One Last Summer (2007)

by Collier, Catrin

  I promised to treasure it and think of them every time I wear it. How envious Greta will be when she sees it. Will she be at Allenstein station? I hope not. I do expect Wilhelm and Paul to be there to meet me, though, and, if I’m lucky, they’ll bring at least one (hopefully the special one) of their friends.

  It feels as though I’ve been away for ever. I can’t wait to feast my eyes on the dear, dear house and hug Papa, Mama and the twins …

  ‘The doctor will see you now, Ms Datski.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Charlotte smiled at the nurse and closed the diary. The once-clean and pristine glossy pages had become fragile with age. She wrapped the book carefully in a silk scarf and gathered her shawl and handbag from the chair beside her. Ridiculous, really, to take a diary she hadn’t opened in years into a doctor’s waiting room. And strange how those few words had brought it all back: the rattling of the train; the smut-filled smoke from the funnel drifting past the window; the smell of cabbage and gravy wafting down the corridor from the dining car; her friends’ faces, scrubbed, beaming, devoid of pain and experience; and herself, hopelessly naive, romantic and pompous with all the arrogant superiority of youth. Was there anything left of that young girl in the old woman she’d become?

  ‘How are you, Charlotte?’ Dr David Andrews left his chair and walked out from behind his desk to greet her.

  ‘I came here in the hope that you could answer that question for me, David.’

  ‘Well, you certainly look as elegant and beautiful as ever.’

  ‘No one my age can possibly be regarded as beautiful. As for elegant, you make me sound like an expensively-decorated salon.’

  He shook her hand and returned to his chair. To avoid meeting her gaze, he studied the painting on the wall behind her. It had been hung by the New York interior designer who had remodelled his office suite a year ago, but this was the first time he had really looked at the bland, pastel-shaded, Impressionist scene of fuzzy children playing on sands. He decided he didn’t like it.

  ‘Well, David?’ she prompted.

  He cleared his throat and began speaking, conscious that his voice was brisker and colder than he’d intended. ‘I’d suggest a second opinion. I know a good man in Boston and another in New York. I can arrange a consultation in either city. You could combine a visit with a little shopping, or visit a gallery.’

  ‘And these “good men” of yours would find it easier to tell me what you can’t bring yourself to say?’

  He forced himself to look into her eyes. Startlingly blue and disconcertingly clear. He would have found it easier to cope with hysterics. He could have prescribed tranquillizers for hysteria.

  ‘How long do I have?’

  ‘Most people ask what can be done.’

  ‘I am not most people, David.’

  ‘You never were.’ No one in their eighties had the right to look the way Charlotte Datski did. It wasn’t as though she even tried to look younger. Her hair was unashamedly silver without a hint of artificial colour or blue-rinse, her skin wrinkled, untouched by cosmetic surgery or face lifts, yet it didn’t seem to matter. Her beauty came from some mysterious, inner glow that manifested itself in those magnificent eyes. Her figure – tall, slender and straight-backed – still retained the elasticity of youth, and her long, flowing clothes were accentuated by amber beads and multi-coloured scarves that would have looked tawdry on anyone else, yet so right on her.

  When his father had introduced them thirty years ago, he had known instinctively that Charlotte was an artist. She simply couldn’t have been anything else. And although she was the same age as his mother, he had joined his father and half the men of their acquaintance in falling a little in love with her. But unlike most widows, Charlotte Datski cherished her unmarried state, apparently relishing the independence it gave her. Even the rumours of affairs had remained just that – rumours. If Charlotte had taken lovers, she had chosen wisely. None of the men in their circle had ever spoken of a relationship, consummated or otherwise.

  ‘The truth, David.’ She fingered the beads around her neck, but there was no sign of nervousness in the gesture.

  ‘It might be cancer of the pancreas,’ he began cautiously, ‘but, as I said, you should seek a second opinion.’

  ‘You think you’ve made a mistake?’

