The American Fiancee

by Eric Dupont

  “Then turn left and you’re there!”

  It was the first Sunday of Advent and she was carrying a wreath, like the ones Mom used to decorate the kitchen table with, do you remember? The other children would laugh at us because she’d insist on lighting all four candles before Christmas. As I climbed the staircase that made its way up between the homes and gardens, I was almost eaten alive by an enormous guard dog. It was ugly and stupid, trained to frighten people. Up above, there was a little Protestant church where people were singing Tochter Zion, freue dich, a hymn that rings out in German churches during Advent. It was so lovely that I stopped to listen. Do you know who composed it? Could you look it up? It’s so delightful. It’s almost enough to make you want to start going to church again.

  Villa Waldberta doesn’t look anything like a hospice. It’s a large, pale home built in the Bavarian style, with a little onion-shaped dome. Huge grounds overlook the wonderful lake, with trees so tall they must have already been standing in 1945. Idyllic surroundings: a cherry tree serving its buffet of frozen fruit to famished birds and a huge hemlock shaking a little of the previous night’s snowfall from its branches. My soul filled with a vast sense of relief. The place was perfectly relaxing.

  As I approached the house, a little chihuahua began to bark. He made me think of that Wotan, your D’Ambrosio’s dog. A nasty little mutt. I rang the doorbell. The chihuahua was running rings around my legs. Someone had dressed it in a little tartan coat and four little booties so its feet wouldn’t freeze. The service entrance opened and a stout little woman was standing there, a broom in her hand.

  “Can I help you?”

  She looked like she owned the place. I didn’t need to say much. A few words and my accent gave me away.

  “You’re the Canadian from Berlin? Terese is expecting you at noon. Would you like to warm up in the kitchen?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Be quiet, Merlin! Merlin’s the guard dog. He won’t bite. I’m Berta.”

  “You seem a little young to be living here.”

  “I don’t live here. I just look after the house. It’s enormous. There are six apartments to clean, the common rooms, shopping to do for the residents. I never stop!”

  “Did you change your name to match the villa’s?”

  “Ha! Nothing gets by you. Listen, knowing Terese, she might have forgotten you’re coming. She mentioned it to me yesterday, but given her age, I’d rather go up and see first. Come in, come in, or the damned dog will never stop. It’s freezing. Merlin, shut up! And your name is . . . ? Oh, hang on, she told me just this morning at breakfast . . .”

  “Maybe she’s at mass.”

  “Ha! You obviously don’t know Terese. No, I’m quite certain she’s not at mass. Hee-hee! I’ll have to tell the gardener that one. At mass! Terese! Please, what’s your name again?”

  “Lamontagne, Gabriel Lamontagne.”

  Since she couldn’t pronounce Lamontagne and I found her quite charming, I said she should call me Gabriel.

  “I won’t shake your hand, Kapriel. God only knows what I might catch. People are covered in germs. Just two weeks ago, an electrician came to do some work and gave me the flu. The second since October, I’m telling you. And you have to be careful around the old dears. So try not to touch the door frames or the handles. You took the train, didn’t you? Full of germs! A petri dish on rails! Would you mind washing your hands in the sink here before I let you up? You can’t be too careful. That’s what my mother always said.”

  It was just like I was back at home, Michel. You’d have sworn it was Mom with her rags and bleach. You know what I mean. And she talked, on and on in that accent from the depths of Bavaria that I barely understand. At least one word in three was lost on me. She showed me into the kitchen and went off to tell Terese that I was there. Inside the villa everything was very Bavarian, with Jugendstil furniture and a forest-green tiled masonry stove. I wondered whose bright idea it was to put a bunch of old people who had trouble walking in a house with so many floors and staircases everywhere you looked. A platform elevator answered part of my question. It clicked on with a dull, electrical sound and Terese came down slowly to the main floor. And as the old German lady descended from her little nest on high down to where the mere mortals roamed, I considered the question that I hadn’t asked because I’d been caught up in the moment, without stopping to think what I was going to ask Terese. What exactly did I want from the woman? For her to come visit us in Berlin at the end of January? Would she even be able to? And what did she remember of Magda? For the first time, Michel, I thought about the reasons that had led me to take an eight-hour train journey only to end up in this movie set of a place where suddenly I couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying. Would Terese remember anything other than the 1930s? And if they hadn’t found each other since the wall fell in 1989, wasn’t that a sign that fate had separated them forever? Perhaps each one thought the other was dead. When you hit eighty, are you really going to start looking for your high-school friends? The platform moved as slowly as my questions; I still had two seconds left to leap off the sofa and make a run for the exit before Terese saw me. And I should have run, now that I think about it. I should have gotten out of there. The platform stopped two seconds later and at last the woman in the wheelchair was in front of me. Berta was behind her, smiling.

  “She hadn’t forgotten. Isn’t that right, Terese? It’s Mr. Montaigne!”

  “Lamontagne,” I corrected her.

