‘Don’t look back!’ said Paul.
Finally, in exasperation, Paul turned to face the man and spoke to him roughly in German. Tiney kept her head down.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ said the man in English. ‘I thought . . .’
As his voice trailed off, Tiney looked up in disbelief.
‘Martin?’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Tiney! It is you!’ said Martin, his face awash with relief.
Tiney quickly introduced Paul to Martin, stumbling as she tried to explain their complicated connection, until Martin intervened.
‘Your cousin wrote and told me she was coming to Berlin,’ he said to Paul. Then he turned to Tiney. ‘As soon as I got your letter, I set out from Geneva. They told me you’d checked in at Hotel Elvira so I waited for you to come back. I didn’t mean to startle you.’
Paul tapped his foot and glanced at his wristwatch, and Tiney realise this was not the right place, not the right time, to explain. Tiney arranged to meet Martin the next day and set off again with Paul.
Suddenly Paul laughed. ‘You know, little cousin,’ he said, ‘I have always underestimated you. Our whole family has underestimated you. We should have known that surprising things can come in quite small packages.’
Tiney was dreaming. A butterfly had landed on her face and its soft wings were kissing her cheek. She opened her eyes to see early-morning light filtering through the window of Hannah’s apartment. Little Louis, who had slept between her and Hannah, was sitting up in bed and staring at her. His small hand stroked her cheek.
‘Guten Morgen, meine süße winzige kleine Tante,’ he said.
Tiney smiled. No one had ever called her their darling, tiny little aunt before. She sat up and gazed at him, this elfin boy she almost felt she’d dreamt into being.
‘Guten Morgen, mein hübscher Neffe,’ she said, touching his small chin gently. Louis grinned and flung his arms around her neck.
She lifted him out of bed and tiptoed across the room with the boy in her arms. Paul had returned at dawn and was asleep on the divan. Louis and Tiney sat at the small table by the window, talking in whispers so as not to wake the others. Tiney told him about Australia, about his cousins in Adelaide and his grandparents in the Barossa Valley. Louis told her of his friends from the lane, of the games they played and his favourite things to eat. Before Paul and Hannah woke, Tiney and Louis crept out of the apartment and wandered into the Berlin morning to buy Frühstück for their family: Schrippen with golden crusts as well as dark, seedy rolls, a lump of salty butter, some jam, a hunk of cheese and a pot of fresh Kräuterquark. Louis laughed and peered into the brown-paper bag.
‘Danke, kleine Tante,’ he said.
Holding hands, they climbed the narrow stairs of the tenement.
Staircase to the moon
Early next evening, Martin arrived to collect Tiney from the tenement. The whole lane stopped to stare at the man on the British motorcycle, in his brown leather jacket and black cap.
Tiney tried not to cling to Martin as the Royal Enfield sped out into the wide Berlin avenue, but when the motorcycle dipped deeply as he turned a corner, she couldn’t help but wrap her arms around him and hold fast.
They drove down the wide boulevards and then into small and winding streets to arrive at the club where Paul worked as a pianist. Lamps flickered to life, illuminating the streets and casting deep shadows. Women stood on the roadside in pools of golden light.
Inside, the club was smoky and smelt of stale beer. As it was still early in the evening and there was only a sprinkling of patrons, Tiney was embarrassed she’d suggested it. They sat in a booth at the back, leaning their heads together so as to be able to hear each other speak over the voices of scantily clad singers. The club served little food but Tiney wasn’t hungry. She hardly touched the platter of bread, sausage and pickles that Martin had ordered. She simply wanted to drink in the sound of Martin’s voice and to tell him everything.
‘My cousin says he doesn’t want to leave Berlin,’ said Tiney. ‘He says he loves the city, that it makes him feel alive; but they’re living in terrible circumstances.’
Martin leaned closer, trying to hear her over the band. Then he put his mouth close to her ear. ‘Let’s not talk about your cousin any longer,’ he said. ‘Or the war or the past or anything that makes you unhappy. I’d like to take you dancing.’
The dance hall had a small garden, delicate with spring flowers, at the entrance.
‘It’s not what it seems,’ said Martin. They climbed a flight of stairs and passed through a labyrinth of hallways. The smell of smoke and beer, sweat, powder and perfume drifted down to encompass them. As they waited in the queue outside the cloakroom, Martin took Tiney’s coat, and her bare shoulders tingled in the cool spring air. She touched her bobbed hair and knew she looked as stylish as any of the other dancers.