  ‘No doctor can be one hundred per cent certain of a diagnosis, especially one like this,’ he hedged.

  ‘David, you’re the genius in a family of gifted academics. I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘Even so, it’s far from straightforward. There’s no sign of a tumour, which means it’s invasive. In simplified terms, the cancer can be likened to a spider’s web of cells that has spread throughout the organ. Surgery is out of the question, but that doesn’t mean we can’t offer treatment. Initial tests suggest it’s slow-growing and that chemotherapy –’

  ‘Will there be much pain?’ she interrupted.

  ‘In my experience of similar conditions in other patients, very little. You might lose weight.’

  ‘I can afford to,’ she commented wryly. ‘How long do I have?’ she repeated.

  ‘I hate that question. Twenty years ago I told a nurse at this hospital that she had six months. I still blush every time I see her.’ Her silence brought the realization that his remarks were both patronizing and fatuous. ‘If the treatment’s successful, years.’

  ‘And if it’s not?’

  ‘It will be successful, Charlotte.’

  ‘But if it’s not?’ she repeated stubbornly.

  ‘Difficult to say: six months, a year perhaps. But I’ll arrange for you to be admitted this week and we’ll start the injections right away. It won’t be pleasant but –’

  ‘I can’t come in tomorrow.’

  ‘I understand. A diagnosis like this is a shock; you have arrangements to make.’ He flicked through his diary. ‘Shall we say Thursday morning?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Charlotte, nothing takes precedence over this. We’re talking about your life.’

  ‘I have to go home.’

  ‘It’s five miles up the road,’ he pointed out in exasperation.

  ‘I was born in Eastern Europe.’

  ‘As your doctor, I strongly caution you against making any trips until you’ve completed the treatment.’

  ‘I may have left it too late as it is.’

  ‘You don’t seem to understand. You could die.’

  ‘We’re all going to do that, David,’ she smiled. ‘I know you’re thinking of me and you mean well, but this is not the first time I’ve faced death. The experience made me strangely unafraid of the inevitable.’

  ‘Are you telling me you want to die?’ He forced himself to meet her steady gaze.

  ‘Far from it. I love life. Every wonderful, colour-filled moment. But I’ve discovered there are worse things than coming to an end. Like dehumanizing pain and loss of dignity. I watched my husband die of cancer. Forgive my cynicism, but I believe he suffered more from the treatment meted out to him by well-meaning doctors than the disease itself. If he’d still owned a gun he would have shot himself months before they allowed him to drift into a coma.’

  It was the first time David had heard Charlotte mention her late husband in all the years he’d known her. She’d lived in the States for decades and he knew of no one who’d met him. ‘Treatments have progressed enormously in the last thirty years.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’

  ‘You can’t expect me to stand by and do nothing,’ he pleaded.

  ‘At my age, quality of life is more important than quantity.’

  ‘You could have both.’

  ‘You guarantee it?’

  ‘No physician can offer guarantees,’ he said uneasily, ‘but I believe you have a better chance than most of beating this. You’ve enjoyed excellent health until now. You’ve taken care of yourself and, as the cancer didn’t show up on your last routine check-up, we can take this as an early diagnosis. Everything is on our s
ide.’

  ‘Would I remain much the same as I am now, without chemotherapy?’

  ‘You’d tire easily and sleep longer.’

  ‘I wouldn’t suffer pain?’

  He gritted his teeth, not wanting to give her further excuse to avoid treatment. ‘Nothing a few painkillers couldn’t help you cope with,’ he conceded reluctantly.

  ‘I’ll buy some. Thank you for your time and your honesty.’ She picked up her shawl.

  ‘My father would love to see you.’ He followed her to the door. ‘Please, dine with us this evening.’

  ‘So your father can add his persuasive voice to yours? Thank you, but no, David.’ She held out her hand and he took it. ‘They say life is short, but from where I’m standing it seems long. Too long, when I think of all those I have loved and lost. I appreciate your understanding. A little more practice and you’ll be able to add sympathetic to your other qualifications. Send your bill to my lawyer.’

