Suitcase of Dreams

by Tania Blanchard

  ‘We don’t have to build all of it now,’ I said to him late one night, adding up the figures while looking at the plans strewn across the coffee table. ‘As long as your mother has a room and maybe we tidy up the kitchen, we’ll manage.’

  ‘No. If we’re going to do it, we may as well do it all now. We’ve lived like gypsies long enough.’ He put his half-smoked cigarette on the edge of the ashtray.

  ‘But I can’t see how we’re going to afford it all,’ I said, rubbing my temples. I felt a headache coming on.

  ‘I know I can’t build you a new house just yet, but you deserve a proper working kitchen and laundry and I want the privacy of a bedroom so I can have you all to myself again.’

  I looked into his eyes and saw the yearning there despite the exhaustion. Erich was the only one home most of the time. The girls were more often at school or with their friends than at home, Mutti was out visiting the majority of the time and I was working.

  This was probably our only opportunity to make the house as functional as we could. I didn’t want to admit that I was tired of living like this too, crammed on top of each other. We now had an electric stove and refrigerator in the kitchen and a copper to do the washing, but conditions were still difficult.

  ‘The numbers don’t add up,’ I said, disheartened. ‘See for yourself.’ I pushed the notebook filled with his meticulous notes and costs across to him.

  ‘Well, we haven’t factored in our other incomes,’ he said. ‘I know it’s only a little extra but it all helps.’ Erich was trying to supplement our income in other ways while he was establishing his business. We’d started with pigs but they’d been too much work, smelly, and left the paddocks disfigured with bare, scarred earth. Then we’d tried turkeys and sold them at Christmas, making a modest profit. This year, Erich had been earmarking turpentine trees across the farm for sale as electricity poles.

  But there was no need for me to tell him what he already knew but was trying desperately to avoid – it still wouldn’t be enough. He pored over the numbers, reconfiguring and recalculating. The frustration made his body stiffen until he was as tightly coiled as a spring. He shifted and stretched his leg, rubbing the thigh where the worst break had been. Restless, I went to the kitchen to boil the kettle. It was going to be a long night and we could both do with a coffee.

  ‘We can’t do it,’ he said finally.

  I returned and draped my arms around him, kissing his neck. I knew the guilt he carried, the feeling that he’d let me down. ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ve managed this long, we’ll manage a little longer.’

  In the end, all we could do was sell part of the land to finance the build. It went against what we wanted, but we had no choice. So we picked five acres to sell.

  14

  The five acres sold within a couple of months and we could begin building shortly after. But it was a difficult few months, living among the building – draughty, dirty, dusty and chaotic. Thank God in heaven Erich was there to oversee all the work, because I would have lost my patience. I sighed every morning as I slipped into the driver’s seat of my little car, happy to be going somewhere that wasn’t gritty and noisy.

  Not only that, but all the activity had disturbed the local population of reptiles. It was a dry year and we were on constant lookout for lizards and snakes. One day, we heard a terrible screech out the back. My blood ran cold as I raced out of the laundry, my hands still sudsy, to see what had happened.

  Mutti was standing between the toilet and the house, frozen, staring at the grass near her feet, face white with fear.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked then stopped. Slithering away, heading for the safety of the trees, was a long black snake. I saw a flash of pink on its underside.

  Erich came around the side of the house in time to see it. Without missing a beat, he grabbed the canvas bag he’d left hanging on a hook, darted towards the snake, picked it up and stuffed it into the bag, head first, before it could reach back to bite him.

  ‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ I screamed.

  ‘It’s a red-belly black snake,’ said Erich, grinning widely and holding the bag tightly closed at arm’s length.

  ‘It could’ve bitten you,’ I said, my voice tight with anger. ‘What were you thinking?’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s not as venomous as the brown snake and I’ve been shown how to handle them properly.’ One of his friends from the door factory was now a budding taxidermist and regularly dealt with reptiles.

  He moved towards the kitchen.

  I eyed the bulging bag nervously. ‘Where do you think you’re going with that?’

