‘I finished One Last Summer last night,’ Laura confided after they had finished eating.
‘And?’ Charlotte reached for the coffee pot and refilled both their cups.
‘I haven’t changed my mind about the misery in the Siberian Gulag. It was still unbearable.’ Laura steeled herself and looked into her grandmother’s eyes. ‘Were you the wife in the author’s dream world?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Charlotte said quietly.
‘Did you know the author?’ Laura pressed.
‘Yes, I knew him.’
‘And you were in love with him?’
Charlotte hesitated, just as a voice interrupted them.
‘Good morning, Fräulein Charlotte von Datski. Good morning, Laura.’
Charlotte turned and looked behind her. A boat had sailed up and berthed practically beneath her balcony. Mischa dropped down the sails, tossed an anchor overboard, rose to his feet and steadied himself on the balcony railings.
‘And good morning to you, Mischa,’ Laura replied.
‘It’s a beautiful day. Come for a sail, both of you? We’ll go back to Grunwaldsee, eat one of Jadwiga’s lunches and ride around the lake afterwards. What do you say?’
Charlotte shook her head. ‘My sailing days in anything smaller than a cruise ship are over. But Laura would love to go.’
‘Oma!’ Laura protested.
‘What? You’d prefer to sit around here with me?’
‘We were talking.’
‘And we can pick up the conversation later. Go on, off with you. Here, take my diary with you. I finished it last night.’ Charlotte went to her bedside table, picked up the book and thrust it at her granddaughter. ‘It’s not every day you get an invitation from a good-looking young Russian to spend time with him. If I were your age, I would jump at it.’
‘Your grandmother’s right, Laura. I am a very good-looking Russian and if you keep me waiting I might change my mind,’ Mischa teased.
‘Ever had the feeling you’re being got at?’ Laura left her chair. ‘I’ll fetch my jacket.’
Charlotte leaned over the edge of the balcony. ‘She’ll be with you shortly, Mischa. Would you please tell Marius that I’ve changed my mind about resting today? I’ll drive up to see him this afternoon.’
‘One of us could fetch you, Fräulein von Datski,’ Mischa offered.
‘No need. I’m not so decrepit that I can’t drive myself.’
Charlotte stayed on the balcony until Laura joined Mischa. She watched him raise the anchor and sails of the yacht, then head out to the centre of the lake.
The waiter knocked on the door and cleared away the remains of their breakfast. She was debating whether or not to rest for the remainder of the morning when the telephone rang. She crossed the room, steeling herself for another fight with Greta.
‘Frau Datski?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s reception. There is a man at the desk who said he heard someone call your name outside the hotel. He was most insistent I telephone you and ask if you would be prepared to meet him, that’s if you are the Charlotte von Datski who lived at Grunwaldsee.’
‘I haven’t used the “von” in many years,’ Charlotte replied. ‘What would you like me to tell him, Frau Datski?’
‘What is his name?’ Charlotte listened to a hurried whispered conversation but she couldn’t make out a word.
‘He says he knew you when you were a girl and would like to surprise you.’
Curious, Charlotte asked, ‘What does he look like?’
There was suppressed laughter in the receptionist’s voice. ‘Distinguished, mature, grey-haired.’
Charlotte recalled the average age of the staff manning reception, and realised that ‘mature’ could mean anything from forty to eighty. She glanced at her watch. Ten o’clock. What could be the harm in meeting this strange man in a public area of a hotel at this time of the morning?
‘Tell him I’ll be in the bar in fifteen minutes.’
Charlotte took more care over her appearance in the ensuing ten minutes than she had done in years. She slipped on her favourite black skirt and copper silk blouse, applied her make-up carefully, took down and brushed out her hair before twisting it back into a knot, pushed in the amber earrings she had bought years ago to match the necklace she always wore, and freshened her perfume. Checking the time and her reflection in the mirror, she locked her balcony doors and stepped out into the corridor.
