I remember the day when I returned home from school and saw the fancy leather valise in the hallway. Hanging from a peg was a strange khaki-coloured coat. We had a visitor. In the drawing room sat a tall sun-tanned man, delicately holding a cup of coffee between his broad hands. Papa sat opposite him, the two men engaged in an animated conversation. When I walked in, Papa looked up and Uncle Stephan turned to face me.
'Ah, and here she is. Little Eva. Eva, do you remember my brother, Stephan?'
Of course, I didn't. I smiled nervously.
'Uncle Stephan has returned to us from Palestine.'
After dinner that evening, Mama dressed Margot and me in clean white dresses and we were ceremoniously marched into the drawing room. Twice before, Papa had insisted on parading his daughters in this manner, and on both occasions we had cried and begged him not to humiliate us in this way. This time, Mama said, it was different. It was just Uncle, and we could play as little or as much as we wished. As we walked into the cigar-smoke-filled room, Papa cried out with delight.
'Margot! Eva!'
He slapped a knee and jumped to his feet. Then he turned from us to his brother.
'Margot is quite a little pianist. Eva, however, is a newcomer to the violin. You must forgive her mistakes.'
The shock of this betrayal chilled my blood. I looked across at my sister, who, to my dismay, was beaming.
That summer, my parents seized the opportunity of Uncle Stephan's visit to go to the east for a short vacation. Uncle Stephan was left in charge of Margot and me, plus three of our friends. It was understood that we would study in the mornings, and then be free to play for the rest of the day. However, we contrived to turn the mornings into a nightmare for poor Uncle Stephan, who was constantly labouring up the stairs and encouraging us to stop shouting and return to our books. Once he had left, Margot and I would begin again to make up stories about him for our three friends. One day, he might be a pirate who sailed the seas of the world looking for treasure; the next day, an African explorer. We transformed poor Uncle Stephan into anything we thought appropriate, and when we became bored with our games, we simply shouted at each other in order to make him climb the stairs so that we might giggle at him. But he never raised his voice, or left us without a small, if somewhat tired smile.
I know you're good children.'
And then the door would close in, and we would listen to the thumping of his feet as he made his weary way back down the stairs.
During those long hot summer evenings, Margot and I would sit with Uncle Stephan and question him about fashions, and movies, and movie-stars. But he knew nothing. He had seen nothing. He had never seen a Valentino picture, or even a Chaplin picture. Margot knew more than I did, therefore her sense of disappointment was greater than mine. I simply followed where she led, sighing after her, throwing my hands into the air a moment after hers, and letting them come to rest a few seconds after hers had settled. Uncle Stephan would reveal little about where he had travelled, or what he had done, except to confess that he had been in Palestine and that it was hot – hotter than even our hottest days. His reticence only served to add to his mystery, and yet Margot and I grew very fond of our strange uncle. And then, in the morning, our friends would arrive with their books and papers, and the five of us would again conspire to produce a kingdom of chaos at the top of the four-storey house.
After Mama and Papa returned from their vacation, things were never the same again. In the evenings, Papa and Uncle Stephan would sit together, their conversation growing louder and more heated as the evening wore on. It was so hot that Mama allowed us to keep the doors to our bedrooms open, which made it a simple matter to follow the tide of argument that flowed up the stairs. Papa was adamant. Uncle Stephan had given up on his medical studies, discarded a wife and daughter, and gone off to fight for what? Why create another home among these Arab people? His wife was right to refuse to uproot her life and expose her child to these barbarians. Papa and he could set up in medical practice together. The brothers Stern. They might become the richest doctors in the country. Why had Stephan suddenly become a fool who evaded his responsibilities? Let some other idiots risk their lives for this self-styled new country. Uncle did not like being a called a fool, and this epithet generally produced a vocal storm which raged and bellowed as long as the pair of them had the energy. Had Ernst forgotten that they were Jews? That they remained the only people on the face of the earth without their own home. Did he know this? Papa would eventually drag his tired body up the stairs towards his bed, but he always remembered to stop by and give his girls a kiss goodnight. I usually pretended to be asleep, but sometimes the unusual smell of alcohol disturbed me and my eyes met those of my Papa.
