Laura sipped her drink, turned the page, and continued to read the author’s description of his house. It was either the lakeside summerhouse at Grunwaldsee or one exactly like it. Wondering, she followed the author’s progress as he walked up the lane that led to the stables of the ‘big house’ and harnessed a grey stallion. Was it a Datski grey? She read on.
I may not have been born to this, but the old proverb ‘scratch a Russian and find a peasant’ is true. It is good to ride in the fresh air early in the day, to look out over fields and see the work that has been done and note what needs doing. To smell the dew and pine needles in the forest. To run my hands through tilled earth and see the crops I planted grow and ripen for harvesting.
I linger by the lake, watching the mist rise through the trees that encircle the water. A pair of swans and a train of cygnets glide out from the bank. Boris whinnies. He knows it is time to return to the stable. But I continue to watch the rays of the rising sun play on the water, and the herons searching for fish.
Storks swoop low overhead, before landing on their nests on the roof of the big house. Boris stamps his hooves, and I finally turn back. After leaving Boris with his stable-mates I return home.
The cottage is half-hidden by the fruit bushes that hedge the garden. I hear my daughter’s chatter above the sound of clattering pans in the kitchen. The doors and windows have been flung wide and I see my wife, moving around the table in her faded blue cotton frock.
The table is covered with the everyday red and green embroidered tablecloth. The bread plate is full of steaming white milk rolls that have just been lifted from the oven. The scent of coffee, cheese and spicy sausage is strong in the air, and I realize I am hungry.
My daughter runs to greet me. My wife smiles. I kiss her as I pass her on my way to my chair at the head of the table.
Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day. I eat slowly, my daughter on my lap. Her blonde curls brush against my chin as I watch my wife feed our son. He falls asleep at her breast, and as she puts him in his basket I pour us third cups of coffee. We linger at the table, talking and laughing until it is time for work …
Laura followed the hero’s progress through a day in the fields. Not the lonely day of the modern farmer, working in isolation with his tractor, but a day spent wielding hand tools and harvesting in the company of scores of farmhands, women as well as men. A day when his wife worked alongside him, and his children slept and played at the edge of the fields within their sight.
At sunset all the workers and their families headed for the ballroom of the big house and the harvest supper that had been laid out there. Afterwards, there was music, dancing and drinking, but the author and his wife returned to the cottage with their children.
I lift my sleepy daughter on to my shoulders. My wife carries the baby in his basket. When we reach the lake, the little one insists on climbing from my shoulders, taking off her shoes and stockings, and jumping in the shallows. It is her last burst of energy before sleep. We go into the house, fill the tub and bathe the children.
While my wife dresses the children for bed, I go from room to room lighting the lamps. My wife carries our son to his cot and I chase our daughter up the stairs. The last ritual of our children’s day is story time. I sit at the foot of my daughter’s bed and tell them the tales that my father told me; tales passed on down through generations.
We stay with the children until their eyes close. Later, I wander into the garden while my wife plays the piano. The piece she has chosen is one I introduced her to. It mirrors our peaceful life here – the lake, the countryside, the fields, the woods. The sun inches slowly downwards and disappears into the lake, drizzling a red-gold path in its wake. The last glints of gold and red fade to purple, and darkness closes in.
The music has stopped. My wife is at my side. I embrace her, and for the first time I notice the swelling in her body – our third child …
Laura set the book aside and poured herself another drink. She walked to the window and looked out, but instead of seeing the lake as it was, splattered with modern yachts, she allowed her imagination free rein and recreated the unspoiled lake of One Last Summer.
The impersonal hotel room faded as the author’s description of the peace and beauty of his simple and quiet life transported her into that other time. Was it Grunwaldsee?
She envied the author’s perfect marriage and, for the first time, she realized that the problems that had plagued her own disastrous, fleeting affairs might well be her fault. Unlike the author and his wife, she had never even tried to understand any of her partners. For her, work had always come first. The men she had allowed, albeit temporarily, into her life had been diversions. Someone to spend time with, when she had nothing better to do; people to be left behind when a job took her hundreds of miles away to other countries and occasionally even other continents.