‘Distinguished; mature; grey haired’ was a description that could be applied to almost any man from her past, even, heaven-forbid, Georg. In her eagerness to see an old friend who remembered the Allenstein she had known and loved instead of the Olsztyn of the present, she hadn’t considered the people she would have preferred not to become reacquainted with.
Wondering if there was any possibility of seeing whoever it was before he saw her, she walked cautiously into the bar.
‘Charlotte, I’d know you anywhere. You haven’t changed from the elegant woman who ran Grunwaldsee all through the war.’ The receptionist had been right. He was distinguished, with thinning grey hair.
‘Don’t you remember me?’
Like Marius, Charlotte recognized the voice before the features. ‘Helmut?’ She looked for a trace of the young man who had spent so many holidays at Grunwaldsee with her sister during the war. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘The same as all the other East Prussians who return. Taking a last look at the old country before I die. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard that young man call out Fräulein Charlotte von Datski by the lake. Are you here by yourself?’
‘No, with my granddaughter.’
‘You and Claus had grandchildren? How marvellous.’
‘Not Claus’s granddaughter. Laura is English.’
His face fell slightly, but he soon recovered. ‘I should have remembered the English.’
‘The peace treaties were signed a long time ago, Helmut.’ Charlotte spoke gently. She felt he had a right to be bitter after the way Greta had jilted him.
‘I’m with my wife. She’s on the terrace waiting for us. You heard I married?’
‘No. I’m afraid I lost touch with everyone.’
‘We never saw you at any of the reunions. You did know about the Allensteiner reunions?’
‘I heard, but unfortunately I never had the time to attend any of them.’ It wasn’t the truth, and Charlotte sensed Helmut knew it. No time in over half a century? She could have made the journey if she’d wanted to. It was the memories that held her back. Memories of Ruth and Emilia being herded on to a truck at gunpoint by Georg. Of her brothers dead years before their time. Of the immorality of every principle she had been taught to believe in by school, state, Hitler Youth and even her parents.
‘We knew you were doing well. Your book illustrations are famous.’ Helmut led her to a table. A woman turned to face them, an apprehensive look on her lined face.
Unlike with Helmut, Charlotte recognized her at once. She’d lost weight, and most of her beauty, but her eyes were just as blue, if less open and trusting. She rose to her feet as they approached, drawing close to Charlotte, but holding back from an embrace.
‘Irena.’
‘We’ve followed your career, Charlotte.’
‘We even managed to stretch our budget to buy two of your paintings,’ Helmut added.
‘How kind,’ Charlotte stammered in shock.
‘Kind had nothing to do with it,’ Helmut assured her, feeling the need to say something to fill the silence that had fallen between the two women. ‘I know a good investment when I see one. I had no idea that you were such a talented artist. A musician, yes, but not an artist. You never played professionally after the war?’
She finally turned away from Irena and looked at him. ‘I didn’t have the time or the money to continue my studies, even if I had wanted to.’
‘And you had a family to care for. How is young Erich?’
‘Not so young any more.
’
‘I’ve often wondered if he is the Erich von Letteberg who made such a name for himself in the law courts in the sixties.’
‘He is,’ she answered briefly.
‘He never used Claus’s title?’
‘The days of kings, princes and counts are long gone, Helmut. But Claus was proud of Erich’s choice of career. Erich’s younger son, also an Erich, will be going to Berlin to study law later this year,’ she volunteered, happier to talk of her grandchildren than her children.
Helmut pulled out a chair for Charlotte. ‘Please, sit with us. I think this calls for champagne, not coffee.’
‘Please.’ Irena kissed Charlotte’s cheek.
Charlotte returned the pressure of Irena’s hand on her arm, before taking the chair Helmut offered her. ‘Erich has an older son, too, named after Claus. He has built a successful business designing and making furniture. He lives close to me in America.’
‘A carpenter.’ Irena smiled. ‘Your father would have approved of that.’
