Palace of Tears

by Julian Leatherdale

  Adam tried not to look back for fear of being overwhelmed by a sense of failure. His son Alan had turned thirteen in March: the same age as Robbie when he died. In seven years’ time Adam would resign and give Alan the keys to the kingdom. He would be twenty, the same age as Adam when he took on responsibility for the family business. He had no doubts about his son’s abilities: smart, hard-working, dependable. But the shameful truth that Adam kept locked in his heart was how much he missed Robbie’s bald-faced cheek. It had reminded Adam so much of himself at the same age. It was not there in Alan, that reckless passion. Maybe that was a good thing. Passion and risk built empires but cooler heads kept them safe.

  How he cherished his two daughters, both with an intelligence and independent spirit that reminded him of their mother. Lottie was the more stolid of the two, even timid at times, despite being the older sister, but she had a good and tender heart and for many years had always stood up for Monika, who was the natural troublemaker. In the last two years she had also blossomed into a beauty.

  If that spirit of risk and rebellion that was missing in Alan had found an outlet, then its vessel was his youngest daughter, Monika. There was a fearlessness in Monika that impressed and, at times, even scared Adam. He knew instinctively that her fate, for better or worse, would not be that of a dutiful wife and mother. The unspoken truth that Adam struggled and largely failed to conceal was that Monika was his favourite.

  Adam looked at the photograph he kept of Laura on his desk. His proud Queen of the Palace. He was deeply saddened by his own distrust of her. Once, like Conan Doyle, he would have died happily with the words ‘you are wonderful’ on his lips for his beautiful wife. If death came to claim him this very minute, he would still declare his love for her without hesitation. But did she still love him? That was the question that tormented him: the canker in the bloom of his near-perfect life, the crack in the mirror of his self-image. Why had she changed, become so withdrawn and secretive? What was she hiding from him? He did not dare put his greatest fear into words for it would surely break his heart and make a mockery of their whole marriage.

  Adam made a vow not to let any of these private worries spoil the plans for his grand show. The people of Meadow Springs and beyond would have their party: a banquet for four hundred with a brass band on the terrace to welcome them and a chamber orchestra to accompany dinner. The occasion would mix the elegance of the Edwardian Palace with the sassiness of the Jazz Age hotel. The Palace would rise from the ashes of the war years as magnificent as ever.

  On 4 July 1945, the night sky was crisp with the promise of snow. The American and Australian flags rippled smartly side by side over the casino dome. The brass band on the terrace played ‘The Stars and Stripes’ followed by ‘God Save the King’ before ripping into raucous big-band swing numbers and foot-thumping Dixieland rags. Adam’s guests were war-weary and sick to their stomachs of penny-pinching for Austerity. They welcomed the chance to kick up their heels. Hell, they’d just defeated Hitler and Mussolini: weren’t they entitled to one night of celebration? For the sake of public appearances, Adam had donated a princely sum to the next War Loan and guests bought raffle tickets to raise money for starving refugees in Europe.

  Adam had also invited a contingent of distinguished Yanks, including the American consul and a rear-admiral from the US navy. In the spirit of the fourth of July, fireworks tore the starry blackness open in waterfalls of red, white and blue. Guests crowded the terrace, clutching champagne glasses and admiring the spectacle overhead.

  Laura stood at her husband’s elbow, resplendent in a crimson Hattie Carnegie gown, straight off the boat from New York and sparkling like the fireworks above. Adam’s heart ached at his wife’s beauty. At forty-four, Laura was still the unrivalled Queen of the Palace. She had dressed her hair into a jet-black curve, swept high off her pale forehead in rich, wavy curls, with a glossy cascade of Victory rolls down to her shoulders. A cloud of spotted gauze seemed to float of its own will above her head, like balls of black pollen suspended on a breeze. She wore six long loops of cultured pearls with a studied insouciance that would have delighted Coco Chanel. Their lustre drew Adam’s eye to the flesh of her throat. He remembered kissing that throat when they were both much younger. In his new gallery, the night of the fire, all those years ago. His most precious artwork. He remembered how insanely he had craved her then. He still craved her now.