After a week of acrimony and raised voices, Uncle Stephan crossed a bridge and passed into the world of himself. He spent long hot afternoons sitting on a wooden bench in the garden, simply staring at the trees as though introducing himself to nature. He would sit perfectly still in the searing heat, nothing on his head, barely blinking, until the daylight had faded and the trees had begun to blacken. Somehow Margot acquired a map of Palestine and, one afternoon, we went together to Uncle Stephan and asked him to show us exactly where he had been. He looked at the map, then drew his finger aimlessly across it, pausing at various places, and then he continued to drag his finger this way and that, as though he were touching some precious object. Then he squinted up at us, the sun obviously causing his eyes some difficulty.
'Thank you.'
Margot and I glanced at each other. Thank you for what? we thought. Then a frustrated Margot asked him.
'But Uncle, what were you doing there?'
Uncle Stephan fed his own enigmatic personality by simply smiling and shaking his head. He had no desire to share with us the secrets of the world to which he was committed. Margot was exasperated.
'But Uncle Stephan, why won't you tell us?'
What neither of us fully appreciated was that poor Uncle Stephan was not talking to anyone. For him, there had already been enough talking. Papa had told him that unless he returned to his wife and child, Papa would help them to leave and settle in America. Uncle Stephan's wife had written her husband many letters, all of which confirmed that she remained adamant that she would not live in the desert with Arabs bearing down on her from all sides. At least, in America, she and her child could begin anew. And so Uncle Stephan decided not to return to his wife and child. He loved them dearly, but he feared that his resolve might break were he to see them again and try to settle this issue face to face. Papa laughed at his brother, and then spat in disgust. Sitting on the wooden bench in the garden, and these days simply staring at the yellowing grass between his feet, Uncle Stephan tried to minister to his broken heart. He had made his decision. He would be returning to Palestine.
Uncle Stephan was carrying the same khaki-coloured coat, and standing beside the same fancy leather valise, that I had noticed when he first arrived. Mama and Papa stood with him in the drawing room. Uncle Stephan seemed rested, serene even, and he smiled at the two girls who stood together in the doorway. Perhaps the sight of his nieces caused him some further regret, as he imagined his own child growing up without ever knowing her father. It turned out that his wife had written to him and informed him that she understood from his silence that he preferred Arabs to his own child. To her mind, the serious responsibilities of family were incompatible with the responsibilities of this self-proclaimed new life of his. This being the case, she had no desire ever to see him again. She was respecting his choice, and she asked him to respect hers.
Papa flagged us into the drawing room, where we were encouraged to say goodbye. Uncle Stephan gently stroked the top of my head, and then he let his hand slip down on to my shoulder. And then he did the same to Margot. We stood on either side of him, but he said nothing. It was Papa who spoke.
'I shall walk with my brother to the end of the street.'
I cannot remember any formal leave-taking, any sha
king of hands, or kissing or embracing. I do, however, remember Margot and me peering out of the drawing-room window as Papa and his brother emerged from the house. For a moment they paused, and Papa glanced up at the window. And then they turned and began to walk away from the four-storey house. Tall Uncle Stephan, with his long strides, and a frustrated Papa scurrying along beside him. Papa liked to have his own way. Even as I watched the pair of them walking, I sensed how much pain his brother's departure was causing Papa. But Uncle Stephan walked with a firm step. A decision had been made.
