by Sarah Laing
‘I’m Jewish.’ Although with many people, knowing that didn’t seem to improve things at all. Klara didn’t understand: all the chest-beating, the collective sympathy, made little difference on a personal level. She’d met German Jews who’d been interred over the war, here in New York State. And now the Americans touted themselves as the liberators, conveniently forgetting all the ways in which they had failed.
‘I’m sorry. I-I-I mean for your losses, not that you’re Jewish. Did you —’ He cleared his throat. ‘Lose anyone near to you?’
‘My parents.’
‘Oh. Oh dear, I am sorry.’ He reached out for her hands, covering them in his own. Her knuckles pressed into his palms, tense and resistant.
‘You must miss them.’
Klara began to cry, pulling away from his grip.
‘Here.’ He passed her his handkerchief, large and pale blue. She opened it out and covered her face with it. She heard the clunk of the soup bowl being set down before her; a gust of withdrawal, the waiter primed to avoid scenes.
‘Tell me about them,’ Owen said, as she peeled the handkerchief off her cheeks.
Klara breathed a deep breath, trying to stretch out her spasming diaphragm. ‘We went to the lake once, the Strandbad Wannsee, when I was four, before Mama and Papa got so involved in their rescue mission. They evacuated Jewish children to America. My sister and me.’
‘But not themselves,’ said Owen, almost to himself.
‘They weren’t children.’ She fought to keep the bitterness at bay. ‘It was a beautiful day, I remember, and I wanted to swim, but I didn’t have my swimsuit. Papa hadn’t told us we were going to the beach. I think he might have decided on the spur of the moment. He was like that — impulsive, a little unpredictable. But Mama said I should just take my clothes off and jump in — no one was watching. So I did. I felt embarrassed, but the water was wonderful. I wanted so badly to be a mermaid that I imagined my legs were covered in fish scales. Afterwards, Papa bought us ice creams. I remember mine had cream and nuts and was way too big for me but I finished it all anyway.’
Klara blushed; this wasn’t what he’d asked for.
‘I used to skinny dip too. Down at the water hole at my uncle’s farm. There was a rope tied to a branch and we’d swing out over the river and let go when we’d reached the deepest part. I was always scared I’d crack my head open on a rock, but I never did. We got caught once, my brother and I, when the Sunday school decided to have a picnic in our spot. I can still remember Mrs Fletcher calling, “Shame on you, Quinn boys. Cover your eyes, children!”’ He smiled conspiratorially, and Klara laughed, his naked body flashing into her mind. She felt lighter. She took a spoonful of her soup.
‘Good thing you stopped crying. Soup’s too salty as it is.’
Klara laughed again. ‘I like it salty. I can eat a bowl of pickles in one go.’
‘Doesn’t that make your mouth wrinkle up? I’m sorry, it makes me feel like I’ve swallowed a mouthful of ocean. I’m more of a sucker for sweet.’
‘Like my sister Esther. You should see her with the tootsie rolls.’
He wasn’t going to pry, to make her reveal the details of their deaths, although if he asked, she might tell him. She hadn’t told anyone. She hadn’t even talked about it with Esther.
And then she saw the time on the big clock above the bar: she had to get to the Majestic Theatre on West 44th Street. Esther would never forgive her if she messed this one up.
‘Don’t go,’ Owen said, dropping coins onto the little silver tray.
‘I’ll lose my job.’
‘Then I’m coming too. Do you think there’ll be standby tickets at the door?’
‘Maybe. We’ll have to take the train to Times Square.’
‘I’ll carry this for you,’ he said, picking up her cello once more.
‘Thank you,’ Klara said.
Heinrich opened the door, feigning surprise, even though Klara still kept her Wednesday appointments, her lesson day from childhood. ‘Klaralein, so good to see you, I keep waiting for the time that you are too busy, playing in Paris or Madrid, but still you come. What have you brought? Some Debussy? Or maybe Lalo?’
‘No music today, Heinrich, but look, I’ve brought us something to eat instead.’