  ‘Isn’t there anything that I can say to convince you to begin treatment?’

  ‘Nothing. And as it’s common knowledge that I’m a stubborn, impossible old woman, you’ve no reason to feel guilty. As soon as I can book a flight, I will leave for Europe. I’ve been planning this trip for years. You’ve just given me a reason not to delay any longer. You won’t tell my grandson or anyone else about this?’

  ‘Unfortunately, as you well know, I can’t without your permission. We will see you again?’ It was a plea more than a question.

  She didn’t answer. Kissing him lightly on the cheek, she murmured, ‘That’s for your father.’

  He stood at his window and watched as she left the building, her long black skirt and autumn-coloured scarves blowing in the breeze.

  ‘Doctor Andrews?’

  He turned to see his nurse in the doorway behind him. ‘Shall I contact Boston or New York to arrange an appointment for Ms Datski?’

  ‘No,’ he answered abruptly.

  ‘Then I’ll phone admissions to arrange a bed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Send in the next patient.’

  ‘And Ms Datski?’

  ‘Keep her file to hand, and hope that we need it.’

  Charlotte drove home slowly, observing the speed limit for the first time in years. When she realized the irony of what she was doing, she laughed out loud. After receiving the news David had just given her, she should be careering recklessly into whatever time she had left, instead of crawling cautiously along in the slow lane. But she was going home for the first time in over sixty years and it suddenly seemed very important that she get there in one piece.

  She stopped her car at the head of the private drive that meandered through the woods towards her New England clapboard house. The leaves of the bulbs she had planted when she had bought the place thirty-six years before were withering into the mulch beneath the trees. Every spring a carpet of daffodils, crocuses and bluebells spread colour down to the banks of the lake. Their end marked the advent of summer.

  Opening her window, she checked her mailbox, taking time to breathe in the scent of the pinewoods and the lake beyond the house. Was it her imagination or could she smell the last of the cherry and apple blossom? Fragrances that reminded her of a country which no longer existed. But then, everything she had created here had been built and planted to that end, resulting in a flickering reflection, no more substantial than that of an image caught on the surface of a pond, of a home she had loved and been forced to abandon sixty years before. Closing her mind to her memories, she took her mail and drove on over the rough track towards the house. Leaving her car on the gravel driveway, she opened her front door and walked through to the kitchen. She filled the kettle before thinking better of the idea. There was a bottle of white wine in the fridge, and she carried it and her letters up the stairs to her studio.

  It was her favourite room. Covering the whole of the first floor, one-third of the space had been given over to open deck; another third was glassed in like an English conservatory, leaving the wall in the remaining third to prop up her paintings. Glancing at the completed canvases she’d spread out that morning, she congratulated herself on a job well done, before opening the wine and curling into a wickerwork chair with her mail. She dropped three unopened circulars into the bin before finding one she wanted to read – a large, fat envelope from her English granddaughter.

  After years of exchanging daily e-mails she was amazed Laura had consigned anything to the post. She cut it open with her thumbnail and extracted a file marked ‘Grunwaldsee’. She opened it and a sheaf of photocopies dropped out. She unfolded them. There was no mistaking what they were: documents with passport-sized photographs overlaid with official stamps decorated with the eagle and swastika of the Third Reich. Images of her father, mother, her brothers Wilhelm and Paul, her sister Greta, and herself, impossibly young, stared up at her. All six locked into a past she had never entirely escaped.

  Dear Oma,

  This is the most difficult letter I’ve ever had to write. Please, don’t ignore it, or the copies of the documents and the questions they raise, as I’m sure Aunt Greta and my father would do.