  Her back was to the light, so I didn’t have a clear view of Terese’s face. Berta pushed her wheelchair into a nicely decorated room and left us to it. Through the glass door, I could see her spraying more disinfectant where I’d been sitting on the sofa. Remind you of anyone? Terese was almost exactly as I’d imagined her. She was wearing a long Bavarian-style dress with green flounces. She was fairly well built. Not as fat as Magda, but not far off, and rather barrel-shaped. She smiled. And I swear, dear brother, in her hair—tied up in a nice little braided bun—she was wearing the amber barrette that had once belonged to Mademoiselle Jacques.

  “So you’re Magda’s friend! You’ve taken me back years and years, Kapriel. May I call you Kapriel? You’re so young . . .”

  “If I can call you Terese.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Are there many of you in the villa?”

  “Ten. There are six apartments. Four couples and two old women like me. It used to be an artists’ residence, but the Bavarian government turned it into an old folks’ home. I was fortunate enough to get one of the apartments.”

  “How does a singing teacher from Charlottenburg wind up in Bavaria?”

  To my great surprise, Terese got up from her wheelchair before answering my question.

  “Relax, it’s not a Christmas miracle! I just wanted to play a little joke on you! Ha! You should have seen the look on your face! I only use this wretched chair on the platform, but I can walk otherwise.”

  I really hadn’t seen it coming. She glanced over at the front door. Berta was outside.

  “She’s gone out. I can light one up. I’m not allowed to, strictly speaking, but it’s Sunday. Do you smoke?”

  “No, never.”

  “Very wise. It’s very bad for your health. And you don’t have the physique of a smoker.”

  She took out a silver cigarette case with her initials on it—TB, as in tuberculosis!—and lit a long cigarette. There was something about her, a touch of La Cage aux folles that amused me. She reminded me of someone out of an opera, but I can’t remember which one. Probably every woman in every opera. That’s who Terese Bleibtreu reminded me of. She wanted to hear my story. Then she told me hers. She’d fled the advancing Red Army, too. She’d even made it to Bavaria only days before Berlin fell. She stayed on after the war, in the zone occupied by the Americans.

  “In East Germany, under the Russians, they’d nothing to eat for years. Here, very quickly, no one went hungry. And I’m Catholic: it wa
s easy to settle here. I had family on my mother’s side in Tutzing, the town at the end of the S-Bahn line. I put down roots here and taught music in college. Then I was a choirmistress for a while.”

  She’d known the GIs, she told me; some had even fallen in love. Right after the war, refugees from the East flocked to Villa Waldberta. Jews, mostly. There and at the Feldafing camp, they waited for visas to America or Argentina.

  “Many went to Canada, I recall. They all wanted to go to Canada. Some of the people who lived in this luxury villa were Auschwitz survivors. They were dumped here. They were sick and everything . . . Many died here. Too weak. After that, the house was used by the planning committee for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Then the artists moved in. Painters, writers, musicians, people from everywhere came to work at the villa. Back then, I remember, I was still in Tutzing; in 1992, I came to hear some Brazilian musicians. Their music was so delightful.”

  “But nothing beats Schubert’s Ständchen . . .”

  She stopped, looking a bit put off.

  “She told you about the serenade? Magda’s never been one to hold her tongue. How is she? No! Wait! I’ll get us a scotch, then you can tell me how Magda of Prussia is doing. Ha! I’m going to have a nice afternoon to myself with this handsome young American. Stop blushing—I’m not the first to flirt with you. Sit down so they can see you from the hall. That’s it. I want to make absolutely sure Frau Namberger sees you on her way back in from mass with that senile old husband of hers. It’ll kill the old cow! Now be a dear and play along . . .”

  She poured two scotches, no ice, then went on with her story, not stopping to listen to mine. She had taught music in Tutzing, then retired like everyone else. After she had fallen in her bathtub, they’d said she should move into a retirement home. She didn’t like the people she lived with in Tutzing. She found a place in Starnberg, but this time she didn’t like the staff (not clean enough for her liking). Then Villa Waldberta opened its doors and she’d been lucky enough to get her hands on an apartment there.

  “It’s not for everyone. You have to like peace and quiet. Magda would have died of boredom. She hasn’t changed, I expect. She always needed to be in the thick of the action, always moving, always stirring the shit somewhere. Oh, but you’ll think I’m still bitter over Ludwig. I take it back.”

  Already I sensed I’d made a big mistake. I’d opened a German Pandora’s box, dreamed up by the craziest producer imaginable.

  “She loved Tosca. That I know. She and Ludwig, my little brother, must have seen that particular opera dozens of times together.”

  “Yes, and no doubt having a father who worked for KdF made it easier to get tickets.”

  “KdF?”

  “Yes. Kraft durch Freude. You remember, don’t you? The big travel and entertainment agency in the 1930s.”

  “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

  “Did I say something funny?”

  “She told you her father worked for Kraft durch Freude? Interesting.”

  I didn’t like the way her tone of voice had changed, as though she was preparing to reveal everything. How was I supposed to know if Magda’s father, Alfred, had worked for KdF or not? I’d no idea who my own father even was, I felt like telling her. I don’t even know what he did for a living, and that hasn’t stopped me from having a life of my own, from doing things . . . I didn’t want to antagonize her, but already I could tell there was something unresolved between Magda and her.

