by JH Fletcher
‘A piece of paper.’ Ruth let her anger warm her. ‘He had every right to enter the country.’
‘Under his own name!’
‘But what real offence has he committed by coming here? Oh, he’s got the wrong piece of paper, certainly. The bureaucrats won’t like that. But real crimes? Nothing.’
‘You don’t call murder a real crime?’
‘If I can prove to you that he wasn’t morally responsible for what happened in Gautier,’ Ruth said, ‘will you be willing to forget all about it?’
‘Mother, I am the Premier of this State. How can I close my eyes to a deliberate breach of the laws of the country?’
Ruth spread her hands upon the table top, studied them in silence. Be careful, she counselled herself, don’t lose her now. Yet knew what must be said. From somewhere found the courage.
‘A month ago you asked me to lend you some money.’
Roberta’s face went white. ‘My God, Mother —’
‘Think,’ Ruth interjected urgently. ‘Don’t say anything. Think!’
For several minutes Roberta did so, then took a deep breath. ‘Perhaps you’d better tell me what happened,’ she said at length. Ruth reached out, gathered her daughter’s hand into her own. ‘Thank you.’
It was an hour before she finished.
‘You believe him?’ Roberta asked.
‘Absolutely.’
‘You’re fond of him, aren’t you.’ It was not a question.
A pause while Ruth considered her answer. ‘When I was young I thought I was passionately in love with him. Then he went away to Germany. When he came back he’d changed. I don’t know if I was still in love but I certainly didn’t like him. No one could; he was obnoxious. After the war I suppose I felt sorry for him — everything had gone wrong for him — but never doubted he would sort things out in the end. He’d always been good at looking after his own interests.’
‘And to hell with everyone else?’
She hesitated. ‘I suppose so.’
‘I’m surprised you bother with him, then.’
‘I haven’t set eyes on him for forty years and yet he’ll always be a part of my life. Got to be; he’s the only one left I can talk to about my childhood.’
‘And have you?’ It was hard to imagine her self-possessed mother exchanging childhood confidences.
Ruth smiled. She was confident now, knowing she had won. ‘No. But it’s nice to know I can if I want to.’
In the chopper flying back to Adelaide Roberta thought, If it ever comes out I’ve been covering up for a suspected war criminal there’ll be hell to pay. I don’t think I can risk it. But if I bring it out and the voters think I’ve dobbed in my own mother they’ll crucify me for sure. That Getz woman is the key. If only I knew what she was going to do.
At Port Matlock Ruth walked the beach. Up and down, up and down. It was dark by the time she had decided what she must do.
She climbed the steps from the beach, walked across the lawn and went into the house.
She opened her pocket telephone directory and dialled a number. At the other end the phone lifted.
‘My dear,’ Ruth said, ‘there’s something I have to tell you.’
She did so, speaking slowly, deliberately.
At one point the voice broke in despairingly.
‘No,’ she said, ‘there is a way. Let me tell you what we must do.’
Franz put down the phone. Click. Went into the living room where Louise was reading. She looked up at him. Frowned.
‘You all right?’
Mechanically he said, ‘I am fine.’
Despite his efforts she must have seen on his features some shadow of the apprehension come suddenly to fruition after flowering in darkness for so many years.
‘You sure?’
‘Of course. But I am going to my study for a while.’
He sensed her concerned eyes upon him as he crossed the room. I am shuffling, he thought. I may be an old man but I do not have to shuffle. He straightened his shoulders, went into the study, closed the door behind him, leaned against it.
Self-assurance said, I am proud. As I have always been. As I shall always be. Yet beneath the confidence felt the drum beat of gathering terror. What do I do? What do I do?
That Ukrainian, last year. Polyukhovich. He tried to kill himself rather than face the judges. An action that had not protected his family. The ranting headlines … You must not permit that to happen to Louise, he thought. Killing yourself is not the answer. On the other hand to do nothing is also unthinkable.
