by James Runcie
‘That’s what I told her.’
‘What did you say?’
‘That you would be lost without her.’
‘Well, here I am: lost.’
A three-quarter moon had appeared in the sky. Soon it would be dark. They turned and headed back to the car and then, just before they reached the lay-by, Amanda said she had an idea. Why didn’t Sidney and Anna take a short trip to Germany, father and daughter, just the two of them? They could go to Leipzig, perhaps, and Anna could see where her mother had been brought up, imagine the kind of life she had led and visit her grandmother. If he got on with it, they might even be able to see the Christmas markets. She was sure Anna would like that.
‘I don’t know. It would be quite an undertaking.’
‘When else would you do it? Take her away from Ely. Get her out of the house and its memories.’
‘I don’t know if she would want to come.’
‘She will if you make it all about her and her mother.’
Sidney thought about those times when he had visited Hildegard before they had married: in Berlin, in Hamburg, to see St Michael’s Church and the Trostbrücke, and Koblenz where they had taken a boat to Boppard and cruised through the Rhine Gorge to Rüdesheim. He remembered the Christmas markets in both East and West and how, when he and Hildegard had first started out in their marriage, and had so little money, they had given each other presents by rewrapping possessions they already had but had forgotten about.
Would Germany still be Germany without her? He couldn’t imagine it.
Amanda repeated that she would pay. ‘But let Anna decide.’
‘I’m sometimes amazed she’s my daughter. I can’t understand how we can exist together, how we talk or what we do or how I’ve had anything to do with her at all. Sometimes she’s an indelible part of me, at other times she’s a stranger. I don’t know what to make of her; and I am pretty sure she doesn’t know what to make of me either. When I’m at my lowest I think she would have preferred it if I was the one that had died.’
‘That’s nonsense.’
‘I don’t know. She was probably expecting it more than the death of her mother.’
‘She wouldn’t have wanted either of you to die. You’re being ridiculous, Sidney.’
‘I just don’t know her, Amanda.’
‘Then that’s why you need to go to Germany.’
Father and daughter flew to West Berlin and then, after over an hour at the border checking visas and passports (Sidney hoped that there wouldn’t be any paperwork that reminded the authorities of his brief arrest after a misunderstanding in 1961; he had never told Anna about it – perhaps now was the time?), they took the train to Leipzig and booked into two single rooms at the state-owned Hotel Deutschland on Augustusplatz.
Anna was unusually quiet once they had crossed into the GDR, taking in the change from West to East, the increasing numbers of soldiers and patrols, the political banners hanging from the public buildings and the murals glorifying the achievements of the workers under socialism. FÜR VORBILDLICHE LEISTUNGEN: Beste Einheit.
She was surprised by the industrial nature of the landscape, the chimneys that churned fumes up into a sky already filled with thick mist, heavy rain and fine dust from the carbo-chemical factories lining the railway track. In the distance, cranes lifted steel girders and prefabricated panels for functional apartment blocks that now replaced some of the finest architecture in Europe.
Sidney was determined that the trip should suit his daughter rather than himself and they confined their ecclesiastical tourism to two churches: St Thomas’s, where Bach had been cantor, and St Nicholas’s, which had a lively pastor prepared to share services with Catholics, knowing that the only chance of Christian survival in an atheist state was to unite.
They began with a visit to Hildegard’s mother in her worker’s apartment in Konradstraße. She was now in her late eighties and was distressed that she had lost a daughter before her time – why hadn’t God taken her instead? She would have been happy to go in Hildegard’s place, she was ready enough – but she was glad to see Anna. She was so like Hildegard.
‘Wie die Mutter so die Tochter.’
Sibilla Leber cradled her granddaughter’s face: ‘Du siehst wie ich aus! Oh, um wieder jung zu sein . . .’
