‘What did you have in the safe?’
Mutti shivered. She couldn’t look at me. ‘It was everything I had left.’ She let the words hang in the air for a moment. ‘I kept a small amount of cash in my handbag but I put everything else in the captain’s safe. I had been persuaded to do so by the captain. I was assured it was the safest place on the ship.’
What could I say to make my mother feel better? I took her hand in mine again, the hand that had caressed my face as a child, had soothed away my hurts. ‘It doesn’t matter, Mutti.’
She pulled away and glared at me. ‘But it does matter! It was what Vati and I had wanted to do, his last gift to you, and it’s all gone.
‘But it wasn’t only that. I lost everything I had from my own family. All the family heirlooms and jewels and my father’s beloved Rembrandt – things that should have gone to you and the children.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘There was no insurance. I’m so sorry.’ She hid her face in her hands, sobbing in despair and horror.
The scale of what we had lost overwhelmed me. Now we truly had nothing. The money was gone along with our family treasures and our link to our heritage. Mutti was reduced to relying on Erich and me. She looked wretched, so small and vulnerable, deflated, as if the life had drained from her with her confession.
My poor, poor mother. I gathered her in my arms and held her tight, my own tears falling. ‘Mutti, Mutti – it’s all right.’
‘I’ve failed you,’ she whispered.
‘No, you haven’t. All I wanted was to have you here with us, for you to watch the children grow, for me to be able to hug you like this whenever I want.’ All my hopes and dreams were dashed, but what I said was true. What mattered was having those we loved close to us. That much I had learnt.
Mutti took herself to bed and I tidied up, thinking about what she had gone through.
‘Shh!’ I whispered while drying the last coffee cup, as Erich came through the front door without the girls – Claudia had insisted that they stay and she would walk them home later. I sent a silent prayer to God, thanking Him for her friendship.
‘Where’s your mother?’ He kissed me on the lips in greeting.
‘She’s asleep. She was exhausted.’
‘How did you go with her?’ He leant casually against the sink, but I could see the tension in the set of his shoulders.
‘All right. I’ll tell you, but not here. I don’t want to wake her.’ I dropped the tea-towel on the bench and led him to our bedroom, shutting the door behind us. ‘She’s too upset to tell me much. But she was determined to tell me what she lost, what sank with the boat.’
Erich reached for me and I stepped into the warm security of his arms, sagging with relief, unable to bear the burden of Mutti’s terrible guilt on my own a minute longer.
‘She’s lost everything,’ I whispered. Then I told him what I knew.
‘At least your mother has us,’ he said when I was done.
‘She’s taking it hard. She’s horrified that she’s come with nothing when she wanted to help us get a real start here. She won’t cope very well knowing she’s now dependent on us. I’m sure she thinks she’ll be a burden, an extra mouth to feed.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Erich softly. ‘I’ll never forget how you welcomed my mother and Inga and the children into our home when we had even less than this.’ He kissed me and I looked into his eyes, the green depths shining with love and remembrance. ‘It’s a real blow, but there’s nothing we can do about it.’
We had been through much worse in Germany after the war, eight of us living in a two-bedroom house with a tiny attic and only Erich working. The tension between Inga and me had been explosive. We could certainly manage my mother, but I wasn’t so sure how she’d cope.
Leaning my head against his shoulder, I felt solid strength seep through me. He was a good man without a malicious bone in his body and wouldn’t hold our financial difficulties against her.
There would be no help to buy a house, no return to university for Erich and no chance for me to stop work to have another baby. Those dreams were gone, perhaps forever. But he would accept my mother as she was. He did it for me.
8
Erich came home one evening not long after Mutti arrived, looking white as a sheet.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s been a difficult day.’
‘Why, what’s happened?’ I took his jacket from him and hung it on the hook by the door.
‘Not now, I just want a moment to relax,’ he said irritably.
‘Well, I’ll leave you alone then,’ I snapped, turning towards the kitchen.
‘Lotte, no. I’m sorry. I’m angry, but not at you.’ He sank into the lounge, running his hands through his hair. ‘I witnessed a terrible industrial accident today.’
‘Someone you knew?’
‘It was Giovanni.’ I sat beside him in shock. He shook his head with frustration. ‘I should have been there. There wasn’t a thing I could do. I came out of the manager’s office too late to warn him . . . It all happened in slow motion. I’ve been saying it for months but maybe now they’ll do something.’ He grimaced. ‘One of our operators went off sick and a fresh load of timber came in that needed cutting immediately. Apparently, the foreman decided to put the new man on the circular saw with only a brief explanation of how to use it while someone more experienced worked the machine that dresses the timber.
‘While Giovanni was cutting a timber stile for the door frame, he was distracted – trying to understand someone asking him a question. He reached down to remove the cut piece of timber and his fingers got caught in the belt. It dragged in his hand.’ His voice choked and he swallowed hard. ‘I’ll never forget that sight as long as I live.’
‘God in heaven!’