What will happen? You will be put on trial. They will not care that you had no say in the matter, that if you had not done it more people would have died. So easy to be righteous when you have never been in the situation. You will go to prison. They may even say you committed treason by fighting for Germany in the first place. Perhaps you did. Who knows? It was a lifetime ago, as though a different man had done it. You did what you did; afterwards, right or wrong, it was too late.
Let us do what Ruth suggested, he thought. What is there to lose? I shall ring and tell her to do what has to be done. But there is something I have to do first.
He went back into the living room.
Louise watched him. ‘There is something wrong. I know it.’
He sat down. ‘Nothing wrong. But something I have to tell you.’
Face white, eyes wet. ‘All this time …’
He shrugged. He was naked before her, everything stripped bare. It had been a hard thing to do. He could say nothing more to explain, to justify. He had told her the truth, as far as truth was possible. Or at least the facts. What else could he say, after all?
‘You could have trusted me.’
He thought she was accusing him of disloyalty. ‘I didn’t want you to carry the same burden that I have all this time.’
She got up. Came to him slowly. He looked at her, waiting. For abuse. Contempt. Rejection.
She extended her hands, took his. ‘I love you, Daddy.’
Tears. He thought, There was a time when you would not have wept but now you are an old man and things are different. He freed his hand, wiped his scalding eyes. ‘I am sorry —’
‘Don’t be.’ She, too, was weeping.
His head against her breast, rocking.
Barbara Getz emerged from the hotel lift and stared at the three people waiting for her. ‘A regular deputation. Let’s go get some coffee.’
‘We should talk first,’ Ruth said.
Barbara eyed her warily. ‘Okay.’
She led the way to some settees clustered around a low table in a corner of the foyer. They sat down. She stared at them appraisingly. ‘So talk.’
‘George is my cousin,’ Ruth said. ‘That is to say, he is the son by his first wife of the man whom my aunt married.’
The meticulousness of the description clearly mattered to her.
‘I see,’ Barbara said. But did not. It explained why they knew each other but nothing else, created more questions than answers. She turned to George. If that were indeed his name. ‘You told me you fought for Germany in World War Two. Was that true?’
‘Yes.’
There had to be more.
‘You’d better tell me what this is all about.’ Because she resented the prospect of receiving unwanted confidences, Barbara added, ‘One word of warning …’
They watched her.
‘I’m Jewish. With all that implies about Germany and the Germans. You want to tell me something, go ahead. I make no promises how I shall react if I don’t like what I hear.’
‘That is understood,’ George said heavily.
‘Nor do I understand why you find it necessary to tell me anything at all.’ Which I strongly resent.
‘I believe you should know,’ Ruth told her.
Again the lengthy, appraising stare. ‘Let’s get on with it then,’ she said. ‘I want my coffee.’
She listened; an hour later she looked at them. ‘You took one hell of a chance telling
me.’
‘It was the only thing to do,’ Ruth said.
‘Why? Did you think I’d dig around? Go public?’
‘You might. You’re Jewish. As you said.’
‘From what you’ve told me you could just as well be given a medal for saving the ones those SS guys didn’t shoot.’ Again she weighed what she had been told. ‘You’re here because of your daughter. Right?’
‘She was the first one to discover it,’ Ruth acknowledged. ‘It’s put her in a very awkward position.’
‘If she tries to cover it up and I go public? Sure. But she can hardly come out with it, can she? Damn right she’s in an awkward position. Serves her right for being such an eager beaver. What do you want me to do about it?’
For the first time Ruth dared smile. ‘Nothing.’
‘I’d say I can do better than that. What if I phone and tell her you’ve been to see me and that I’m not going to pursue it?’
‘That would be wonderful,’ Ruth said.
‘Let me tell you something,’ Barbara turned to the old man watching her across the table. George or Franz, whatever he wanted to call himself. ‘What you did today took a lot of guts and that is something I admire.’