‘Are you too fancy to play for me now? Do I have to pay like the others? I hope the food makes up for it.’
‘I picked up a babka. I thought it would be nice to talk instead.’
‘Russian peasant food. I hope at least it is chocolate.’
‘Yes, of course. Shall I put the coffee on?’ Heinrich was getting crankier, but she ignored it; it was part of his routine.
‘You know where to find it.’
Klara moved into the kitchen and unscrewed the percolator, digging the dregs of the last pot out with a spoon. She poured water into its base, then ground fresh coffee and tipped it into the metal filter, screwing the pot tight again. She lit the stove and placed the percolator onto the little ring of blue fangs. Until recently Heinrich had been too proud to let her do things for him, but his knee was giving him trouble and he was pleased for her to step in.
Emerging with a tray of cups and sliced babka, Heinrich shook a bottle of brandy at Klara. ‘You want a shot of this in your coffee?’
‘Okay.’ It was only ten o’clock, but there was no point arguing. She’d left an inch at the top of her cup; he couldn’t get her drunk. She’d filled his cup halfway.
‘Gerhardt was around the other day. He was the one who drank this brandy. I cannot stop him. He’ll argue until the sun comes up.’
‘Of course. Nothing to do with you, right?’
‘I have been telling him, he has to get his name off the Communist party list but he won’t listen to me. Communism is the new enemy, and I do not think it’s a coincidence that lots of Jews are communists too.’
‘Are you still a paid-up member?’
‘No, I was kicked out of the party years ago. I hate dogma. Those communists, they treat Karl Marx’s book like it is the Torah, but I do not think that he likes Jews, even though he himself is one. He makes us all sound like money-grubbing capitalists. Do you still have my copy of Das Kapital?’
‘I do, it’s in my apartment.’ She’d wrapped the cover in brown paper, risking her room-mates thinking she was reading pornography over German socialism. ‘I’ll bring it back before I —’ She was about to say leave but she hadn’t worked up to that yet. Heinrich was the person she was most loath to abandon.
‘Before you what?’ Heinrich hoisted himself forward on his strong arms, a shrewd look in his eye. She’d always been transparent to him.
Klara took a bite of the babka, savouring its yeasty, chocolaty taste. She wondered whether they made these in New Zealand.
‘I’m going.’
‘Where to? Did you get into the Chicago Symphony Orchestra? That’s wonderful, Klaralein, I mean, it’s awful, I will miss you so much, but it is a fine orchestra. I would even strap on my leg to come to your performance, and get out that old suit of mine.’ Heinrich had come to a few of her Juillard recitals, but always with his pant leg pinned up, looking dishevelled and hobo-ish. The ushers had wrinkled their noses at him, unaware of his importance.
‘No, I didn’t make it. They sent a letter.’ The rejection had shaken her faith; the first sign that she wasn’t invincible. Six weeks ago, she’d travelled to Chicago in the Greyhound bus and played her audition piece almost perfectly. But not perfectly enough to overcome the fact that she was a twenty-one-year-old woman.
‘So where are you going then? You shouldn’t compromise, Klara. Someone will recognise your talent eventually.’
‘I’m going to New Zealand, with my fiancé, Owen Quinn.’
‘To New Zealand? But that is where? At the bottom of the world, no? A cousin of mine emigrated to New Zealand and I have not heard from him since. It is like he was swallowed. You need to be around your people, Klaralein. Without us you might forget who you are. An
d who is this Owen Quinn? Is he Jewish?’ Heinrich’s lips curled as if he had a bitter taste on his tongue.
‘He’s an art dealer, or at least that’s what he’s going to become. He loves music too. He sits on the edge of his seat for every performance. He says he hasn’t heard anything like it before.’
‘That is because there is probably no music in New Zealand, only savages who live in grass huts. You are making a big mistake, Klara. You have to stay here if you really care about the cello.’
‘It is quite civilised — Owen says there is an orchestra there. It only just started but he thinks I could probably join.’
‘But who would be listening to you? Nobody, just a couple of cannibals with bones through their necks. Do you think Pablo Casals goes to New Zealand?’