‘Three of his fingers were completely severed. I pulled him away from the machine and it was only then that people around us noticed what was happening. There was blood splattered everywhere and I realised that his fingers were missing but he just stood there in total shock. Then he stared at his mangled hand and registered what had happened. I got a chair under him just in time before he started screaming.’
My eyes were wide with horror. Erich had begun with the same job. It could have been him. ‘Poor Giovanni. What will happen to him now?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, perhaps he’ll have surgery, but he’ll be off work for a good while.’
‘And his family? Is there worker’s compensation?’
‘Without an income, they won’t manage. I imagine that Carmela will have to find a job, but the children are so little.’ My heart went out to them. ‘A claim has to be made but it’ll take time for them to receive payments. It won’t be enough – they’ll get a percentage of his wage and payments for her if she’s not working and for the children, then a small amount for hospital and medical bills.’
I saw Johanna in the doorway out of the corner of my eye and waved her away. ‘Thank God we have health insurance.’
‘But I doubt he has,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll set up a collection for the family. I know it’s not good enough, but there’s not much more anyone can do. The fact is, he’ll struggle to find work once he’s recovered. The union can help the family as much as possible . . . but it should never have happened.’ He clutched the arm rest so tightly his knuckles turned white. ‘The machinery has no protective guards on either the belt or the blade and he should never have been allowed to use that saw until he’d had proper training and he could properly understand what he’d been told.’
I hugged Erich tight. I knew that he probably blamed himself for not trying harder to bring about the changes for a safer environment, but all I could think about was what would have happened to us if it had been him. Where would we be if he suddenly became incapacitated? Our whole life here would be in jeopardy.
*
But my fears for our new life were always allayed by seeing how the girls thrived. They spoke English fluently now, and the
y seemed happy at school, where they had made friends.
One evening after the girls were in bed, Mutti approached me. Erich was outside, taking out the rubbish.
‘I need to talk to you about Greta,’ she said.
‘What is it?’ I lifted my head from the colouring work I was concentrating on. I was tired and didn’t need any more complications in an already long and busy day.
Mutti sank into the chair opposite me. ‘She came home today with bruises and a cut on her arm.’
She had my attention now. I put down my pencil and pushed the work to one side. ‘What happened?’
‘She wouldn’t tell me at first. I was surprised, because usually Greta tells me everything. But Anna persuaded her to tell me. There have been some children at school who’ve been calling her and Johanna names. Anna said that she and Peter have been the target of this name-calling too.’
‘What names? Surely they’re just silly childhood taunts.’
My mother shook her head sadly. ‘No, my schatz. I’m afraid not. They called them Nazi bastards.’
I put my hand to my mouth, my eyes wide. ‘They’re just children!’ It made my blood boil to hear my innocent children tarnished with the Nazi name. Not only that, but I couldn’t stand my children being called ‘bastards’. My marriage to Erich had been declared null and void in a court of law in 1949, four years after we were married, when it was discovered that Erich’s first wife and children were alive and not dead in the bombings as we had believed. My children had been illegitimate. It took protracted divorce proceedings while Inga and her children lived with us before Erich and I could remarry in 1952.
‘Peter’s been trying to keep Johanna away from those children, but Greta’s somehow often in their path. She retaliated, and admitted that today wasn’t the first time she’d done so. She’s been fighting them.’
‘I didn’t bring up my girls to behave like this! I brought them up to be young ladies.’
‘I know, I know. Don’t get angry with her. I think she had every right to fight back, but I made her promise to stop. Today she made the ringleader’s nose bleed and threatened to do it again if he or his friends came near any of them. He ran away crying while the other children laughed at him. She doesn’t think they’ll annoy her, Johanna or Claudia’s children again.’
I was dumbfounded. ‘Greta did that?’
Mutti nodded, grinning. ‘She’s tough, your daughter. Nobody’s going to walk all over her.’
‘I can’t believe you condone this!’
‘Lotte, haven’t you told me that you wanted the girls to grow up to be themselves, to have the freedom to stand up for what they believe in and to live the life they want? Isn’t this part of the reason you came to Australia? It’s certainly what your husband’s advocating in his union work.’
‘I didn’t realise you were listening, or that you’d noticed.’
‘Of course. I saw how things were for you in Germany. How unhappy you were before you met Erich. I should never have tried to push you away from him. We would’ve had a much closer relationship if I’d let you find your own path to happiness.’
I frowned and shook my head, trying to comprehend my mother’s words, words I’d never imagined I would hear from her. ‘But I don’t understand how this could happen at school. There are migrant children from so many countries there. I just didn’t expect it.’
‘It happens everywhere,’ said Mutti softly. ‘You work in a very sheltered environment. Ask Erich, he’ll tell you the same. He explained to me that there’s still a stigma about being German. Many people believe that we shouldn’t be in this country, that we shouldn’t take Australian jobs and that we’re all unrepentant fascists.’
‘Yes, I know.’ I sighed. ‘I’ve heard the stories too, but I didn’t think I’d hear it from children.’
‘They only repeat what they hear from their parents.’
I nodded. This might be a reality I couldn’t change. ‘I have to work out what we do about Greta.’