  ‘I’m putting it in the freezer. Hermann will want this. It’s a lovely specimen.’

  ‘Not in the house!’ said Mutti, outraged.

  ‘It’s all right. It’ll be dead before long. Snakes don’t like the cold and it won’t be able to move in the freezer.’

  ‘Erich, no!’

  ‘I promise you, it’s safe.’ He opened the door, his eyes darting to the bag. ‘Just to be sure, don’t open the freezer,’ he said, after seeing the horror on our faces.

  Hermann did a beautiful job on the snake and gave it to us as a gift. Erich displayed it in pride of place on our bookshelf, next to photos of Johanna hugging Wolfie and Greta dressed in the knee-length lemon brocade dress I’d made for the school dance. The girls were fascinated by it but Mutti and I shivered whenever we looked at it.

  ‘How can you let him do such things?’ Mutti hissed. ‘It’s bad enough he put a live snake in your freezer and now this?’

  ‘It’s dead, Mutti,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t you defend him,’ she said, clearly exasperated. ‘After all your husband’s promises of a new life, luring you away from me and your family, it’s come to this.’ She spread her arms.

  ‘What? What do you mean by that?’ I stared at her, mortified. I couldn’t help myself, the old habit of reacting to her barbs coming back as if it had never left me. The old Mutti had returned with a vengeance.

  ‘We live in a hovel, surrounded by dangerous creatures, filth and dirt, in the middle of nowhere while you work your fingers to the bone day in and day out, and for what? To live worse off than when you were in Germany. You were going to have more children, but now look at you. With Erich injured and deciding to build furniture, you’ll have to continue working just as hard until you’re past childbearing age. There’s no money in furniture making. Besides, he’s never home when you are. He’s always off wasting his time with that union nonsense. He should be out there working two jobs if he has to, to provide for his family like a real man, rather than playing politics, something he has no business being involved in.’

  Mutti held my deepest fears and anxieties up in front of me so I couldn’t hide from them. How could she be so cruel?

  ‘You know nothing about Erich and me,’ I said in a low voice, trying not to tremble.

  ‘I can see you have no future with him. Why didn’t you listen to me all those years ago? Why didn’t you marry Heinrich? All I wanted for you was to have a good life, but you threw it all away.’

  ‘Stop it, Mutti! Stop dredging up the past! You know this wasn’t Erich’s fault. He’s done everything to make our lives manageable and after all that’s happened, we’re still standing and we have our own home, something we could never have afforded in Germany.’ I knew how protective Mutti was of me, I was all she had left and she didn’t want me to suffer the way she did before she married Vati. But she had to understand that this was my life to live.

  ‘He still asks after you, you know. He writes to me at Christmas.’ Her eyes glittered with sadness and regret.

  ‘I don’t want to know, Mutti. Heinrich’s living his life and I’m living mine. I chose Erich and we’re staying together. I love him more than ever and I’m grateful for him every day of my life. So don’t you dare speak about him that way. You don’t have to like what he does, but for my sake, just keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me?�
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  Mutti glared at me, furious. She’d expected me to back down but I’d had enough – there was plenty on my shoulders without her complaints and reminders of the past.

  She spun away from me and left the room. I heard her throw herself onto her bed and burst into tears. I stood there a moment, tempted to go to her and apologise, but then I remembered: this was my new life and I wasn’t going to be dragged back to my old one, caught in the controlling web of my mother’s whims. None of us enjoyed the mess we were living in, so my mother could put up with it too.

  The snake was gone the following day. Nobody made mention of it and I didn’t bother to ask who had moved it. But when I went out to the workshop, I discovered it sitting on one of the finished cabinets and I knew that Erich had heard our argument. My heart sank and I made a vow to keep the peace with my mother, no matter how much effort it took.

  There were other things I worried about, lurking at the edge of my mind. From time to time I’d noticed that some of our mail arrived unsealed, but I thought nothing of it at first. Then I realised that the odd letter or bill had been placed in the envelopes upside down or back to front.