Once Uncle Stephan returned to Palestine, he disappeared without trace. The police would occasionally visit and ask after him, and Mama would always make these men coffee and offer them cakes. I remember Papa's patient tone. Everything was polite and civilized while they were here. No, he had still not heard from his brother. Yes, he would most certainly let them know if he did hear. But after these men had gone, Papa would fly into a rage at the thought that his brother could place him in a situation that required the police to visit the house. And then there were the men who turned up either early in the morning or late at night, and who invariably needed a bed for a night or two, a meal, a bath and some money, before they went on their way. Neither Mama nor Papa ever turned these idealistic young men away, knowing full well that they were either on their way to, or on their way back from Palestine and Uncle Stephan. However, when asked, none of them ever delivered any news of Uncle. They were being schooled in the same methods of evasion which Uncle Stephan had mastered, yet they remained pupils. Uncle Stephan would never have shrugged his shoulders as these men did. He was both more skilled and kinder.
And then, some two years after Uncle Stephan's departure, a gaunt-looking man arrived one morning while we were still having breakfast. He was inadequately dressed for the cold, in a thin jacket and with a long scarf wrapped three or four times around his neck. His eyes were watering and his cheeks seemed to have been hollowed by the wind. He stood at the door to the kitchen, grateful that some warmth was seeping into his bones. Papa asked Hannah first to give him a cup of coffee and a piece of bread, and then to show him to the spare room where he might sleep.
That evening, Papa asked the man to dine with us. Clearly this was a special man, for Papa had never extended such an invitation to any of the others. The man sipped gingerly at a glass of red wine as he ate, but soon the bottle was empty. However, the man kept his tongue and spoke only when spoken to. Once the plates had been cleared, Papa and this newly rested man retired to the drawing room. I asked Margot what she made of him, but all she would say was that he was not as old as he looked. To her mind, he was a young man who had thrown away his youth. Mama and I stared at Margot, who began to colour. She then stood and asked if she might be excused from the table.
Papa had used all his contacts and resources to let it be known that he would happily reward anybody who might help him solve the mystery of what had happened to his brother. It transpired that this man, who now sat in the drawing room, clumsily sucking on one of Papa's finest cigars and introducing himself to a second bottle of red wine, was prepared to help Papa solve this mystery. Margot and I eavesdropped by the door to the drawing room as the man explained to Papa that Uncle Stephan was one of the leaders of the Palestine underground army, and that among these young idealists he was something of a legend. As the story of brave Uncle Stephan's exploits began to be told, I found myself thinking that perhaps Uncle had been right to try to make a new home in Palestine. Things in our country had raced rapidly downhill since the morning when Papa had walked with his brother to the end of the street.
According to this man's report, Uncle Stephan had not been seen or heard of for six months, but the man was sure that nothing adverse could have happened to Papa's brother. Apparently, the nature of Uncle Stephan's work meant that occasionally he would have to undertake secret missions, but he had always emerged at the conclusion of his duties as though nothing untoward had occurred. Papa seemed painfully unconvinced, but the man pressed on and began to speak now of the world he was rediscovering, with its restrictions and new laws, and he expressed both surprise and anger that we should be treated in this fashion. Fortifying himself with the dregs of the second bottle of wine, he encouraged Papa to abandon the land of his birth while he still had time. Papa glared at this scruffy young man, who clumsily pawed at the expensive cigar and who swilled down his fine wine as though it were water. And then, as though a cloud was suddenly lifted from his evening, it occurred to Papa that the vulgar rogue was simply waiting for money. Papa reached for his wallet, and Margot and I looked at each other. And still the young man puffed away.
Later that same evening, Papa told his wife and daughters that his brother Stephan might be dead in a hot country, among people who did not know him, or love him, or care for him. Papa paused, the look on his face so poignant that only now do I realize how desperately unhappy Papa must have been. Papa needed his family. He needed his wife. He needed his daughters. He needed his brother. At this stage, he even needed his parents. Mama looked on helplessly, and then she smiled in the direction of her girls.