‘Do nothing. She’s promised to stop fighting and she’s promised to let me know if the taunting continues. She was only standing up for herself and Johanna. I’m sure a few discreet enquiries to Anna will tell you if it has truly stopped.’
I knew Mutti had a soft spot for Greta but she was right. I only wished she could have been so mellow when I was growing up. Who was this woman sitting in front of me? I said a swift prayer of thanks for her, whoever she was. Maybe she really had changed.
‘Promise me you’ll let me know, Mutti. I can’t have my daughter brawling in the schoolyard like a ruffian.’
‘I promise.’
I worried about my mother and my daughters but I had no idea that I should have been worrying about Erich. The workplace accident he’d witnessed had taken him to the wider world – now he spoke with new passion about the terrible risks to life and livelihood that could result from inadequate or non-existent safety measures, not just at the union meetings but also public work meetings. But I didn’t truly understand the repercussions of his activism until Claudia approached me.
‘Lotte, there’s something I want to say to you,’ she said haltingly as we walked from her place to mine one Sunday.
‘Of course, anything,’ I said. The children had run ahead, and Mutti was a little in front of us, holding the twins’ hands. Erich had remained at Franz’s for a game of cards with some other German men.
‘You can tell me to mind my own business, but it’s something I think you should know.’
I stopped in the middle of the path. ‘What is it? Just tell me.’
‘Erich’s been threatened,’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘Let’s keep walking.’ She grasped my arm. ‘He’s been noticed at the big rallies and was approached at the factory gate a couple of days ago. One of the employment officers told him to stay away from the union and to stop speaking out about things he couldn’t possibly understand or he’d end up working on the railway in the outback for the rest of his two years.’
I couldn’t believe it was true. ‘Who told you this?’
‘Franz. He heard the whole thing. Erich hasn’t told you?’
‘No, he wouldn’t want to worry me.’ I felt sick. ‘Can they really do that to him?’
‘Franz said that they had no grounds, they were only bluffing and trying to scare him off and Erich would know that too . . . But still, I wanted you to know.’
It wasn’t until that evening when the children and Mutti were in bed that I could speak to Erich about what Claudia had said.
Just looking at his face told me every word of it was true.
‘I wanted to tell you, but didn’t want to worry you,’ he said, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed next to me. ‘I’m sorry you found out this way.’
I shook my head impatiently, wincing with pain. My neck was coiled tight with tension. ‘I know you didn’t want to worry me, but can the government do this to you?’
Erich’s warm fingers rubbed the knots in my neck and across the tops of my shoulders. ‘I’m nearly at the end of my two years. Any fool who’d cared to check would have known that. He was just trying to warn me off with tough words. You know how it is with these officials, any small amount of power they think they might have goes to their head.’
‘So it’s the same everywhere then.’ I was relieved and worried at the same time. It was probably just an idle threat, but I’d seen men like that become dangerous.
Erich smiled and kissed my cheek. ‘I’m afraid it is.’
‘All the same, please be careful. Who knows what they might try to do!’
‘I promise I’ll be careful.’ The massaging stopped, the heat from his hands radiating into the relaxed muscles. His face creased into lines of regret at the worry he’d caused me but then hardened once more, and a steely light entered his eyes. ‘But in truth, I’ve done nothing wrong or illegal and I won’t be bullied into backing down.’
‘I know, my darling. I woul
d never expect you to.’ I cupped his cheek. ‘It’s part of who you are, but don’t give them a reason to hurt you and the chances we have of a good life here. We have to work harder than ever now that Mutti’s money is gone.’
‘I would never do that to you and the children,’ he whispered as he gathered me into his arms.
*
All our efforts paid off the day Erich arrived home with a utility. It was an old Vanguard with a spacious bench seat at the front and a solid tray at the rear, perfect for carrying tools and supplies. Erich beamed from ear to ear, taking the girls and me for a drive around the block to show us how smoothly it ran.
‘Now we can drive wherever we want to go,’ he said.
‘Can we go to the beach?’ asked Greta.
‘Of course we can. We can start exploring and drive somewhere different every Sunday afternoon.’
‘Yippee!’ shouted the girls.
Our world opened up – we had something to look forward to other than constant work. We could see the countryside, begin to explore what Australia had to offer: the beaches, mountains, rivers, forests and the bush. Although I missed the lush, orderly green of Germany, Australia was growing on me. I’d heard so much about the unusual flora and fauna, the wide open spaces and the wild ruggedness of the terrain that I wanted us to experience it for ourselves.
‘Can we jump in the back?’ asked Greta when Erich stopped at the kerb outside our house.
‘Yes, off you go,’ said Erich, waving them out.
‘Be careful and hold on,’ I added.
The girls shot out the door and climbed onto the tray.
‘Do you like it?’ asked Erich.
‘Of course. It’s wonderful.’
‘I know you’d have preferred a sedan but there’s a reason I bought the utility. I’ve been thinking about our financial situation. I still want to buy a house, something that’s our own, to give the children and your mother their own rooms, with space in the backyard and the chance to have a real garden and grow some vegetables, but you know how expensive it is.’
Suitcase of Dreams Page 10