‘Yes, he would have,’ Charlotte agreed, thinking of the practical side of her father’s nature. ‘But what about you two? How did you meet? You must tell me everything that’s happened to you since the war.’
‘That’s a long story,’ Irena said. ‘I’ve wanted to get in touch with you for years, Charlotte, but I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me after the terrible things I said to you after the war.’
‘It was understandable you felt that way, after being imprisoned in a camp, separated from the children, and losing the baby and Karoline.’
‘We never found her,’ Helmut broke in quickly, and Charlotte knew that even after sixty years Irena hadn’t entirely given up hope of finding her daughter.
‘I’ve often thought about you, Irena.’ Charlotte laid her hand over Irena’s on the table.
‘What a lot of wasted time. If it hadn’t been for my stupidity we could have remained such good friends.’ Irena leaned forward and hugged Charlotte.
‘Perhaps not, Irena,’ Charlotte said soberly. ‘We would have constantly reminded one another of things best forgotten.’
‘I could never forget …’ Irena began.
‘Every German had to,’ Helmut interposed. ‘At least to the point where they could look forward instead of back.’
‘But we’ve a lot to catch up on now.’ Irena took a tissue from her pocket. ‘I went to my father’s house yesterday, stood in the street outside the synagogue and thought back to that afternoon.’
‘I’ve never been able to forget it,’ Charlotte said quietly.
‘I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped you from leaving the car.’ Irena crumpled the tissue in her hand.
‘We would probably have been loaded on to the truck along with the children. Babies and all.’
‘We still should have done something,’ Irena murmured. ‘You wanted to …’
‘Who was it said, “For evil to flourish all it takes is good men to be silent.”’ Charlotte looked at Helmut. ‘You know what happened?’
‘Irena told me. She also told me that a boy you two knew, Georg Mendel, was involved in the round-up. Did you know that he went to Chile after the war? He and some of his former SS comrades proved very useful to Pinochet and his henchmen. They were expert torturers.’
‘That day was the first time I had seen something for myself,’ Irena confessed. ‘I had never questioned the official line. That the Jews were being resettled in the East – or Africa, or Madagascar. Then Wilhelm returned from the East. You saw how changed he was.’
‘He told you the truth?’ Charlotte asked.
‘Some of it,’ Irena qualified. ‘He said some things were too horrible to describe.’
‘Be realistic, both of you. What could two young girls have done to stop the SS?’ Helmut asked.
‘Emilia survived the war,’ Irena revealed. ‘Nina met her in 1946. She was on her way to Palestine.’
‘And Ruth?’
Irena looked down, unable to meet Charlotte’s gaze. ‘We should have done something that day.’
‘If you had, you wouldn’t be here now to talk about it.’ Helmut commented.
‘Some things are worth dying for,’ Irena said quietly. So quietly Charlotte wasn’t sure she had heard her correctly.
‘I’m not sure that all the forty-one million people who died in the war would agree with you,’ Helmut interposed.
‘No.’ Charlotte said. ‘I’m sure not all of them would, but some might, Helmut.’
‘It took me years to forgive Wilhelm. But in my heart I always knew he was right,’ Irena confessed. ‘I just hated having to live on without him and the children we lost.’
‘He would have been proud of you for building a new life for yourself and Marianna,’ Charlotte sympathized.
Helmut braved the silence that had fallen over the table. ‘I saw Claus in the sixties. Did he tell you?’ Helmut glanced at the label on the champagne bottle the waiter had brought and nodded approval.
‘He mentioned he’d met you at one of the army reunions,’ Charlotte concurred.
‘Would you believe we were in the same regiment? Claus for the duration and me for the last six months? But the Claus von Letteberg I met after the war wasn’t the man I remembered from my trips to Grunwaldsee. It must have been hard on you, Charlotte, having to nurse him. I’d heard that the conditions in the Russian prisoner of war camps were worse than the conditions in the American camps, and I thought they were hell. But we didn’t know the full truth about the Soviet camps until men like Claus came back. He didn’t want to talk about it to me, of course.’