She beckoned to a passing porter, asked him for a phone. When he brought it she spoke to the hotel switchboard. ‘The State Premier,’ she said. ‘Yes, of South Australia. Of course I know her. Tell her it’s Barbara Getz. She’ll speak to me.’ She grinned at them. ‘Just a kugel at heart. I love it.’
She spoke briefly to Roberta; the four of them had their long-postponed coffee together. Before they parted Barbara took Ruth to one side. ‘I always knew you had a phenomenal talent but that’s never been enough for me. The literary world has got its share of assholes and I’ve never been comfortable promoting them. With you it’ll be a pleasure.’
Absurdly, Ruth felt her face colour. ‘It’s kind of you to say so.’
‘You did it, kiddo, not me. How did you talk him into coming to see me?’
‘Told him he’d spent the rest of his life in jail if he didn’t.’
Barbara shook her head. ‘You’re wrong. I would never have bothered to dig into his background. It’s you I’m interested in.’
‘I’m right,’ Ruth told her. ‘He would have been in jail. Where do you think he’s been for the past forty years? It’s only today that he’s finally come out into the light.’
‘Thanks to you.’
Ruth shook her head. ‘Thanks to himself. He did it. Had to, if he was ever to be free of his past.’
They parted, Barbara promising to fax Ruth a draft of the first article as soon as it was ready. Ruth, Louise and George shared a taxi to the airport.
George, Ruth thought. I am used to it now. Besides, it is right. Franz, finally, is dead. Not to himself, perhaps, but no one can do anything about that. It’s sad, though. He deserves a little peace at the end of his life.
At the airport before they parted Louise spoke to her. ‘I’m sorry …’
‘About what?’ Knowing very well.
‘You couldn’t have told me. I understand that, now.’
‘It would have been wrong. It had to come from your father or no one.’
‘Do you really not blame him? Truly?’
‘I try never to blame anyone for anything. Acceptance and tolerance are the most precious gifts we have.’
Louise was too young to be comfortable with such a forgiving doctrine. ‘But was he wrong?’
‘The war was wrong. Your father was just caught up in it, as I was.’
Louise looked at her hesitantly. ‘Can I ask you a big favour?’
Ruth smiled. ‘You can always ask.’
‘Can I come and stay with you for a few days? Sometime soon?’
‘No,’ Ruth said.
Louise’s face changed. The blue eyes darkened. ‘Oh.’
‘I’ve just started a new book,’ Ruth explained. ‘I need time to myself at this stage. You’ll be more than welcome once it’s out of the way.’
All the way home Ruth thought and thought.
I seem incapable of living my life with the generosity that I would wish to show those dear to me.
You are a thief. You take love, other people’s lives, and give back nothing.
Her own words.
Hypocrite, she thought.
She drove north, arrived home to a dark sky, a keen wind from the south-west. She went straight to the phone, could not get there fast enough.
For a minute she thought there was no one, then the phone lifted.
‘Louise,’ Ruth said. ‘I’m so glad I found you. I don’t know what I was thinking of. Please come. I want you to.’
It took a bit of doing after such a rebuff but she persuaded her in the end.
She put the phone down, walked slowly out to the deck where the chilly wind leant its healing weight upon her. I shall go back indoors, she thought. I shall change my clothes and walk upon the beach. She thought of T.S. Eliot and his poem about the man he had called Prufock. ‘I have heard the mermaids singing each to each,’ she declaimed to the thrusting waves, ‘I do not think that they will sing to me.’
She walked, head back, arms swinging free.
Perhaps now they will, she thought. Perhaps George is not the only one who deserves peace at the end of his life.
Two days later Sally phoned.
Trouble, Ruth thought as soon as she heard her voice. So it proved.
‘This stupid business over that girl …’
It was one way of describing it. Ruth could never get over the two faces of Sally. In every other respect she was wholly admirable; level-headed, intelligent, full of understanding and sympathy for the things that seemed to Ruth to matter in life. But when it came to her son …
‘What’s happened?’