Was it impossible to build a perfect loving relationship with someone in the modern world? Could the kind of marriage of mind, body and soul depicted in One Last Summer exist only in the slow-moving world of rural life as it had been lived for centuries by peasants the world over?
Mechanization and speed had replaced horse-drawn ploughs and scythes, and infiltrated every aspect of people’s lives. How would the author have felt if his wife had woken up alongside him that morning, and said, ‘Your turn to have the kids today, sweetheart. I have to fly to Australia to make a documentary on the exploitation of crocodiles in National Parks.’
She smiled, then opened the book again.
She is everything to me, this woman I love. The air I breathe, the earth beneath my feet, food, drink – all pale into insignificance when set beside my need for her. She clings to me for a moment, we kiss silently. Everything that needs to be said between us has long been said. Arm in arm, we wander back through the garden into the house. She walks up the stairs. I blow out the lamps in the downstairs rooms, close the doors, then follow her. I step into the children’s room and look at them sleeping peacefully in their beds before going into our bedroom.
The windows are open and the white cotton drapes flutter in the breeze. She sits at her dressing table. I stand behind her chair. Taking the brush from her hand, I loosen the braid in her hair and run my fingers through it before combing it out.
In bed I reacquaint myself with her body, which I know as well as my own. Our flesh fuses into one and later, much later, we lie happy and exhausted in one another’s arms. I watch her face intently as she drifts into sleep. I try to fight, but it is impossible.
Holding her, terrified that she will dissolve into the shadows, my eyelids grow heavy. I cannot stop them from closing. The pain begins.
Knowing what was to come, and having read a little of what followed, Laura closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she went out on to the balcony. The night was warm, the air soft. She switched on the outside light, sat at the table and continued reading.
My body is pierced by insufferable cold; it penetrates my bones, paralyses my limbs and freezes my blood. The last thing I want to do is move. But the clang of a hammer striking metal jerks me into the nightmare world. And I know that if I don’t stir myself I will be killed. Nothingness is a seductive prospect but a selfish one. If I succumb to temptation, I will never be able to return to my wife and children again.
I lift my hands. The stench of them makes me retch. But a man with an empty stomach cannot vomit. My knuckles are stiff, the stink emanates from the sores that weep pus every time I raise my fingers. The stinging is worse than mosquito bites. Tears start in my eyes, burning behind my glued eyelids. I rub at the crusts that bind my lashes with my thumbs. It is hard to open them. When I succeed I stare at my hands. Despite the pain I feel as though I am looking at a part of someone else’s body. Then I glance past my fingers.
The log-built shelter is rotted with damp and age, but in winter the damp turns to ice, gilding the walls with a sheet of silver that might look pretty somewhere else. The hut cannot pr
otect us from heat in summer or cold in winter. My work party cuts logs in the forest and every day we scrounge wood for the stove, but the stove is make-shift, and without constant care it soon goes out.
The only heat we can rely on is generated by the packed layers of reeking bodies around us. The shelf I am lying on is hard, the straw that lines it scant, and what little there is moves, alive with lice and bugs that fight with those that have already laid claim to a space within my rotting clothes and body. Can they think, these lice and bugs? Are they aware that if they don’t fight for an unoccupied nook or cranny in my flesh they will freeze to death?
I swing my legs down and icy air cuts through my rags like a blade. I am wrapped in all the clothes I possess: a pullover more hole than wool; a jacket; a cap; and what is left of my army uniform. I have lost count of the years that have passed since I first put the trousers on. The shredded cloth is stiff with dirt, the holes rub my skin raw, opening old sores and creating new ones, but I dare not remove a layer, not between the onset of winter and the spring thaw. It would be stolen in seconds and I would never find another to replace it.