Martin took her hand and led her into a grand room with long, gilt-edged mirrors on the walls. The glass was speckled and their image seemed foggy as they whirled across the marble floor. Gaslight flickered in the mirrors, cigarette smoke swirled above their heads and the band played all the new songs from America, a trumpeter blasting out a wailing solo above the other instruments. As they danced, it was as if Tiney was watching someone from another era, a time before the war or perhaps far into the future, when every unhappiness had been forgotten. She looked up smiling into Martin’s face and saw an answering look of pleasure in his eyes.
After more than an hour of dancing, Martin led her from the dance floor. ‘There’s one other place I want to show you tonight,’ he said. ‘We’ll visit it in the daylight tomorrow, but it’s just as beautiful at night.’
The motorcycle thrummed beneath them as they rode through the Berlin streets. Tiney heard gunfire from the city rooftops but she shut her eyes and breathed deeply of the night air. She wouldn’t be afraid, not now, not after all the miles she had travelled to reach this moment. Curfew was fast approaching and Martin revved the motorcycle as they turned into the darkness of the Tiergarten, the vast parkland in the centre of Berlin. The trees were black, the forest thick and dark with dappled patches of moonlight shining through the canopy of spring leaves. Martin stopped the bike beside a fountain, not far from a lake of shimmering water.
‘This is the loveliest place in Berlin by moonlight,’ he said. ‘War can ruin many things but it can’t spoil moonlight on water. Even when the fighting was at its worst in the Somme, moonlight on water made me remember that the world was bigger than a battlefield.’
Tiney slipped from the motorcycle and Martin took her hand and led her to the water’s edge where a shimmering staircase of moonlight stretched across the lake.
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Tiney.
They stood side by side in the stillness. Then Martin turned to her. He put one finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up to the stars before he bent down to kiss her lips. It was the softest, most fleeting kiss, but for a moment Tiney felt suspended in air, floating above the surface of the earth, as if she were a swan about to take flight across the moonlit lake.
Then Martin stepped away and she felt the space between them.
‘Martina Flynn,’ he said.
‘Martin Woolf,’ she answered, and they both laughed.
As they rode back through Berlin, past the Brandenburg Gate, speeding through the darkening streets, Tiney’s skirt rippled out behind her in the breeze. She pressed her cheek firmly against Martin’s back and knew, as certain as moonlight on water, as sure as the touch of a butterfly wing on her cheek, that everything was just beginning.
18 November 1923
Tiney reached out to help Ray Junior down from the tram. He looked shyly to either side, not sure of his strange new aunt, and then he jumped to land beside her.
Martin helped Mama step down from the tram. She had grown thinner and frailer in the years Tiney had been away.
‘He’s quite the gentleman, your Martin,’ said Nette
, as they strolled towards Glenelg Beach.
Tiney smiled. Martin was walking ahead with Louis, Onkel Ludwig and Papa. As the sea came into view, they all stopped to admire the blue water of the Gulf of St Vincent. Louis had grown close to Martin on the voyage back from Europe and now he held Martin’s hand as he chatted shyly to his grandfather and great-uncle in German.
Glenelg Beach was already crowded with families. Across the white sand, small tents were sprouting. Women sat beneath black umbrellas, crowds of small children paddled in the shallows and couples wandered along the jetty hand in hand. Sunlight glittered on the surface of the sea.
While Frank and Ray set up a small striped canvas tent for shade, Nette, Minna and Thea unpacked the picnic baskets and spread out a tartan rug on the warm beach. Minna and Frank’s baby girl sat placidly eating handfuls of sand, until Tiney picked her up and wiped her pink cheeks.
‘Do you think we can make the tent private enough for us all to change into our bathing suits or shall we hire a bathing box?’ asked Thea.
‘Oh, let’s just change in the tent,’ said Tiney.
‘That’s all right for you, Miss Flynn,’ said Nette, patting the swell of her pregnant belly. ‘ I couldn’t possibly fit in there.’
‘You’re not swimming in your condition!’ said Mama.
‘We’re taking Louis in for his first swim in the ocean,’ said Tiney, reaching one hand out to Martin.
‘Lucky that they’ve finally allowed mixed bathing,’ said Minna. ‘But you do know you can’t wear a one-piece bathing costume?’
Tiney laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t turned completely European.’
She slipped into the tent and wriggled into her blue sailor bathing costume, tugging at the skirt to make it look a little longer.