Two things, it seemed.
‘The police have issued a summons —’
‘Drunken driving?’ There were those who preferred the mealy-mouthed ‘Driving under the influence’. No doubt, where Andrew was concerned, Sally was one of them. Ruth, particularly where Andrew was concerned, liked to spell things out the way they were.
Sally was too distraught to notice. ‘Worse than that. Dangerous driving. I spoke to Bob Jenkins at the police station. He said if the girl had died it would have been manslaughter.’ Her voice rose. ‘Manslaughter! I ask you!’
‘She didn’t die.’
‘Thank God.’
‘Thank God, indeed.’ But suspected they had different reasons for saying so.
‘That’s not all. That girl’s father …’
Sally seldom made Ruth cross but did so now. ‘Stop calling her that girl! Her name’s Jenni. Her father’s Henry Doggett. We’ve known them both for years.’
‘I thought I did,’ Sally said, ‘but I never dreamt he would do anything like this.’
‘What?’ Half guessing.
‘He’s sent Andrew a solicitor’s letter. Something about a claim for compensation. I couldn’t make head or tail of it.’
‘It’s lucky Andrew showed it to you,’ Ruth said mildly.
Silence.
‘He did show it to you?’
Sally’s voice was defiant. ‘The letter came. I saw it was from a firm of lawyers so —’
‘So you opened it.’
‘I was worried sick.’
With justification, Ruth thought. Whether that gave you the right to open other people’s mail was another question.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I shall tell him to ignore it. This whole business has been blown up out of all proportion —’
Ruth had heard enough. ‘Jenni lost her hand, Sally.’
‘She had no business being there in the first place. Four o’clock in the morning —’
‘That has nothing to do with it —’
‘It’s got everything to do with it. Let them try, that’s all. I’ll tell the court one or two things about Jenni Doggett —’
‘W
ill you stop this nonsense and listen to me for a moment?’
Amazingly, Sally did.
‘What they were doing in the car has nothing to do with anything. Andrew was driving, the police say he was over the limit, there was an accident. Face it, Sally, Andrew caused it. Jenni was seriously injured. Of course the Doggetts are looking for compensation.’
‘It won’t bring her hand back, will it?’ Vindictively. Ruth suspected that Sally would have liked it to have been her head if it could have been arranged without causing even more trouble for her son.
‘Take that letter to your solicitor,’ Ruth said. ‘Let him decide what’s best.’
‘Why should we have the expense —’
‘Do it, Sally. Just do it.’
Two weeks later Louise flew into Adelaide. Having decided she wanted her here after all Ruth had gone the whole hog and driven down to collect her off the plane.
She watched as Louise came through the revolving door into the concourse. Tall, extraordinarily good-looking with those huge blue eyes, long legs thrust into faded jeans, a white tee shirt demanding Save The Whales. She pushed her hair back with one hand, saw Ruth and came over to her.
Impulsively Ruth hugged her and was pleased to feel Louise hug her back.
‘Good flight?’
‘Okay.’
‘Your father well?’
‘He’s good.’ Louise looked at her uncertainly. ‘You sure it’s all right? Staying with you, I mean?’
‘I’m delighted you’re here. Although what pleasure you can hope to get out of staying with an old woman I can’t imagine.’
Louise collected her case from the carousel and they walked out of the terminal and across the road to the car park. Louise slung the case into the boot, Ruth drove away from the airport and headed north.
Louise turned to look at her. ‘Don’t you really know why I’m glad to be here?’
Ruth had her own theories but kept them to herself. ‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘I’ve always thought of you as a role model,’ Louise said, astounding her. ‘Most people my age, the literate ones, think the same.’
Ruth laughed. ‘That makes me feel seven hundred years old, never mind seventy.’
‘We see how the world is and wonder what life is all about. No one has a clue how to run things properly. No one even seems to care. It’s a real mess.’