She reiterated her socialist principles and hoped Anna would come to Leipzig to perfect her German and study at the university. It was the best place to build a well-developed personality, with excellent mental, physical and moral qualities and a class outlook rooted in the Marxist-Leninist world view. Only in the East could her granddaughter imbue herself with collective thoughts and actively contribute to the shaping of socialism. It was important, she said, to continue the family values of Glaube, Pflicht, Familie, Freundschaft und Freiheit vor allem: faith, duty, family, friendship and freedom above all.
Was Anna a good Christian?
Anna said that she hoped she was.
And a good socialist?
She wasn’t so sure about that.
‘Je stärker der Sozialismus, desto sicherer der Frieden,’ Sibilla Leber concluded. There was little point debating the matter.
They spent the next few days seeing Hildegard’s childhood home in Gustav-Mahlerstraße and her school in Manetstraße. Anna sat on a bench in the park by the Lutherkirche and rode on the carousel at the small fair where her mother had played as a child. At one point they passed Runde Ecke, the Stasi headquarters, but Sidney decided not yet to tell his daughter how he had been imprisoned there. Who knows, he thought, the Volkspolizei could even be following them.
Instead they walked round the modern university and then, just outside the Rathaus, they found the spot where Hildegard’s father had been shot by the Nazis. There was a memorial to him on the wall, accompanied by an inverted red triangle.
Hans Leber
Märtyrer: Held
7.4.1933
Es lebe der Kommunismus!
‘Long live communism,’ Anna translated. ‘To think Mum carried so much of that past in her memory. She never even talked about it.’
‘It was often hard to tell what went on in your mother’s head.’
‘But you knew, didn’t you, Dad?’
‘Not all the time. She liked to keep some things back. I think she hoped that there was a part of her I’d always be scared of.’
‘And were you?’
‘I was terrified.’
On their last evening, as they were walking through the Christmas market, and just as Sidney was about to launch into a bemused discussion of the non-Christian nature of the decorations on sale (folk figures, snowmen and festive workers), Anna asked: ‘Do you think you’ll ever marry again, Dad?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Not even Amanda? One day you might.’
Sidney snapped into concentration. ‘Amanda is divorced. I can’t marry a divorcee.’
‘What if you gave up being a priest?’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘But if you loved her, you could. Leonard stopped.’
‘He’s different.’
‘But the principle is the same.’
Anna had begun to pursue subjects with the same determination as her mother. Her father didn’t know whether to be proud or annoyed.
‘I really don’t think that situation will arise,’ he continued. ‘Is there anything you want to take home with you?’ He picked up some little wooden figures of children going to school in their best winter coats and bobble hats. ‘These are nice, don’t you think?’
His daughter said nothing but waited until he looked at her.
‘I have no plans to marry again, Anna.’
‘Then promise me that you won’t.’
‘I don’t think that’s fair.’
‘Why not?’
‘What if you get married yourself, Anna, and I live to be a hundred and I’m left on my own? You don’t want to be looking after me when you’ve got a husband and children.’
‘I will. I’ll look after you for ever, Dad.’
Why this new kindness? Sidney wondered. This is what his daughter could do to him. In the midst of her infuriating refusal to leave a subject alone, she could open his heart and let it bleed with love.
‘That’s very kind. And I will love you for ever, too.’
‘As much as you loved Mum?’
And there she was, back on the attack again. Why couldn’t she just let it go?
‘Yes,’ said Sidney, ‘as much as I loved your mother.’
‘And no one else?’
‘No one else.’
‘You promise?’
‘I promise that I will never love anyone as I loved Hildegard.’
‘That’s not enough.’
‘It is, Anna. I can’t predict what is going to happen to either of us. We know that nothing will ever be the same again. But don’t hold me to ransom. I loved your mother more than anyone. And then you came along. And I loved the two of you more than anyone. That is all I can do and all I will ever do.’
‘You can promise me that?’
‘Yes, I can easily promise you that. Now, what about some supper?’
He took his daughter into an arcade and downstairs into a basement restaurant, hoping that a difference in location would lead to a change of subject.
