The Foreigner

by P. G. Glynn

  “Ludwig wasn’t your brother.”

  “Pardon?”

  “He was your father’s son … but not your mother’s.”

  Flabbergasted, Otto managed: “How do you know that?”

  “It’s complicated, but here’s the gist.” Marie gave him a resume of the events that culminated in the sending of Mama’s letter to Ludwig in Berlin. She ended: “We received a visit soon afterwards from Hans Klammer of the Sudeten German Party telling us that Ludwig had died of clumsiness. We were expected to believe that when he was cleaning his gun it somehow killed him.”

  Otto shook his head incredulously. “I little dreamed I’d ever say such a thing, but I almost feel pity for Ludwig. To discover that he was not Mama’s son must have come as a body blow to him. It would have added insult to injury that his true mother was a servant. This explains his changed demeanour when he rushed back to my torture chamber to check whether I was still alive. He actually seemed frightened that I might have died. Mama showed amazing foresight, didn’t she, in writing that letter – and in whatever it said? It’s timely arrival saved me from certain death. I seem to remember him saying that he was sparing my life to settle a debt. He also mentioned a cuckoo … and must have been referring to himself. Gott im Himmel!”

  Marie saw that Otto was crying. His eyes had filled and now tears were spilling over on to his cheeks. She asked him: “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” he said, dabbing haphazardly at his face with a big handkerchief taken from his breast pocket. “It’s all just … a bit unsettling. I suppose certain emotions aren’t buried quite as deeply as I believed.”

  “In respect of being tortured, or of Mama?”

  He replied with a groan: “Both. I still miss her – the more so, now that I know she brought up Papa’s bastard as her own son and subsequently saved my life even after she had died. How many mothers can say they’ve done that for their children?”

  “Very few,” Marie agreed, thinking it timely to ask: “Is it easier to talk about the torture? Presumably there was a proviso to Ludwig’s change of heart about letting you live?”

  “There certainly was – this being my consent to be conscripted into the German military police. He thought he was having the last laugh, and in a sense he was since the conscription went against everything I believed in. But I was so weak by then – and so racked with pain – that anything was better than further demonstrations of Ludwig’s hatred. Besides,” he smiled, “I knew it was just a question of time, assuming I could survive, before I joined ranks with the other side!”

  Marie felt humbled by his divulgence – and guilty for having judged him. “Did it take you long, to regain your strength and change allegiance?” she queried.

  “Longer than I would have wished – and Stalingrad was no picnic. Nor,” he added grimly, “was Kristallnacht.”

  “You were involved in that?”

  “As a bystander. Having to stand by and see Jews slaughtered in the streets was an experience that has stayed with me ever since. I’m a changed man, Marie, from the one who taunted Ludwig with no thought of the consequences. Had I ever dreamed what the consequences might be of pure evil unleashed, I’d have behaved very differently!”

  “Both Hugo and I tried … ”

  “Yes,” he interrupted. “I know you did … and I wouldn’t listen. But I’ve paid the price of my deafness.” He achieved a smile. “So I won’t be needing a repeat of that particular lesson. That’s enough, though, about me. When did you leave Bohemia and what was the situation in Herrlichbach when you left?”

  Marie answered his question and then said: “It’s anybody’s guess what happened to Rudolf and Anna, not to mention Dora, the other Bergers and the Kadlecs … and Marinka and Ferdi. I suppose we’ll be able to find out about them, now that the war’s over. I must admit to having felt guilt about being in a place of safety when they were all in so much danger.”

  “Better that,” Otto commented with vigour, “than staying in the path of Nazi jackboots when you didn’t have to! One of the things that kept me going was the belief that you and Hugo would have escaped in time. I pictured you in Wales.” He added pensively: “I certainly didn’t picture you at Claridge’s! How long have you been braving bombs?”

  “Since soon after Hugo’s wedding.” Marie’s initial bravado had deserted her and she was finding difficulty in meeting his gaze. “With our son off my hands there seemed no reason to linger in Gilchrist.”