  Laura drained her glass of champagne and reached for a second as a waiter passed close by. Whatever rancour or suspicion had dogged her and Adam these last two years seemed a distant memory tonight. She smiled at him without the slightest hint of reserve. For a moment, Adam dared imagine Laura looked happy. Maybe this evening would recapture some of the carefree mood of parties past.

  ‘Congratulations,’ she toasted her husband. ‘And many happy returns.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear.’ Adam smiled. ‘It feels good to see the place back to her old self again.’

  ‘She ages very graciously. Like her owner.’ Laura adjusted the lapel of Adam’s jacket in an intimate wifely way. ‘Why are you so good at this?’ she asked.

  ‘At what?’

  ‘All this.’ She swept her hand over the scene: the gleaming sea of dinner suits and ball gowns, rippling with excited chatter and laughter. ‘Making people happy. Giving them these moments of escape. From life’s dullness. And disappointments.’

  ‘Who knows? Born with it, I guess. Gift of the blarney and all that. Freya used to call me “the ringmaster”. And not as a compliment either.’ Adam laughed at the memory of Freya’s scowl. ‘Mind you, she loved the parties at the Palace back then just as much as I did.’

  ‘She loved you too, didn’t she?’

  Laura drained the second glass. She looked directly at Adam. There was a puzzling expression in her eyes, one he could not decipher clearly. They had spoken of Freya of course. And Adelina. Many times. How could they not? Adam’s past was not a closed book, though he chose not to dwell on it in a maudlin way. This relaunch of the Palace naturally brought back memories.

  ‘Yes. She did.’

  He was surprised to hear the tremor in his own voice. Where did it come from? Guilt over his dealings with Freya? Or did it arise from something else? A more general sadness and regret that came from the awful realisation that the story of his life was almost written and, in the words of the Persian poet, ‘nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it’. His history would one day lie open for all to read and judge: the strokes of luck, the lost opportunities, the triumphal decisions, the catastrophic mistakes, the people he’d protected and those he had betrayed.

  ‘Yes. She did.’ Laura echoed. She grabbed a third glass from a passing tray and held it aloft, proposing a toast. ‘Here’s to happiness! Adam Fox’s gift to the world!’

  There was a note of careless abandon in her voice and her eyes blazed with a reckless, wild light that Adam remembered well from her youth. She spilled some of the glass but did not seem to care or notice. Several guests within earshot joined Laura’s toast. ‘To happiness! And to Mr Fox!’ they chorused, the clouds of bubbles in their raised champagne glasses reflecting the explosions of silver light overhead.

  The dinner was a triumph. Instructed to prepare a banquet in celebration of Australia and America’s wartime friendship, Chef Fabrice had conjured gourmet variations on popular American dishes: glazed pork ribs flambéed in Calvados, minced venison terrine moulded to resemble a meatloaf with hand-cut pommes frites ‘on the side’, and miniature pumpkin pies with Chantilly cream. A chamber orchestra accompanied the meal with selections from Gershwin, Barber, Copland and Grainger.

  The crowning glory of the seven-course extravaganza was wheeled out on a trolley, illuminated by ranks of fizzing sparklers and proclaimed by the trumpets of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. Fabrice had excelled himself. All eyes were drawn to the replica of the casino dome as a very large bombe Alaska: a mound of frozen peanut-brittle ice-cream surrounded by sponge cake and merin
gue, sculpted to resemble the dome and baked to a golden honey-brown.

  ‘Bravo!’ someone cried. Others joined in. Soon, the crowd of diners were cheering and clapping and stamping their feet loud enough to make the floorboards thrum. Amid this tumult, Adam Fox stood up and walked to the bombe. As a treat, the three Fox offspring – Lottie, Monika and Alan – had been ushered in to watch their father light his birthday cake.

  The lights in the casino were turned down. In the artificial gloom, the audience could make out Chef Fabrice in his chef whites striding to the table to assist the hotelier. The crowd’s clapping became a chant – ‘Fox! Fox! Fox!’ – as the septuagenarian stepped forward with a burning taper held high. Flourishing a flask of brandy, he splashed it over the dessert and lit the brandy vapour. It caught with a woof and the dome was engulfed, waves of unearthly blue flame flowing over its surface. The audience began to applaud.