‘You know what they say? “If you haven’t been to Auerbach’s Keller then you haven’t been to Leipzig.” I just hope the food’s all right.’
The restaurant was filled with locals drinking wine and Nordhäuser Doppelkorn as waiters dressed in red waistcoats explained what was off and what was on the menu. Anna’s vegetarianism was surely going to cause a few problems in a land of stout meat-eating, but she finally found her way towards a cream of mushroom soup followed by a vegetable stew with peas, carrots and dumplings. Sidney conformed to local expectations with jellied meat followed by medallions of pork, beef and lamb served up with savoy cabbage.
He noticed that the restaurant also offered Leipziger Lerche and wondered if his daughter would mention it. When the waitress came – brusque and determined not to be overawed by bourgeois Westerners – Anna ordered in German and asked for a dollop of cream. Sidney said he would have the same and they wondered out loud if they could be ‘as good as Mum’s’.
‘They might even be better,’ he added.
‘Don’t say that!’
‘She can’t hear us.’
‘Perhaps she can? It’s funny. I’ve never seen the words written down. I always thought they were spelled with an “s”. Mum always used to say “Lersche”, the same way people here pronounce the town “Leipshig”.’
‘It’s the Saxon accent. Your mother prided herself on her Hochdeutsch but there were a few words that always gave away where she came from. She never forgot her roots.’
‘Then I’m glad we’ve tried to find them.’
When the cakes arrived, warm on a plate and accompanied by extraordinarily expensive coffee (the country was in the middle of a shortage), Anna was surprised to discover a cherry at the bottom of each one.
‘That’s weird.’
‘Your mother always preferred apricots. You know that when they were first made they were filled with meat? In fact, they were made with larks and roasted with herbs and eggs.’
‘The birds?’
‘Hildegard said there used to be thousands of larks in Leipzig but the practice of killing them was outlawed in the nineteenth century. The cherry is supposed to represent the heart of the bird, but your mother couldn’t bear to think of that. She loved they way they sang in high summer. So she used apricots instead.’
‘She never told me.’
‘I think she imagined that, with you being a vegetarian, it might put you off.’
‘No, it makes me approve of them all the more. These are good. I like the glazed topping but I still prefer Mum’s.’
‘She’d be glad. To be better than a Leipzig baker . . .’
‘I do like to think she can hear us, Dad.’
‘Then I’m sure she’d approve of our conversation.’
‘I find it comforting to think of her watching over us.’
She finished her plate and smiled at her father. It was the first sign of cheerfulness since her mother’s death. Sidney didn’t know what to do or say. He realised that he could not predict his daughter’s behaviour at all.
‘Thank you for bringing me here,’ she said. ‘I feel I know her better now.’
When they returned home, Sidney noticed that one of the letters in the Christmas post had come from 10 Downing Street. What on earth could the prime minister want – apart from to wish him a happy Christmas? Surely James Callaghan couldn’t have written to every clergyman in the country? He wasn’t that desperate for votes.
He opened the envelope and discovered that he had been offered a new job. The Queen would be honoured, the letter said, if Sidney were to accept a position as the next Bishop of Peterborough.
Was this supposed to be some kind of silver lining in his cloud of despair? Why him? And why now?
He went to see the dean. It was five o’clock in the afternoon and just after evensong. The anthem had been ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments’.
‘Did you know about this?’ Sidney asked.
‘The archbishop did mention it.’
‘And are you responsible?’
‘I may have put in a word.’
‘Why?’
‘We all think you’d make a fine bishop, Sidney. And, who knows, you might even enjoy it.’
‘But all that responsibility! I’m not sure I’m up to it.’
‘If you thought you were born for the role you probably wouldn’t be very good at doing it.’
‘It means being in the public eye all the time.’
‘I thought you didn’t mind a bit of attention? Keeping a low profile, Sidney, has never been one of your strong points.’