  “But there was a reason to come to London?”

  “Yes. I came up to visit Nell … and stayed on because of one of her lodgers.”

  A cold hand clutched at his heart as he asked: “Charles?” When she nodded he said: “Never for a single moment have I stopped loving you, Marie. Through my darkest hours, there you always were, shining brightly.”

  “So you’ve been faithful to me?”

  He smiled lopsidedly. “In my heart I have.”

  “That leaves the rest of your body.”

  “Which has been faithful in its fashion.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t. It’s different for men. Anatomically, we have certain needs … ”

  “ … and you have to pander to your anatomy,” laughed Marie, energised by his argument. “Yes, that is different from women! We have more control over ourselves, except when love enters the equation. That’s where the difference comes in for us.”

  “Love,” he said, “has such diverse facets. We – you and I – have a marriage packed with shared experiences. It has given us a son and a granddaughter. We have so much, not least our mutual survival of the war and the new chapter beginning now that it is over. There’s too much at stake, my darling, for love in the purely romantic sense to have more than a passing place in that equation you mentioned. Surely you share this view?”

  “I might,” Marie answered, “were my love for Charles the shallow kind you’d like it to be. But it isn’t, as I think you’re aware. It has endured since 1919, despite the fact that we lived in different countries and didn’t meet again until recently. He … he wants to marry me.”

  “You aren’t free.”

  “I could be, if … ”

  “ … I were to agree to a divorce? My Catholicism wouldn’t permit such a thing. What, as a matter of interest, happened to Mrs Brodie?”

  “Madeleine died.”

  “Well, I’m not going to be so obliging. I plan to live a very long life and sooner or later to reclaim you as my wife. I believe, you see, that all along you were meant for me – and that some day you’ll agree.”

  “Never!” said Marie emphatically.

  +++++

  His funds having solely permitted him one night at Claridge’s, Otto headed next morning for Gilchrist. The lengthy journey to Abergavenny gave him ample time to gaze through the train window and try to still the turmoil within him. How very different his reunion with Marie had been from the one he had pictured! How he had ached to take her in his arms and remind her of times past! How he now wished she were beside him for this trip!

  He had suggested that she accompany him. Marie, though, had refused so he was travelling alone to see their son and granddaughter. One of her excuses had been that she needed to work to eat. So she was obviously not being kept by Charles Brodie. What was the attraction of that man for a woman such as she? Whatever it was, it was beyond Otto’s comprehension.

  To calm himself, he turned his thoughts ahead to seeing Hugo again. Imagine that Hugo - born during Otto’s last visit to Gilchrist – was now married and a father himself! It did not seem possible and yet was an inescapable fact. What he would give, at this moment, to be back in those halcyon days when Carla was still alive and Marie had yet to deliver his baby! Given that time over again he would do things differently. He would do anything to ensure Marie’s happiness and the future of their marriage. He would also ensure that he kept well away from Ludwig and from the path that led to Berlin …

  Otto now saw that had
he been true to himself and his promise to Marie back then, Carla might not be dead and he might well have escaped the horrors of Nazism – added to which, Marie might still be his. Or, of course, had she fulfilled herself as an actress her path and Charles’s might have converged all the sooner, causing worse traumas than those endured! There was no way of knowing for sure how things would have turned out had he made different choices. So there was no sense in bothering his head with endless conjecture.

  That settled, Otto relaxed and slept.

  He awoke as his train shuddered to a halt in Abergavenny station. With a start, he gathered his belongings and followed a fellow passenger on to a platform still partially obscured by steam. Soon he could see Hugo standing just yards away anxiously scanning faces. He waved.