Klara was silent.
‘Forget this boy. There will be others. You are a beautiful young woman, Klara, and I am sure you will have to fight off the suitors soon enough. I would marry you myself, except that I am such a useless crippled old man.’
He looked so sad, slumped back in his chair. ‘Heinrich, don’t be silly. You’re the most useful person I know. Look at your cellos, your violins. The students at Juillard are always asking me whether I can arrange a discount. They think that I must have done something funny to get mine.’
‘I do not want this babka any more. I do not think it is the right texture. They did not knead it long enough.’ He pushed it across the coffee table and, leaning over the side of his chair, unscrewed his bottle of brandy and slugged another shot into his coffee.
‘I’ll take it with me then.’ Klara stood, placing the babka back into its cardboard box.
‘No, leave it there. Maybe Gerhardt will want some when he comes next.’
‘Fine by me. So you won’t give me your blessing?’
‘I think you are making a mistake.’
Esther was weaving fresh pieces of raffia into grass skirts when Klara arrived backstage early to tell her the news. ‘This stuff drives me crazy. Every day I have to refresh it. They moult half the skirt on stage. It’s all that rolling around they do in the wings. Did I tell you that Gertrude is in the family way?’
Gertrude was one of the chorus girls.
‘How awful for her. Has she told you who the father is?’
‘I don’t think she’s admitting it to herself. But I can tell. I’ve been adjusting her sailor suit for weeks now. I suggested that maybe we bind her, but she said she’d prefer to diet. I said, “Gertie, dieting isn’t going to help and there are people more suited to assist you in your situation”, but she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She’ll know, soon enough.’
‘Esther, I’ve met someone.’
‘You have?’ Esther frowned at her over the top of her glasses; Esther had never had a boyfriend and said she wouldn’t marry. If Tante Dagmar could support herself as a seamstress, then so could she. Esther was cagey about her life, but Klara had run into her one night, coming out of a bar in Greenwich Village, her arm linked with a woman who had a moustache penciled onto her upper lip. And there was that girl that Esther was always with, a petite blonde called Ruby. There was something between them, the way they finished each other’s sentences.
‘I’m in love,’ said Klara, flooded with Owen, his smile, his touch that tingled up her whole body.
‘Good for you.’ Esther grabbed another hank of raffia, pushing the two ends through the loop. She pulled it tight, then, taking her scissors, evened off the bottom. ‘If Gertrude does have the baby, maybe I should offer to look after it.’
‘Esther, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard.’
‘I’ve always wanted a baby. I could play with it while Gertrude is on stage.’
‘It would cry and you would be in trouble. Esther, listen, we’re going to be married and then we’re moving to New Zealand.’
The scissors clattered to the floor. ‘You’re what? Where?’
‘In the South Pacific, funnily enough.’
‘Klara, you can’t go. I forbid you.’
‘You’re not my mother.’ Klara was surprised by Esther’s vehemence; now that their overt rivalry had waned, Klara felt her sister hardly listened to her at all.
‘Why can’t you stay here and marry? I’d help you look after your children. Why do you have to move to the other side of the world?’
‘Because Owen feels he has something important to do there. And he loves his country. I don’t love New York. It’s never really felt like home. Remember the ship we came on, Esther? I’ll be going on another ship, this time for over a month.’
‘Go on, leave me then. You don’t care about me anyway. You only think of yourself.’
Which is exactly what Klara thought of Esther. Couldn’t she at least say congratulations? It wasn’t every day her only sister got engaged. ‘That’s not true. I think of lots of people.’
‘You haven’t noticed that I’ve been unwell. It’s just you and your music, and now your love.’
‘What’s wrong, Esther?’ It’s true, she was thinner than usual. There were dark rings under her eyes, but Klara had put that down to all her late nights.
‘I don’t know, I’m just tired all the time. The doctor says it’s probably my nerves.’
‘Go see another one then. Get a second opinion.’
‘Maybe I will. I just don’t seem to be able to shake this.’