The men in their Sunday best sat in the sand, their hats tipped back. Hannah sat beside Tiney, still shy of all her newly discovered relations.
‘Are you coming in or not?’ Tiney called as she and Martin walked down to the water’s edge.
Louis looked shyly from his mother to his aunt.
‘Go on, liebling,’ said Hannah. ‘Tante Tiney and Onkel Martin will be with you. The ocean is not so different to rivers and lakes.’
Louis, all long white limbs, ran down to the water’s edge. Little Ray ran after him to stand in the shallows, admiring his big cousin.
Martin, Louis and Tiney walked into the clear, still water. The tide was out and even twenty yards from shore, the water was only waist deep. Martin let Louis climb onto his shoulders and leap into the air. Tiney looked up and watched as Louis jumped, suspended for a split second against the bright sky before he plunged into the sparkling water.
Tiney stretched her arms out to Louis as he rose out of the sea, laughing. He made his way towards her, catching hold of her hands, pulling her under. Martin dived in beside her. They splashed and laughed and then turned onto their backs to float on the calm blue of Holdfast Bay. Martin’s hand brushed against hers and Louis kicked a silvery spray of seawater into the air. Tiney looked up at the sky above her, like the vault of heaven, and sighed with happiness.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Australia Council for its support of this project, the Wheeler Centre for its Hot Desk Fellowship and The May Gibbs Trust for its Canberra Fellowship. I am indebted to the State Library of Victoria, the State Library of South Australia, the Australian War Memorial Research Centre, the Tanunda Public Library and the Commonwealth Graves Commission in Ypres for their assistance and invaluable resources. Many people provided support, hospitality and advice from Adelaide to Berlin during the writing and researching of this novel, including Robyn Annear, Mary Hoyle, Julie Walker, Stuart Gluth, Cat Fletcher, Natta Jain, Lesley Reece, Ruby J. Murray, Ken Harper, Billy Murray, Christian von Raumer, Sarah Brenan and Susannah Chambers. Countless books and resources underpinned the writing of this novel but I’d particularly like to acknowledge the poems of Mary Gilmore; the papers of Jessie Traill; Jane Tolerton’s biography of Ettie Rout, Ettie; and the works of Joy Damousi, Bart Ziino, Mat McLachlan, Chris Ilert and Ken Inglis. This novel includes brief excerpts from Mary Gilmore’s poems ‘These Fellowing Men’ and ‘Inheritance’, an excerpt from Adam Lindsay Gordon’s poem ‘Ars Longa (A Song of Pilgrimage)’ and an excerpt from two works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hermann And Dorothea – VI. Klio and Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre.
Author’s Note
In February 2010, the bodies of 250 Australian soldiers were reinterred in a specially constructed Military Cemetery at Fromelles (Pheasant Wood). The mothers, sisters, wives, lovers and girlfriends of these men are all dead too. They lie in graves across Australia. They died after a lifetime of contribution to their communities. The stories of their fortitude and suffering in the face of grief are largely forgotten. Thinking of all those women and how they are so often overlooked in Australian history and fiction inspired me to write The Year It All Ended, to refocus the historical lens on the people who are left out of the picture.
My family, like many Australian families, was deeply affected by World War I. Although The Year It All Ended is a work of fiction I drew on a large body of family history to flesh out the characters of the Flynn family and their community. The youngest of my great-aunts, Agnes ‘Lit’ MacNamara, was the inspiration for Tiney Flynn. Like Tiney, she was born on the 11th of November, 1901 and was the littlest member of her family (hence her nickname ‘Lit’). Aunty Lit was an adventuress who travelled extensively, including a trip down the Amazon River on a tramp steamer. She told me many stories about growing up in Adelaide during the war years and about the death of her only brother, Louis, on the Western Front. She longed to visit his grave and did eventually get there but not as quickly as Tiney. Unlike Tiney, Aunty Lit never found romantic love but in this novel, I wanted to give her an ending that she would have loved to have lived. One of the great pleasures in writing fiction is imaginatively resolving the suffering of your characters without distorting history.
History, as written, often focuses on violence. We read it as a sequence of interconnected acts of aggression. But history as lived is a tapestry of daily rituals; of eating, cleaning, studying, playing, nurturing, working, loving and grieving – of small pleasures and large emotional challenges. The history of living is a story of the interconnectedness of families, friends and lovers; the things that matter in the lives of every single human being.
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