  “She also told me you play the piano very well and that your brother Ludwig was a wonderful baritone.”

  “Light baritone,” she corrected me. “His timbre was light. He was light in all things.”

  “I wanted to surprise her for her birthday. Is your brother Ludwig still alive?”

  “Why, of course not! What a strange question! Does she really think he’s still alive? Be honest with me, Kapriel: is Magda Berg walking around Berlin saying my brother is still alive? Has she lost her mind like the Nambergers?”

  “No! No! She only told me how she loved him, all the stories, the little cross . . .”

  “She told you about the little cross?”

  She looked ready to throw her scotch in my face. She lit another cigarette. The air in the little living room began to thicken. We heard Berta’s footsteps. She wasn’t at all happy that Terese had decided to light up in there.

  “Then please, my dear Berta, explain to me what an ashtray’s doing in here?”

  “It’s a decoration. It’s an antique.”

  “Because there’s a little swastika on the bottom? That’s why we keep it? As a reminder of the days when they made German shepherds out of porcelain?”

  “What do you mean, a swastika?”

  “I’m joking. I have every right to smoke on the ground floor. My lease couldn’t be clearer. Your own mother smoked, Berta. So they tell me. So why are you intent on giving smokers such a hard time?”

  “Because it’s a filthy habit!”

  “Get out of here, Berta.”

  She slammed the door behind her. Mom really does have a long-lost sister in Germany. No two ways about it. Terese opened a window so that I had some fresh air.

  “I have no idea what you do know, young man. I have no idea where you come from or how you stumbled across Magda in Berlin-Lichtenberg. You say ‘Canada,’ she says, ‘Kraft durch Freude’ and I’m supposed to believe you, just like you believe her little stories! Why are you even interested in all these stories about . . . about . . . ?”

  “About Germany?”

  “Yes. All these stories about Germany.”

  “I think it’s too late to be asking now. Sometimes it’s Germany that takes an interest in us.”

  “Quite.”

  “Your cigarette’s out.”

  “I know. They go out all the time. Like everything. They only last for so long.”

  “Could you be more precise?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t want to know a thing. All I wanted was to surprise Magda for her birthday on January 30.”

  “You’re very nice. That’s a very ‘New World’ thing to do. Together again for her birthday! It’s not very German. Here, what’s buried stays buried. We let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “Terese, if you have something to say to Magda, if you have a gripe with her, I can—”

  “A gripe? No, that’s not it at all! I won’t be going to Berlin. But since you’ve come so far to see me, I owe you an explanation. Actually, I replied to your letter precisely because of that little gold cross.”

  “Ludwig’s cross?”

  “Yes, Ludwig’s cross. Does she still wear it?”

  “I . . . Perhaps. I’m not sure.”

  “But I’m boring you with all this talk of jewelry! You want to know why I won’t be going to Berlin. I’d be lying if I said I was too lazy or too ill.”

  “Don’t feel obliged to tell me everything. If you don’t want to come, that’s fine. I won’t be offended. But she’s told me so much about Ludwig and the 1930s that I was curious to meet you.”

  Terese looked out the window. She fell silent. And then, without looking up at me, she began to talk.

  “When the Bergs arrived from Königsberg in 1934, Magda just about had a nervous breakdown she missed home so much. In the city, she looked a little like you do here: like a lost lumberjack. She was very masculine. She walked like a Wehrmacht officer. And Ludwig was just the opposite, if you catch my drift. I realized from a very early age that I’d have to protect my little brother. I knew why I’d need to protect him, but not from whom. If I’d known that, he might still be with us today, but I didn’t. No more than Magda was able to protect her little sister.”

  “Her sister? Magda had a sister?”

  “Oh . . . She didn’t tell you about her sister Elisabeth? A shame . . .”

  By that point, Michel, I knew it was too late. A dog barked outside. A crow cawed. Two old people came in, probably the Nambergers she’d mentioned earlier
. The old woman smiled at me and glanced over at Terese, who gave her a knowing look. The old man looked completely lost. They went up to their apartment.

  “That’s her, the Namberger woman. Thank you, Kapriel, you’re a darling.”

  “You were saying that Magda had a sister . . .”

  “Are Canadians fond of stories?”

  “Canadians love stories. If they didn’t tell them, there wouldn’t be a Canada today.”

  “Even ones that end badly?”

  “Your stories often end in Canada . . .”

  “You can be quite witty when you put your mind to it. Let me pour you a little more scotch, my dear Mr. Lamontagne. I’m starting to realize that with you, things need to be explained clearly and slowly. And you have the same name as she does!”

  Terese finally told me her story. I was starting to see why Magda had never gone off looking for her.

  “If I’m to remember everything, I must first think back to everything Ludwig told us about Magda. From 1935 to 1939, they were inseparable. Much of what I know of her, I learned from him. My dealings with her were limited to singing and teaching her music. We music teachers learn more about our students than they ever do about us, even if we’re the ones talking the whole time. Because you never learn from someone directly. What you really know about a person, you learn through other people. It sounds cynical, but that’s how it is.