The wedding was at City Hall, the week Owen was due to return to New Zealand. He’d bought an extra ticket for her, and Tante Dagmar had made a suit of fine red wool for the ceremony. Although it was too heavy for the mild fall day, it would serve Klara well in what Owen warned her might be a damp New Zealand spring. Tante Dagmar had been excited, her eyes shining bright at the news. ‘My wedding was the happiest day of my life,’ she said. ‘People tell you that and you think it’s not true, but I for one am not lying. The happiest.’ She’d been disappointed that Klara didn’t want to marry in white, but she understood economy and had tailored a matching suit in brown as a wedding gift. She too had had a rapid courtship with her husband, and the prospect of Klara’s marriage made her seem tearful and young. She bit off a few loose threads on Klara’s suit, leaving damp marks, admonishing herself for her shoddy workmanship. ‘I had to keep putting it down, thinking that this would be the last thing I would ever sew for you.’
Klara found it all a bit odd, because she’d never felt that close to Tante Dagmar, believing that she’d been a burden, not a helpful assistant like Esther. She thought her aunt might have seen her as a poor consolation prize, having lost everyone dear to her. But now she saw that Tante Dagmar had to keep herself tightly bound, like a Chinese foot, to stop the pain from splaying out.
Miranda and Esther were her attendants, wearing matching dresses in mint green rayon, and Heinrich reluctantly gave her away, his hair for once combed, his heavy wooden leg strapped to his hips. ‘I have finished that cello I was telling you about, Klaralein. This time, the wood, it sings, it sighs. I will tell that rich American there has been a delay. It is yours if you stay.’
‘I like the first one you made for me,’ she said. Her cello was coming with her, along with her trunk of meagre possessions, the single framed photograph of her parents laughing in their garden, her mother’s arm draped over the shoulders of her best friend, Beate, both of them in long white tennis dresses, her father in white trousers, the ball a blur above his head. She loved that photo more than anything, but disliked its dominance, the way her parents appeared in those same tennis whites, regardless of the situation.
Miranda was peeved too.
‘You should have waited, Klara, then you could have had a double wedding with me.’ This didn’t match up with Miranda’s notion of a proper ceremony, and she didn’t like the idea of the breakfast at Katz’s deli. She’d started dating someone in the past couple of weeks too, a doctor from a good family. She might be giving the oboe up sooner rather than later, marrying when the roses were in full bloom o
ver the Long Island pagoda.
Yet here was Owen beside her, tall and strong, presenting the clerk with his passport, writing his name and his address in his backward-sloping left-handed script on the official form. The certificate would be given to them shortly, and they would be married — married! They would spend their last night in New York together in Owen’s Gramercy hotel, and tomorrow they would board the ship, setting sail for the south seas.
Her friends from Juillard were waiting on the steps, instruments poised as she emerged, playing a Bartók wedding dance before the city officials shooed them away. But there was nobody official around — maybe Miranda’s father, who worked in City Hall, had arranged something. Klara paused on the steps, looking at the elegant fringe of buildings, the glimpse of Brooklyn Bridge. Had she read it all wrong? Was she making a mistake like they said? But then a handful of rice pelted her, and she ran down to the lawn, throwing her bouquet behind her, into Esther’s waiting hands.
CHAPTER 10
New York, 2003
Sick of Marcella and Wendy, who seem more like Jerry Springer participants every night, Toby and I have escaped to a bar. Although Marcella has slept with the documentary maker a few more times, she still doesn’t have a start date for her research project. She has a pile of books out on the Ukraine in case the production company does call, and a language tape which she plays on her headphones, wandering the house making guttural noises.
Nor has Toby got a job yet. He went to a promising interview today, with a small company phoenixing out of another dot com-burnout. The people seem serious about good design, impressed by Toby’s portfolio. They’d done some crazy stuff when they were rolling in money: websites for fancy department stores and record companies, for famous TV shows and peppermints. They used all the available technology; they flew to Bermuda for photo shoots. But now they’re hiring to build a website for a pharmaceutical company, and Toby’s not sure.