  Hugo was shocked at the extent of his father’s ageing. Until that wave, he had hardly recognised him. How he must have suffered to alter so dramatically since 1938! “Papa,” he said, striding over and embracing him, “what a great day this is!” They were quickly seated in the truck that Marie had labelled a boneshaker and heading toward Gilchrist. “Your telegram was such a surprise that we couldn’t organise ourselves in time for my wife and Suzy to come and meet you too. So I left Helena cooking lunch with Suzy ‘helping’ her, as usual.” He then queried, without giving Otto a chance to speak: “You do know about them, don’t you? I mean, I’m assuming that as you had our address you … ”

  “… yes,” Otto said. “Your mother gave me your address and told me of your marriage.”

  “What I don’t understand is … how you found Mama. London’s such a big city.”

  “I didn’t find her. She found me. She hasn’t aged at all, has she?”

  “No,” Hugo agreed, still reeling from the sudden arrival of Papa’s telegram followed so swiftly by Papa himself arriving. There had hardly been time to think before leaving for Abergavenny. “She’s … as she has always been.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Otto said wistfully. “It’s a pity that she needs to work. If she didn’t, I might have persuaded her to come with me.”

  “Mama was here quite recently, for Suzy’s second birthday.”

  “Really?” Otto had detected a note in Hugo’s tone that needed probing. “I’m glad Claridge’s give her occasional holidays. The thing I didn’t think to establish is why she’s working there instead of returning to the stage. That would make more sense, given her natural talent … and free spiritedness.”

  “She’s certainly a free spirit,” Hugo agreed immediately. “Mama doesn’t believe in conforming, does she?”

  “If she did, she wouldn’t be the woman she is.”

  “Did Mama mention … having tried films for a bit?”

  “She didn’t.” Otto saw then that Hugo seemed very tense. “Was that not a success?”

  “Filming bored her, I think, after the atmosphere of a theatre – especially the Tavistock.”

  It was no longer hard to guess what Hugo’s problem was. Otto said: “Did I hear venom just then? If you know about the Tavistock, I expect you also know about … ”

  “ … Carla’s father? Yes, Mama finally told me about Charles Brodie!”

  “Past or present?” Otto asked mildly.

  “Both. So she has told you, too, about why she’s tied to London?”

  “Natuerlich!”

  “Then how can you be so calm about it?”

  “There’s something you need to understand.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The old philosophy: ‘Da muss was g’schehn …. aber da kann man halt nichts machen’.”

  Here in Wales, seemingly so far from Austria, it was strange to hear Papa speak in the Viennese dialect. After digesting the words Hugo asked: “So you’re saying that although something should be done about it, nothing can be done and therefore why worry?”

  “That’s the gist,” Otto said, “but we must always remember that the curtain hasn’t fallen on the final act of our play yet. Now, tell me about Helena and how the two of you met.”

  Glad not to be talking in riddles, Hugo did as suggested and was still animatedly describing his wife and the life he shared with her and Suzy when they reached Gilchrist.

  Otto was overwhelmed with the warmth of Helena’s welcome. Having always associated Wales with the coldness of Janet, it was good to have this comparison. “Make yourself at home,” she said almost before he was over the threshold. “It isn’t a castle, but it’s cosy and comfortable and we want you to feel that you belong here with us.”

  “That won’t be difficult,” he responded, conscious at once of the cosiness of their tiny cottage and of the love that co-existed within its walls. He was conscious too of a twinge of envy that Hugo had found Helena while they were both so young and unencumbered. “And it will be good, after so long, to have a sense of belonging.”

  Helena didn’t know what to say to that, so she said: “Come and meet Suzy.”

  The child was sitting on the floor of the little living room playing with a doll. She had a mop of dark curls and the face of an angel. It was her eyes, though, that mesmerised Otto for they were Marie’s violet eyes … and Carla’s. He gasped. Then, struggling to collect himself, he said: “Hello, little sweetheart! I’m your … grandpapa.”

  After studying him speculatively for a moment or two, Suzy asked: “Where’s Nama?”

  A glance at Hugo confirmed whom she meant, so he said: “I left her in London, but I’m sure she’ll be coming to see you soon. Till then your Nandad will just have to do.”

  Cuddling her doll while looking perplexed Suzy echoed: “Nama coming soon!”