  ‘I think someone’s opening our mail,’ I said to Claudia one Sunday when I couldn’t stand the dust and dirt any longer and had taken Mutti and the girls into Liverpool.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ she asked, her brows drawn into a deep frown. I told her what I’d found.

  ‘It’s only every now and then,’ I said as we walked to the café where the girls liked to go. We’d left the twins with Hilde and Mutti, and Anna and Peter had joined my girls, walking ahead of us so it looked like they were on their own and not with adults.

  They loved to get a milkshake and listen to songs on the jukebox, particularly those of Elvis Presley and the Beatles, especially Greta. It was something all their friends liked to do after school and I allowed them to go on a Friday afternoon. They met me after I finished work and we’d come home together. I had to let them have some social life now they were teenagers. Greta was sixteen already and quite gregarious and social, while at fourteen, Johanna was quieter and more studious. Although they had boys as friends, I was pleased that there was no talk of boyfriends just yet.

  ‘Have you noticed anything strange? Has Erich told you about anything unusual happening perhaps with the union?’

  ‘No. Mind you, he hasn’t got time for too much with the building work going on. He’s doing most of it himself even though his leg gives him terrible trouble by the end of the day. Then he’s short-tempered and grumpy and he tosses and turns so much at night that some mornings I think I’ve barely slept.’

  ‘He’s stubborn, that’s for sure.’

  ‘To his own detriment sometimes.’

  Claudia smiled and nodded but she looked thoughtful. ‘Well, I don’t know . . . Do you think someone’s reading your mail?’

  I looked sharply at her. ‘Why would anyone want to do that?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s the only explanation. Have you told Erich?’

  ‘No. I didn’t want to fight with him over something that might be nothing.’ Erich and I hadn’t spoken again about me asking him to quit the union, but it was a point of tension between us, though there was an uneasy truce since that emotional night.

  Claudia shook her head again, fine strands of hair slipping free from its pins. ‘I really don’t know, Lotte. Franz can have a wild imagination but what if it’s true, and Erich – and by extension all of you – are being watched?’

  ‘That’s ludicrous,’ I said, but my heart clutched with fear. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Claudia, though I could see that she wasn’t convinced.

  For a while everything seemed fine and I wondered if I’d imagined it all. Between work and the extensions, teenage daughters and a cranky husband and mother, I had little time or energy to waste on shadows. I wasn’t getting any younger and by the end of some days all I wanted was to put my aching feet up and a little time to myself. I’d never pictured being in this situation in my late thirties, still working so hard to get ahead. Yet I could see that it was finally coming together for us, there was light at the end of the tunnel. I wouldn’t let my exhausted worries take over. Anyway, everyone was distracted by Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War, with the government sending military advisers and planes to the region.

  ‘Surely the Australian government has more sense than that?’ said Mutti as we listened to the late-night news on the radio.

  ‘Apparently not,’ I said, looking up from the colouring work I was still doing for the Sydney studio. ‘But I have to say that I’m shocked by the decision.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Mutti, putting down the book she’d been reading. ‘I always thought that Australia was a peace-loving country, and the last war’s still so fresh in people’s memories, even here. What must all those poor people who left Europe for what they thought was an isolated country, sheltered from war, be thinking now?’

  It was true. None of us ever imagined Australia would become involved in a war far beyond its borders.

  ‘Australia’s had no choice,’ said Erich, putting his pen down with a sigh. He was writing up a report for the union. ‘It has to do with our obligations to the treaties we have. America’s become involved so now we have to. But Menzies has only agreed to a small advisory team joining the forces in South Vietnam.’

  ‘So there’s nothing to worry about?’ I asked.

  ‘As long as the military isn’t committed and the war stays on foreign soil, I’m sure the public will forget about our involvement within the month,’ he said. ‘I know the unions will protest if our commitment increases.’