The air is foul with something worse than the usual excrement and unwashed bodies. I hear a cry.
‘Nikolai is dead.’
His team leader growls, ‘Hide him.’
No one objects to keeping Nikolai’s body in the hut. We are accustomed to living with corpses. The way we look and smell, none of us is far from death and it holds no terror for us.
Those who can move the quickest, flock around Nikolai. A piece of bread, black from age and the dirt in Nikolai’s pocket, disappears down someone’s gullet. I see Nikolai’s hat bobbing on one man’s head, his coat on another’s back. I don’t join the scavengers. Not because I have any scruples, but because sickness has slowed me. Even if I grabbed something, in my present weakened state it would soon be taken from me.
Nikolai’s body is pushed beneath a bunk and logs heaped in front of it. That way, his team leader can continue to claim his rations until the guards eventually discover what is left of his corpse. In winter, that can take a week, sometimes two.
My team leader shouts the roll-call command. I pull the blanket from my bunk and wrap it around my shoulders. Only idiots and newcomers leave them to be stolen. The floor is compacted earth, ice-encrusted and bitterly cold to bare feet. I join the men who swarm on the heap of felt boots behind the door. Most are split and don’t keep out the snow, but there is always the chance of exchanging your pair for something better. But pick carefully. The size must be the same, but the owner weaker than you. Disregard those rules and you may not live to wear them.
My fingers are too stiff to search, so I settle for the ones I wore yesterday and the day before, and I think even the week before that. They are safe because they are the thinnest and most worn in the pile. No one else wants them.
The team leader drives us out of the barracks. I notice that I am leaving bloody prints. My boot soles have worn through. Too cold to shiver, I join the queue at the well. The bucket has come up empty. Paul, the strongest man in our team, because he has no qualms about stealing food from the sick as well as those weaker than him, sends the bucket down again, dropping it with all the force he can muster on to the ice that caps the water. It still comes up empty. Today, like most winter days, there will be no water for washing. Making tea means finding fuel for a fire, and a can to melt snow.
The rich who possess that rare luxury are envied. I have a can but I will have to give it up soon. I am too weak to hold on to it. There are only enough in the camp for one man in ten. The possession of a can means getting one of the first portions of tea from the pot and an early helping of soup at midday.
I look around for someone stronger than me who will protect it for both of us. Someone I can trust who will give it to me straight after he has used it so I can drink my soup and tea rations before the pot is emptied.
There is never sufficient for everyone, which is why Nikolai died last night. He has been at the bottom of the pile since I’ve been here, and no one in his team would help him, not even by lending him a can. He was too weak to help them fulfil their work quota, and unfilled work quotas mean half-rations for the whole team.
There are men here that I have, and would, trust with my life but they, like me, have been sentenced to hard labour and are in the same weakened state. Perhaps I should simply lie in the snow and wait for death. If I could be sure of closing my eyes and waking in that other real and perfect world with my wife, I would do so. But it doesn’t happen when I try to sleep in the day. It never works unless I am in my bunk.
A cart drives in through the gates; our team leader joins the other leaders who crowd around it. He returns with a sack of bread. He hands it out. In winter it arrives frozen, too hard to eat. No one can swallow it until it is soaked in warm water, and we will not be able to build fires to melt snow until we reach our workplace in the forest.
The guards arrive to march us out; their dogs growl at us as they approach. I hear Nikolai’s team leader tell them that Nikolai is going to report sick. They shrug in indifference, and we head off to the workplace.
We pass a mound of corpses stacked one on top of the other in neat layers, like logs, next to the entrance gate. The feet of those on the bottom layer point towards the road into the camp. The feet on the layer above rest on their heads. I wonder if it is easier to place them that way. Does it reduce the risk of the pile toppling over? All are frozen solid, their faces bleached white and, like their hair, coated with frost. No cart has been to pick them up for months, but there is no point because graves cannot be dug while the ground remains frozen. They will be buried in the spring and by then there will be many more.