  Only Adam heard the chair fall, pushed over backwards as its occupant struggled to escape. His face spasmed, white with rage, which he did his best to conceal. He looked up and saw her, Laura, hurrying out, her mouth covered to stifle a sob. She swept past her three children without so much as a backward glance.

  The applause continued to rise to a deafening crescendo and Adam grinned and took a bow. It was unclear how many of the audience had seen Laura’s dramatic exit, if any, or would notice her absence at his side when he resumed his seat. Even so, the moment of Adam’s triumph was spoiled. I will never forgive you for this was the first thought that erupted into his mind as he struggled to control his temper.

  Back in his seat, Adam Fox acknowledged the admiration and congratulations of the throng of well-wishers that crowded around him. The nanny had already ushered the children back home. Maybe their mother had joined them in the waiting car. He knew he should probably rush away now to see what it was that had upset Laura. Nobody could accuse him of not being a loving and dutiful husband. It was just that he wanted this evening to be perfect. Was that so wrong?

  At that precise moment, Adam’s mind reeled back to a similar night long ago in the library. Adelina weeping in the darkness. The looks of horror and pity on his guests’ faces. The past reaching out again and again to punish him. Dear God, when would he ever be rid of these ghosts?

  CHAPTER 27

  * * *

  Monika

  Leura and Meadow Springs, August 1945–July 1946

  Now Monika had a secret and it was the greatest secret of her life.

  The war had come to an end in August 1945 but it continued to cast long shadows. In June, Monika’s friend Maggie Merewether had got her last V-mail from her sergeant, one of the fourteen thousand American soldiers killed on Okinawa only weeks before two atom bombs forced the surrender of Japan. Maggie withdrew from the world with a shattered heart and vanished from Monika and Lottie’s lives. The following January, her brother, Roger – the boofhead and drongo – finally made it home from Singapore, reduced to a pitiful skeleton after his trials on the Burma–Thailand railway but alive at least and recovering in Concord Repat. Monika went to visit him with her mother and they both came away shaken.

  Monika barely saw her father, who spent most of his days on the golf links at Blackheath or Leura, or having lunch or drinks with friends in the city. She missed him dreadfully and was jealous of her brother, Alan, who was now the focus of the old man’s attention. Alan was being groomed as Adam’s successor and had recently started lessons behind the wheel of the Hudson under his father’s watchful eye.

  Matriculating from Osborne College in November with high marks in her leaving exams, Monika began her diploma at Sydney Teachers College in January 1946. She and Lottie shared rooms in a family friend’s house at Darling Point. Lottie was also a student: of shorthand and typing during the day and the dance steps, smooth banter and spending power of eligible Sydney bachelors at night. Monika tagged along as chaperone on some of these evenings and wound up feeling resentful that Lottie, extroverted and glamorous, drew all the attention. Who would have thought timid little Lottie would turn out just like Mother? mused Monika as she watched her older sister bewitching all her dance partners.

  Monika returned home to visit her parents on weekends to play tennis and croquet, go for walks and show off her father’s hotel to her new girlfriends from college. Out of class, she had taken to wearing bright red lipstick, a silk headscarf and Gene Tierney sunglasses to acquire some of that femme fatale’s dangerous allure. Which was how one hot, windy afternoon in early February she came to meet Brün Faber.

  Her secret love.

  Monika wrote in her diary:

  The Palace! The last place on earth I imagined meeting anyone, least of all someone like him. There I was on the terrace with Lucy and Di from college when the wind snatched the scarf off my head and blew it halfway down the slope to Sun Bath Road. This tall bloke appeared out of nowhere, retrieved my scarf and brought it to me like a chivalrous knight bearing a gift to his lady love. ‘I believe this is yours,’ he said solemnly and bowed. ‘How did you know?’ I asked. He had blushed then, confessing he had been watching me on the terrace. ‘You are the daughter of Mr Fox, yes?’