  I came across the original of this file in the Berlin Document Center when I was researching a documentary – it doesn’t matter what. I don’t have to ask if you and Aunt Greta were members of the Nazi Party; these papers prove you were. I would like to know why you joined and more about your life in Grunwaldsee …

  Charlotte shuddered and turned back to the photocopies. If she had suspected their existence she would have … what? Told Laura and Claus about the past? Burdened them with the secrets that had haunted her for nearly sixty years?

  … I am not asking just for myself but for the entire family, especially Claus’s unborn child, because, in time, he or she will ask questions, just as I am doing now. No matter how father and Aunt Greta try to pretend that the war and Hitler are ancient history and of no consequence to generations born after the events, it simply isn’t true. We deserve to know the truth and hear it first-hand, not stumble across it in a dusty file as I have done.

  Please, Oma, I love you so much, and a part of that love is respect. I want to continue feeling that way about you and I won’t until I hear your side of the story …

  Charlotte glanced across at the canvases she had taken such pleasure in a moment before. Could she offer Laura the truth as an explanation that would bring a degree of understanding from her granddaughter? Forgiveness was too much to hope for. She had never been able to forgive herself for joining the National Socialist Party. As a result she had never left the past behind her. But the blame, guilt and regrets were entirely hers – not her grandchildren’s. There had to be some way of making Laura see that much.

  I love you so much, and a part of that love is respect.

  Dropping the letter and photocopies into her lap, she picked up the telephone and, without even checking the time difference, dialled Laura’s mobile; it was answered on the sixth ring.

  ‘Laura, can you talk?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her granddaughter’s voice was thick with sleep.

  ‘I woke you?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Please, don’t lie to me, not even about small things. I received your letter. Are you still in Berlin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll be with you in a few days. I’ll get a flight as soon as I can. I’m going home – to East Prussia,’ she explained to the silence. ‘And I’d like you to come with me, but I’ll understand if you don’t want to.’

  ‘You’ll tell me …’

  ‘Everything,’ Charlotte interrupted, ‘but not on the telephone. Can you spare the time to accompany me?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘I’ll let you know when I’ll be in Berlin. Before I see you, I need to talk to your father and to Uncle Erich.’

  ‘When you see my parents, give them my love.’

  ‘I will, but I intend to stay in England for o
nly one day.’

  ‘Oma …’ There was only the slightest hesitation. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I love you.’

  Charlotte hung up, then flicked through the directory before dialling a second time. The bookings and arrangements with her agent’s office proved more straightforward than she’d expected. Suddenly she realized she had very little time to pack, sort through her possessions and plan what she was going to say to Erich and Jeremy. But lost in the past, she continued to sit and stare blindly out over the lake.

  ‘Oma, you upstairs?’

  Shaking herself from her reverie, Charlotte pushed the photocopies and Laura’s letter beneath the cushion of her chair and composed herself. Claus always had been far too sensitive to her moods for her peace of mind.

  ‘Up here, Claus,’ she called in a voice she’d intended to sound light, but came out brittle. Forcing a smile, she relegated all thoughts of Laura’s letter into the ‘think about later’ compartment of her mind, which she had filled to capacity with painful memories and problems over the years. Hopefully, there would be enough time left for her to deal with all of them.

  Her grandson climbed the stairs, his massive, raw-boned clumsiness making her tremble for the safety of her paintings.

  ‘I saw the car …’ A frown furrowed his forehead as he lumbered towards her. ‘Wine in the middle of the day? You celebrating, or drowning your sorrows?’

  ‘Celebrating.’

  ‘You don’t have stomach ulcers?’

  ‘Only very small ones,’ she lied, clinging to the story she had woven around her symptoms.

  ‘Are they going to operate?’

  She shook her head. ‘No operation, only a disgusting diet.’

  ‘It can’t be that disgusting if it includes wine.’

  ‘You’re clucking like an old hen.’

  ‘I’ll ring David and ask if wine’s allowed,’ he threatened.

  ‘Today’s the last day of my old diet, tomorrow the first of the new.’