We reach the work place. I see the trees waiting to be cut down. The team leader hands me a saw. My head is full of fog and mist and cold. I cannot think clearly. All I know is that, somehow, I must survive until the night, when I will take in that other world …
Laura snapped the book shut. Just as before, the contrast between the slow-moving, sun-drenched, perfect dream life and the nightmare winter world of the Siberian gulag was too harrowing for her to contemplate. Who was this man? Had he been one of the Russian prisoners who had worked at Grunwaldsee during the war?
Then she recalled her grandmother’s words: ‘Think of me when you read it.’
Was Oma the wife in the author’s dream world?
Chapter Twenty-two
Charlotte was still asleep when the telephone rang. She checked the clock when she picked up the receiver. Eight o’clock. Her first thoughts were of Claus, Carolyn and the baby, but her sister’s heavily-accented English grated down the line.
‘Is that you, Charlotte?’
‘Greta?’ Charlotte struggled to sit up. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Why should something be wrong?’
‘It’s eight in the morning.’
‘It’s six here. But I’ve been up since five. I’ve had to be an early riser with a house to run and a husband to look after. But, since you ask, I’m not so well. My stomach is playing up and my arthritis is extremely painful. It’s this damp weather. I suppose the sun is shining over there. East Prussia was always so much warmer and drier than England.’
‘The weather is fine, Greta. Thank you for asking.’ Greta had never telephoned her without wanting something, and Charlotte wished that her sister would get to the point of the call.
‘Charlotte, this telephone call is too expensive to waste on your sarcasm. Jeremy and Marilyn told me where you were staying. Have you been to Grunwaldsee yet?’ A hard note crept into Greta’s voice.
‘Yes.’ Charlotte answered shortly. ‘The house is exactly as it was. The new owner has renovated it beautifully.’
‘My God. You’ve actually spoken to the man!’ Greta’s voice rose in indignation.
‘His grandson, actually, but I’ve arranged to meet him.’
‘How could you –’
Charlotte interrupted
Greta mid flow. ‘Marius is still here and living in the lodge.’
‘Then he must have saved some of our things,’ Greta said eagerly. ‘The jewellery, the silver …’
‘I’ve told you, Greta, the jewellery was stolen from me after I left the house,’ Charlotte snapped.
‘So you say.’
If Greta had been in the room at that moment, Charlotte would have slapped her. She took a moment to calm down. ‘Marius told me the Russian army set up their headquarters in the house. They stripped it. Literally. The soldiers even used the wooden floor as firewood. But he did manage to save some of our things.’
‘Ah! And would you have told me about them if I hadn’t telephoned?’
‘Of course.’ Charlotte struggled to keep her voice on an even keel. ‘He saved three of the leather-bound photograph albums from the set Opa bought in London when he was on his honeymoon. And our family Bible.’
‘That’s all?’
‘That’s all,’ Charlotte reiterated firmly.
‘There has to be more. The house was full, and then there were the attics. All the antiques … Papa’s family never threw out a thing. There has to be something …’
‘Papa’s cupboard, Greta. If you’re so keen to have a memento, I suggest you come and retrieve it.’ Charlotte slammed down the receiver.
She heard the key turn in the lock and Laura peeped around the door.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you but …’
‘You heard the telephone?’ Charlotte’s anger with her sister dissipated at the sight of her granddaughter.
‘Yes.’
‘It was Aunt Greta after the family heirlooms she’s convinced I’ve stolen and hidden from her.’
‘Poor you.’ Laura walked over and hugged Charlotte. ‘Are you hungry?’
‘Yes,’ Charlotte answered, determined that Greta’s call wasn’t going to ruin her or Laura’s day. ‘Let’s be extravagant and have it on my balcony instead of the dining room. I’ll order it be delivered at,’ she glanced at the clock, ‘nine. That will give me time to count to a hundred and forget Greta while I luxuriate in a long, lazy bath.’
One Last Summer (2007) Page 34