  I swear I have never laid eyes on a man so handsome in my whole life. His hair is spun gold and his eyes are slivers of turquoise. I still find it hard to believe he is real. So gallant. So exotic. So forbidden. My very own German. Brün. His family are refugees who came on one of the first boats out of Europe. They now live in Lithgow where his father runs the brewery and Brün delivers the beer to my family’s hotel. He asked to see me again. Next week. Is this not fate? My parents must never know. Especially my father.

  There were probably many reasons for Monika’s attraction to Brün which ignited so swiftly into romantic love. But the simplest of these reasons was Brün’s beauty and bearing. Six foot two inches tall, he had an athletic physique: broad shoulders, wide chest and muscular legs and arms from the daily demands of loading and unloading crates of beer. His face had the symmetry and flawless complexion of golden youth while his blond hair, cropped close to his skull, had the sheen of polished brass.

  Beyond that surface beauty, but at the same time suffusing it with injured nobility, was the fact that Brün had suffered. At the age of seventeen, he had seen and done and heard things that were beyond the darkest and most lurid imaginings of a young girl from the Blue Mountains. Brün had grown up as a boy in Hitler’s Germany, watched its rise to glory and witnessed its utter ruin. His family had fled east from Berlin to Dresden and survived the fire-bombing there. To Monika he was a Teutonic knight, scarred from the flames of a modern-day Götterdämmerung.

  With only a tentative command of English and the reticence to be expected of a wartime refugee, especially one from a former enemy nation, Brün did not surrender his story all at once. It took intimacy and trust for that story to find its voice and for the writer within Monika to listen without judgement. And so, over the next five months, Brün and Monika discovered each other slowly and tantalisingly in their clandestine meetings every Saturday afternoon.

  Monika cloaked these encounters in the guise of enrolment in a camera club that met for regular bushwalks in the upper mountains on weekends. Laura was delighted to hear that her daughter had taken up a hobby dear to her own heart but that also gave her an excuse to visit. With the tense atmosphere at home, Monika was a welcome companion for her mother and a distraction from her troubles. Adam usually absented himself at the golf club while Laura and Monika sat on the veranda reading magazines, listening to songs on the radio, drinking tea and nibbling biscuits.

  Countless times Monika felt the urge to confess her secret love to her mother but fear held her back; not so much the fear of her mother’s disapproval, though that was a potent and intimidating prospect, but fear of the even worse possibility that Laura would confess her own secret love.

  That would be too much to bear.

  And so for nearly five blissful months, Monika’s simple deception was sustained. He
r best friend, Di, would take Monika’s camera on the photographic club’s expeditions and return with a full roll of photos to be printed and shown off to Laura if she asked. It didn’t take Monika long to work out the best place for her and Brün to steal a blissful half-hour or longer together from his weekend delivery run. She had seen where her father hid the key for the cottage in a downpipe of the old painter’s studio and knew a way through the hedge to avoid being seen by anyone at the hotel. Unknown to Monika, this was the second time that young forbidden love had perfected its repertoire of caresses and kisses in Freya von Gettner’s humble cottage.

  Monika’s diary waxed lyrical about her new love with all its attendant ecstasies and anxieties. Brün loved Monika’s philosophical frame of mind and they talked about life and death and art with great earnestness. He was an honourable young man from a Catholic family and so his repeated declarations of love and his intention to marry Monika were pure-hearted.

  Monika trusted all this to be true but she was still torn. She loved Brün passionately. She wanted their cottage-time of hugging, holding, stroking, kissing, touching to never end. But she did not want to think beyond that. She was greedy for him. And greedy for his stories, which were unlike anything she had ever heard or imagined.

  One afternoon, Brün finally told Monika about Dresden. He described the night the bombers came, turning the city into a manmade hell where everything burned: the streets burned, the buildings burned, the people burned. He had seen men and women drop dead at his feet, asphyxiated as the fire sucked the oxygen from the air. He had seen a young mother stumble and let the bundle in her arms fly in an arc into the flames. He had seen the hot wind seize people like dead leaves and pull them back inside the burning buildings. He had seen cremated adults shrunk to the size of children, whole families burned in a huddle. He had whispered to himself over and over: ‘Please don’t let me burn. Please don’t let me burn. Please don’t let me burn.’ He had lost his aunt and uncle and one of his sisters.