  Over lunch, gazing at his granddaughter in her high-chair, Otto casually observed: “It’s uncanny, Hugo, how like your sister she is. In fact, Carla and Suzy could be sisters!”

  “Well, at least that’s better than Mama’s assessment.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Obviously Mama hasn’t told you of her belief that Carla has come back as Suzy!” Otto’s grin caused Hugo to add: “I don’t happen to think it’s amusing.”

  “Where’s your sense of humour? I was just thinking that if there’s such a thing as reincarnation Hitler and Ludwig could come back as vermin – cockroaches, perhaps, that we can stamp on! There’d be perfect justice in that.”

  Suzy clapped her hands and Hugo visibly relaxed. He said: “Speaking of Onkel Ludwig, did Mama mention his origins?”

  During their ensuing discussion Otto learned more about the events between his abduction and the sending of his mother’s letter with Herr Beck to Berlin. Then he said: “I heard word through the Resistance that Schloss Berger had been requisitioned by Hitler and that Rudolf and Anna were in Goerlitz. Do you know how much truth there is in this?”

  “I know virtually nothing,” Hugo responded, “which is not for want of trying to find out what’s gone on. I’ve now written to Marinka asking if she can tell us anything. But of course, on top of everything else, she has had Prague’s private war to contend with.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Otto agreed soberly, recalling President Benes’s call on fifth May for a general uprising of the whole Czech nation. General Vlasov (a Russian imprisoned by the Germans early on and later persuaded by them that he was against Stalinism, so that he fought on their side ‘to help liberate his country’) had gone to the President’s aid, fighting with his four thousand men for the Czech resistance until the Russians entered Slovakia. They fought on the streets of Prague against German machine guns, tanks and an enemy swollen by vast numbers of soldiers fleeing from east to west ahead of the Russian advance. It was Vlasov more than anyone who, after much bloodshed, saved Prague – only to be delivered afterwards by the Western Allies to the Russians and shot as a deserter. “From reports I’ve read, there seems a distinct possibility that Prague’s own three-day war did more damage to the city and cost more lives locally than preceding hostilities did. Poor Marinka! Poor Vlasov, for that matter. His end was hardly just, was it? Lieber Gott, didn
’t you say that Ludwig’s mother was called Gerda Vlasov? Could she have been related to the General, I wonder?”

  “Anything’s possible. I can’t help feeling that, pure though her motives were, Omama was wrong in doing as she did.”

  “How do you mean?” Otto asked quizzically.

  “Onkel Ludwig was almost like a cancer, wasn’t he, within the family? Over the years he caused everyone grief, not least when he joined the Nazi Party. We all felt we had to try to love him because he was your brother and, as I was growing up, I did my best to pretend to myself that he didn’t give me the shudders. But he did. Yet his menacing presence and all the subsequent traumas could have been avoided if Omama had hardened her heart from the beginning and refused to take him in.”

  “Yes, they could have been,” Otto agreed, “but you’re forgetting something.”

  “I am?”

  “Your Omama had the softest heart in Christendom. Except with hindsight, how could she have hardened it? And, had she managed that, we would then never have known what we’d been saved from. So she’d have lived with the guilt of rejecting him and we wouldn’t have appreciated a home without Ludwig in it!”

  “A good point,” Hugo conceded.

  +++++

  Papa had responded well to Helena’s welcome and after six weeks certainly seemed to feel at home with them. Hugo was glad about this but a little concerned about how to stretch his income. The extra food presented no problem because he grew all their vegetables and the River Usk was full of fish, while in these surroundings mutton too was plentiful. However, Papa also expected to be given money to spend whenever he went to Hereford or Abergavenny …

  It wasn’t just that he wanted money but that he had no idea how to budget. When he had cash he just spent it, thinking it would be replenished. Hugo had never realised the extent to which Papa had been cosseted by being born rich. He had no perception whatsoever of the work ethic: of needing to work to earn a living. For him this had never been an issue … and still wasn’t one. As long as someone was working, Papa felt entitled to be kept in funds!