‘Or to anyone, Helmut. But surely you of all people can understand why?’
‘There is a great deal of difference between eighteen months in an American camp in the Rhineland and ten years in Siberia. Even so, all I remember from my eighteen months is wanting to die. Waking, sleeping, living in filth in the open. I had never known such cold and hunger, such a feeling of being forgotten and abandoned by the rest of the world.’
‘So what did you and Claus talk about when you saw one another?’ Charlotte prompted, not wanting to discuss Soviet or American prisoner of war camps.
‘What every old soldier talks about at reunions: the poor decisions made by High Command. What about Greta?’ Helmut took Irena’s hand and patted it as though he needed to reassure her that he had no feelings left for his old fiancée. ‘How did she like England?’
Charlotte tried not to sound bitter. ‘You knew Greta. Like a cat, she has a talent for landing on her feet.’
‘Her husband really was wealthy and had a big house?’
‘He didn’t lie about that. It was big all right, and cold, draughty and dilapidated. He sold that, and some farmland he’d rented out, to buy a modern and luxurious house that Greta approved of. Also, he was rich enough to employ a cook and a maid, which suited Greta very well. She still places herself and her own concerns before everyone else’s.’
‘She didn’t have children?’ Helmut asked.
Charlotte shook her head. ‘She always said, even as a girl, that she never wanted any.’
Helmut looked at Irena. ‘I wouldn’t be without our two girls.’
‘Tell me about them?’ Charlotte asked eagerly.
‘Our daughter or Wilhelm’s?’ Helmut asked.
‘You told Marianna who her father was?’ Charlotte fought back tears.
‘I didn’t have to. She remembers him and our last day in Grunwaldsee,’ Irena tightened her grip on Helmut’s hand. ‘She often says it was the end of her childhood. When I went to Bavaria after the war we both used my maiden name. Then, when Helmut and I married, we changed our names to his. You know how difficult it was for relatives of the conspirators after the war. So many people regarded us as traitors. But now she uses the name von Datski, and proudly.’
Charlotte looked away. The scars of strain and suffering were evident on Irena’s face.
‘I tried to get
in touch with you when Helmut and I married in Munich in nineteen fifty-three but Frau Leichner had sold her house and moved on, and the new owners knew nothing about any of her lodgers,’ Irena explained. ‘I said so many stupid things to you after the war, Charlotte. Cruel things that I didn’t mean and soon regretted. Looking back, I think I had a breakdown, but that isn’t an excuse. I wanted to blame someone for all that I had endured and all that I had lost. It wasn’t enough to lay the guilt on Wilhelm. He was dead. I couldn’t hurt him, or make him see how much pain he had caused me and his children. But you were there. And your heart was as broken as mine. I knew that from the way you cried over Karoline. Afterwards – for a long while afterwards – I wanted to write to you. Later, when I knew that I could contact you through your publishers, I thought about it but I wasn’t sure you’d want to know me again after all the things that I’d said.’
‘You should have known that I would, Irena. We were closer than most sisters,’ Charlotte said feelingly.
‘Marianna is an architect,’ Helmut announced proudly. ‘Wilhelm and Paul would have been pleased.’
‘That’s what we told her when she graduated.’
‘And we called our daughter, Wilhelmina after one of the bravest men I have ever met.’ Helmut handed Irena and Charlotte two of the glasses of champagne the waiter had poured.
‘She is a doctor. Both of them are married and both have children. Mina has a girl, and Marianna twin boys.’
‘Twins?’ Overcome with emotion, Charlotte reached into her pocket for a tissue.
‘Wilhelm and Paul. And they are just as I remember their grandfather and great-uncle. You must come and stay with us, Charlotte, and meet them.’ Irena rummaged in her handbag and handed Charlotte a photograph.
Two blond smiling young men looked back at her. Irena was right; there was a strong resemblance.
‘You can keep it if you like,’ Irena offered. ‘I have another.’
One Last Summer (2007) Page 35