I think of Uncle Stephan sitting on the bench in the garden and making his decision while the night blackened the trees. Uncle Stephan trudging up the stairs to pacify the children who teased him relentlessly, but only because they were so proud of him. Uncle Stephan steeling himself for a life of commitment, trying to justify to himself the enormity of the crime of leaving his wife and daughter. Perhaps he saw something that we did not see. Perhaps he knew that he had to throw himself into the building of another world, even if this meant setting himself adrift from those who loved him. Including us. Two annoying young girls. I like to think that, wherever he is, Uncle Stephan might sometimes remember Margot and Eva. Two annoying young girls.
IT WAS raining heavily now. Through the window of the cafe I could see passers-by bent almost double, leaning into the wind and trying to shield their eyes from the rain. Occasionally the wind would roar and catch an innocent, holding him or her for a second or so, a single leg hanging half-suspended, and then the wind would stop its foolishness and let the victim fall back to the ground. I felt particularly grown-up as I observed the world bustling by on that dark November afternoon, for I was out with Papa. I looked across at him, but Papa had no interest in anything beyond his own thoughts. He idly stirred the spoon in his coffee, seemingly intrigued by its circular journey.
A drenched couple stepped inside from the rain. They peeled off their coats and hung them on the brass hooks by the door. Then they looked around and began to push their way across the cafe towards us. Once they reached our table, the man took off his glasses and asked if anyone was sitting opposite us. Papa looked up and shook his head. The man bowed quickly and asked, 'May we?' meaning would it be all right if they shared our table?
'Of course.'
For a moment, Papa became the old Papa, courteous and charming.
'Please,' he said, and gestured with his hand to the empty seats. The couple smiled, but their smiles marked the onset and conclusion of their engagement with us. The man replaced his glasses, while the woman dabbed at her face with an embroidered lace handkerchief. And then they sat and quickly angled themselves so that they faced each other.
'But the larger hotel. On the lake. It's so pretty.'
The woman shook her head firmly. I could see that she was considerably younger than the man, perhaps by some thirty years, but they talked intimately and as equals.
'A larger hotel is better.'
Again, the woman shook her head.
'Too much money. A waste.'
She was dressed simply in a brown sweater and matching scarf. Her hair was pulled back tightly and fastened with a dip, and she wore just a little make-up under the eyes. He, on the other hand, was attired more formally in a dark suit and tie, but it was the additional elements – the tie-pin, the cuff-links and the trouser-braces – which betrayed both his age and his manner. He was used to doing thin
gs in his own precise way, and her refusal to obey him was causing him some distress.
'Are you all right?'
I looked at Papa and nodded. I could see that he was embarrassed that the lovers were making no allowance for my presence, but I was thrilled with this development. I began to imagine this woman as the most glamorous person in the world: a French cabaret star who had travelled from Paris and deposited herself in our country, in a cafe in our city, at our table.
'Papa, may I have some coffee?'
'Are you sure?'
Again, I nodded.
The cafe was becoming increasingly crowded and noisy. The rain showed no sign of letting up and, although people continued to arrive and wait in the doorway by the cashier's till, nobody appeared to be leaving. The two waitresses were being run off their feet and, as they dashed around taking repeat orders, they pointedly removed cups and glasses from in front of those who had clearly finished, and with their most commercial smiles they pacified those who waited impatiently. Papa held up his hand.
Eventually, the waitress returned with a cup of coffee for myself and another large glass of wine for Papa. The couple barely noticed as the waitress set two coffees in front of them.
'But the spring is my favourite time of the year. We cannot risk waiting until the summer.'
The woman looked disappointed.
'You know this is difficult for me.'
Papa snatched up the glass and gulped a hasty mouthful of wine. I glanced across at him in surprise, but he was staring at the couple opposite. He seemed nervous at the prospect of what they might say next, and then I heard the clasp of a handbag being unfastened. I looked over as the woman produced a blue cigarette case with gold trimming. She pulled clear two cigarettes, handed one to her companion, put one into her own mouth, and then lit them both. The smoke billowed across the table and I stifled a cough. Again, Papa whispered, 'Are you all right?' I smiled and nodded. Poor Papa. He picked up his glass of wine.
The Nature of Blood Page 8