier times, but Hugo often went with Papa to see him at the farm. Hugo knew he had only to ask and Papa would buy the collar, but he wanted to do the buying because then Bobo would understand that although he lived at Mohren he was really Hugo’s dog. Whether he got a koruna or not, he preferred being outdoors with Omama to being indoors, where there was always the chance – especially along one of the long corridors – of bumping into his horrible aunt.

  Tante Lenka was not just horrible. She was alarming! She liked giving him wet kisses that he didn’t like a bit. Also, her eyes had nobody in them and she said worrying things. She had told Hugo once that she loved his sister but wished Carla would stop crying. Carla couldn’t cry in her coffin … could she? Hugo didn’t think she could but didn’t know for certain and asking Mama had not helped. In fact, she had slapped him and ticked him off for upsetting her. So he had decided against asking Papa or Omama for fear of upsetting them as well. Since then he had kept his worries about Carla and Tante Lenka to himself.

  Hugo knew that, being a boy, he should not be scared of his aunt and he tried not to be but it wasn’t easy. Sometimes, to prove that he was the brave boy he ought to be, he would go to the door of her suite and knock on it. Once he had knocked, though, he couldn’t seem to keep his feet stationary. However much he wanted to stay, they just ran away. Not that he ever wanted to stay, exactly. He didn’t seem to be quite ready for such bravery. Hugo was sure he would be, after his birthday. Then he would be five, which meant he would be very brave. Helga had been five until she recently turned six and she was as brave as anything.

  The last time he had run away, looking over his shoulder instead of where he was going, he had bumped into Loisy who had dropped the bottle of wine she had been hiding beneath her apron. It smashed into lots of pieces and Loisy had been mad with him, saying if Frau Otto sacked her that would be his fault. Frau Otto was Mama, who thought nobody knew that she liked a little drink. But they did. Hugo had heard them talking in the kitchen. The maids seemed to think that Mama drank more than a little … and that secret drinking was the thin end of the wedge. Uncertain as to what that meant, Hugo didn’t think it sounded very pleasant.

  So he had asked Mama why she drank in secret and she had told him she didn’t. Then, after a bit, she said that if she ever did it was because she had sorrows nobody could help her with. Hugo would help her with them if only she would let him. He would do anything to help Mama … and to be loved by her.

  So would Papa. Papa would stay here if Mama were kinder to him. He had told Hugo that he preferred being here to being in Rome, or Amsterdam, or Paris, or Vienna or anywhere, but that it distressed him to see Mama so sad. Hugo thought it must also upset him always to be kept at arm’s length, which was how Papa himself had once described it to Mama and which must mean never kissing each other. Hugo had seen Onkel Ludwig kissing Tante Lenka and Onkel Rudolf kissing Tante Anna, but he could not remember ever seeing Papa kissing Mama. If only they would kiss, perhaps Mama would feel better – and warmer toward Papa. She seemed so cold with him, as if her feelings were frozen. Could feelings freeze? Hugo supposed so and hoped Mama’s might melt with the snow. Then, when the world was green again, instead of white, Mama might like – or even love – Papa and Hugo.

  “Oh!” Hugo had touched something with his toe. Could the ‘something’ possibly be … ? As he bent over to peer into the hollow he had made in the snow he saw that, yes, it was a snowdrop – snowdrops in fact, all growing together in their snug bed beneath its snowy coverlet. “I’ve found some, Omama! Come and see how pretty they are.” When she had seen, and exclaimed over his cleverness in finding them before she did, he said: “I think I like these best of all, except maybe for the creepers with the little yellow flowers that bring the fire salamanders to them. Which flowers are your favourites?”

  “They all are,” Marta told him, smiling at his earnestness. “Each one is so perfect that it makes me catch my breath and marvel at God’s handiwork. It almost seems a pity to pick them, when they’re growing for Him, but we’re picking these for your Mama, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” he agreed, adding wistfully: “Once it’s spring do you think Mama will stop feeling so … so wintry?”

  His assessment of Marie’s prevailing disposition was so apt that Marta could have wept. She said instead: “It’s time she did … and I’m sure she will, with our help. We mustn’t expect too much too soon, though, must we?”

  +++++

  Marie was resting, just as she usually did in the afternoons. Marooned here in Schloss Berger there was little else to do, besides which she had a headache. Her head always seemed to be aching these days. She was becoming accustomed to the dull throb that turned in time to a raging pain. Lying down did not take this away but it was of some relief to close the curtains and shut out the snow’s blinding glare, with its reminder that Marie was trapped here. Oh, she was not trapped by the snow although that had been the trap once, long ago. Things might be easier if she were, since snow was not permanent. She was tied to Bohemia because of Carla.

  There could be no deserting her daughter – no abandonment of the tiny coffin she had vowed to keep covered with flowers. Marie was committed to her vow, even while acknowledging that her child’s spirit was not within. That had long since flown to wherever it was that spirits went but since Marie could not follow her there – or not yet – the little silver coffin was all she had left.

  So Marie could never go home and her own life was effectively over. She had died at the same time as Carla but instead of being buried in a vault had buried herself here in Schloss Berger. She existed in a state of darkness, of loss … of searing emptiness. Nobody understood the degree to which her existence lacked meaning. Mama and Otto spoke of moving on from the past but Carla was not the past. She was ever-present in Marie’s memory … and often returned in dreams. Marie would dream that she held her child in her arms … that she talked to her, heard her laughter. Her awakenings, when she was forced to face the truth again, far from growing easier seemed to grow harder.

  There was no escape although wine helped at times. Marie was finding that she needed to drink more and more to achieve the dulling of her senses that had been achieved quite quickly back in the beginning. And of course any avoidance of pain was just temporary. As with dreams, reality had to be faced sooner or later, as often as not with a headache. How far, how impossibly far, she had come from London and her life as an actress at the Tavistock! Wha
t had Dolly Martin been seeking escape from, when she virtually drank Charles’s theatre into oblivion? It was odd, suddenly to think of Dolly. Where had she gone – and where were the others from the Dickensian Company, including young Guy who had waited for Marie in the wings night after night? Fancy thinking of him, after all this time! It was as if he had belonged in some other life. She sighed.

  A tentative knock sounded now on her bedroom door. She called: “Is that you, Loisy?”

  “No, Mama – it’s only me. Were you asleep?”

  “If I was, I’m not any more,” Marie responded ungraciously. “What do you want, Hugo?”

  “I don’t want anything.” He risked opening the door and stepping into the room. “We’ve brought you a present.”

  “We?”

  “Omama is here too.”

  “Might I draw the curtains?” Marta queried, starting to do so. “You’ll need light to see by.”

  “My head’s hurting,” Marie protested, putting a hand over her eyes.

  “It won’t hurt so much when you’ve seen your son … really seen him.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Look, Mama,” Hugo said eagerly, thrusting his fistful of snowdrops in front of his mother, “the first flowers of spring. They’re very pretty, don’t you think?”