  ‘At least some people have some sense,’ said Mutti, taking off her reading glasses. ‘How can anyone condone and promote war after what we’ve seen with the last two world wars?’ She tapped the heavy frame on the wooden arm of the chair. ‘It defies logic that we haven’t learnt from those devastating years.’

  ‘I doubt it will go any further than this,’ said Erich, trying to reassure both my mother and me. I hoped he was right.

  However, the threat of war came to our attention again two months later with the Cuban Missile Crisis: America blockaded Cuba after discovering that the Russians were building missile sites in the communist country. Many feared that we were once again on the brink of war, not only that but a nuclear war that would be so catastrophic it would devastate humanity. I shivered, remembering the shocking news about the devastation wreaked on Japan at the end of the war. I wondered why world leaders hadn’t had enough and thought seriously about joining the Peace Movement. Somebody had to take a stand. The world had to say no. Thank God Kennedy and Khrushchev had negotiated a diplomatic solution.

  *

  Karoline arrived in December. Waiting for her in the arrivals hall at Sydney Airport, I felt as nervous as I had been all those years ago when she came to live with us in Germany.

  When she appeared, she seemed tinier than I remembered, but she still moved with a vibrancy and strength that belied her years. She wore a simple dress, her grey hair nearly white but still plaited and pinned to her head in the style she had worn for as long as I had known her. She looked eagerly around the hall for Erich and her hazel eyes lit up with joy when she found him. Then she was in his arms, crying softly.

  ‘I’ve waited so long to see you,’ she said, while Erich clasped her to him like she was precious porcelain. ‘I was worried that I’d die before I saw you again. Just to touch you makes me feel that everything was worth the wait.’

  ‘You’re here now, Mutti,’ was all he could say, his emotions held tightly in check. I knew that when we got home, he would take a walk in the bush and allow the tide of emotion to wash over him so he could return to the house composed and calm.

  Then Karoline embraced me. ‘Lotte, it’s good to see you.’

  ‘And you too. The children can’t wait to see you. They’re a bit bigger than when you l
ast saw them.’

  Karoline laughed. ‘Yes, I know it’s been too long, but I’m glad to be here at last.’ She touched my face. ‘It looks like Australia suits you, my dear.’

  *

  Karoline settled in well. I soon discovered that although she still doted on Erich, she no longer felt like a threat to me. Inga and Erich’s other children were on the opposite side of the world and she accepted me as Erich’s wife, accepted that I was the one who made him happy.

  She now occupied the new front bedroom off the lounge room with a lovely view out over the garden. Erich had ensured that the fibro additions to both sides of the garage with their flat iron roofs blended in well so it now looked like more of a home than a garage and it gave us the four new bedrooms we desperately needed. We finally had a bedroom too on the opposite side of the lounge room and both girls had a room of their own for the first time, large enough for a desk each to do their homework. Mutti was able to keep her room, more spacious without the girls’ beds. The kitchen was extended out the back, making it bigger and allowing more space for a dining area and the bathroom shed was made part of the house. Erich even managed to build a workshop next to the carport for his furniture business. With carpet laid throughout and fresh curtains Mutti and I had made, the house felt a lot more comfortable and homely, a place I thought we all wanted to come home to.

  However, Karoline loved the garden most of all and she pottered about for much of the day, tending to the vegetable plot and the flower garden with such dedication that both flourished. Erich and I had planted the garden with the best of intentions but between building the extension and all the work we were both doing it had been sadly neglected. Now we had juicy tomatoes plucked off their vines at just the right time, salad greens, beans, celery, corn and potatoes. And patches of colour exploded around the house, the clusters of abundant blossoms making me smile whenever I drove up the driveway or looked out the windows.

  Although Karoline loved to be involved in whatever the girls were doing, they had their own lives now and didn’t spend so much time with either grandmother. Karoline and Mutti kept away from each other as much as possible. They understood that if the current living arrangements were going to work, they would need to employ restraint. They had never been friends and now living on top of each other only seemed to accentuate their differences. But Mutti was out most days of the week for at least a few hours and that seemed to remedy the situation.