‘But this is different. Being a bishop is like being in some kind of Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.’
‘And you don’t think you’re in one already?’
‘Seriously, Felix. I’ve seen what happens to clergy who climb the greasy pole. They are so used to preaching and making speeches that they become pompous without noticing. Their voices get louder; as does their laughter. They seek to dominate rooms. They exist solely on a diet of Coronation chicken and buffet suppers. I can’t believe that God is calling me to do this.’
‘You’ve always thought that you were a better detective than a priest. Now’s your chance to prove the opposite.’
‘I’d have to give up on the detection.’
‘You would. And that might be a good thing. We all think you’ve done your bit. Think of the episcopate as a replacement for all that drama.’
‘As I think I’ve made clear, Felix, I don’t need anything dramatic.’
‘I rather think you do, Sidney. Remember that for all our faith and ceremony we are only a hop, skip and a jump away from the theatre. You’d have a staff, cope and mitre, even a rather impressive amethyst ring.’
‘I’m not convinced.’
‘And there’d be plenty of support: a chaplain, a secretary, a chauffeur. The Bishop’s Palace is rather fine . . .’
‘I sometimes think that the higher up the Church of England you go the further you get from Jesus . . .’
‘. . . Victorian Gothic, but some of the old abbot’s house from the thirteenth century survives, if I recall correctly: a lovely undercroft, decorated columns, a good garden. It even has its own “heaven chamber” with rather fine vaulting. You could be there in time for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebrations. They have great plans, I gather. Lunch in the Bishop’s Palace, perhaps. That would be nice for Anna.’
‘She’d miss her friends.’
‘You could keep her at school in Ely for the time being. And you’d have more money – seven or eight thousand a year.’
‘Anyone would think you were trying to get rid of
me.’
‘Nonsense. I only want you to make use of your talents. A man needs to be stretched.’
‘I’d have to ask Anna.’
‘She won’t be keen, but children are resilient.’
‘She’s got her O levels soon enough. I don’t like to think of her moving school.’
‘She could board.’
‘I don’t want to be apart from her.’
‘But maybe she needs to be apart from you. Find her own way in life.’
‘I know. Eventually.’
‘You have to let them go, Sidney.’
‘It’s too soon.’
‘It’s always too soon.’
‘Do you think people would expect me to marry again?’
‘Not soon. And probably not a divorcee.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking how impossible it would be to live with anyone other than Hildegard.’
Without asking, the dean poured out a couple of stiff whiskies. ‘You know, Sidney, when I was seeing the archbishop at Lambeth to talk about all of this, I had to wait outside his study for a little while. He was seeing some Orthodox patriarch. So I took some time to look at the paintings of the previous incumbents in the Great Hall. There are whole corridors of them leading to the guard room and the chapel.
‘I particularly liked the one of Tait. His portrait is almost full length, and it’s the saddest I have ever seen. He was the first Scottish archbishop. It was 1868. Earlier in his life, when he moved from Carlisle to be Bishop of London, they asked him to do so in the same year that he lost all five of his daughters to scarlet fever: five children in five weeks. And yet he thanked God for the blessings they had brought him over the previous ten years and for all the sweet memories of their little lives. His face has such pain; but it also shows compassion.
‘I think that if I ever felt bereft, or that life was impossible, he’s the man I’d most like to talk to. I know he would understand without ever having to say very much. And yet he must have wondered if he could do the job or if life would be the same after all that suffering. He lost his wife and son too. Apart from his sister, he was quite alone when he died; and yet he was a great archbishop, a bringer of people together, a pacifier. When he went back to his old school for a prize-giving or some such ceremony, he told the boys: “I hope and believe that you are going forth into life, not to seek the applause which depends on the fleeting breath of your fellow-men, nor that success which ends only in this life, but that you will remember that another Eye besides that of man is upon you, and that a higher approbation is to be won than that of your fellow-creatures.”’