The Rose Gardener

by Charlotte Link

  “Nevertheless it would have been only natural for Mrs. Wyatt to be suspicious. A young man and a young girl … so many hours alone together, time and time again …”

  “Mrs. Wyatt was half crazy with fear on Julien’s account. She saw herself and her family as being in constant danger. I don’t believe she had enough energy left to be thinking about my virginity as well. I visited her at her nursing home in London two years ago, and we spoke of that time — it was obvious she still didn’t have the slightest suspicion. Secretly she might also have been quite happy that because of me Julien had a bit of company; that he had something to distract him and wasn’t always brooding. And not always forming schemes for how he could run off. She might well have been happy to see him on the opposite end of the earth, but at the same time she was convinced that he’d be captured while trying to escape and then give them all away. She was very pale and forever despondent.”

  “And Mae …”

  “With Mae it was definitely worse. She suspected that something was going on but she could find nothing to substantiate her suspicion. Our friendship fell into a serious crisis, but that was really my fault. I hardly concerned myself with Mae anymore. She must have felt very hurt.”

  Franca reached for the wine bottle and poured herself another glass. She had already drunk too much, she felt pleasantly light and had the feeling that it might perhaps be better not to continue. But this time she didn’t have a bad conscience about the thought of possibly going overboard. She wasn’t drinking in the same way she had in the past weeks, alone in the evening at home in front of the television: frustrated, sad, at pains to numb herself and knowing as she did so that the morning after she would feel cold and miserable and have a massive headache.

  Right now she was drinking because she felt good, because she was enjoying the taste of the wine. She felt safe, warm, and content in the cozy kitchen. The homey sound of the steadily rushing rain set her at ease. A notion was gathering strength within her of which she was only partly aware, the notion that life could be beautiful.

  “Helene, by the way, was really suspicious,” Beatrice went on. She had lit her twentieth cigarette of the night and was enjoying it as much as she had the first. “But she knew the least of all. She was always saying, though, that I seemed changed to her, my aura was different. I was radiating something that made her uneasy.”

  “Does she know about it now?” Franca asked.

  Beatrice nodded. “She found out later on. After the war. But there was no longer anything she could do about it.”

  They had heard Helene come home two and a half hours earlier. Kevin had taken leave of her at the door with a secretive whisper. It must have made her feel like a young girl whose admirer had brought her home a little late and who had to be careful not to wake her parents.

  “He knows just how he’s got to set it up,” Beatrice had commented with a wry smile.

  Helene had briefly popped into the kitchen, giving a twirl that sent the skirt of her white dress flying. “Are you two still up?” Her eyes were shining. The way she was dressed was in fact too young, and inappropriate for her age, but in her face Franca saw a hint of how attractive she once must have been. “It was a magnificent evening! Kevin’s cooking was simply divine. I think I’m about to burst, I ate so much. We listened to music, and as it was slowly getting dark, Kevin lit all the candles in the room. Oh, I am going to sleep well tonight!” She blew them a kiss. “Good night! Dream something wonderful!” Already she was gone again and was hurrying up the stairs with a sprightliness remarkable for her age.

  “She feels good,” Franca had said. “That’s the main thing.”

  “I’m sure Kevin’s feeling good, too,” Beatrice had said bitterly in response. “Since she’ll be ready to pay a heap of money to experience another night like this one.”

  Now, lost in thought, she was saying, “I believe that during that time Helene downright hated me. It was clear to her that there was something going on and she realized that I wasn’t planning on confiding in her. Finally, in her need, she turned to Erich. She told him that I was always running around and that she was afraid I’d wind up in a bad crowd. Erich was beside himself. He was gone so often that he’d barely known anything, and I’m sure now that he felt boxed out, betrayed, like I’d gone behind his back. He took to shouting, wanted to know where and with whom I was spending so much time. I said I’d been over at Mae’s a lot — which was certainly dangerous, as of course Julien was hiding out there, but it would’ve seemed even more conspicuous if I’d denied seeing Mae. He knew that anyway. But I also gave reports of going on long, solitary walks, told him how much I was suffering from being separated from my parents, and that I was going through a phase where I needed solitude. Somehow he wasn’t really buying it. He gave me a hard look and said I was different. I answered that it was because he hadn’t seen me in a while, that I had just gotten older.

  “ ‘No, no, it’s not just that,’ he said, knitting his brow, ‘there’s something about you … I don’t like it! I don’t like it one bit!’

  “In any case he now demanded that in the future I come straight home after school and spend the rest of the day and the evening at home. He charged Helene with the task of making sure I obeyed the order. I hoped to outsmart Helene once Erich was gone again, but this proved difficult. Helene had a pronounced interest of her own in keeping me at home. She couldn’t be alone, and it had made her half crazy to never have me with her.”

  “So it got very difficult to meet Julien,” Franca said.

  Beatrice nodded slowly. “Which isn’t to say that it had become impossible. But we saw each other much more seldom by far, and the risk for everyone involved became higher. Because if I was to secretly sneak away now, there was always the danger that Helene would follow me or in her hysterical way would send whole groups of soldiers to find me. That could have meant the end for Julien — and it would have been disastrous for the Wyatts. I think it was during this time that I began to really hate Helene. She had always gotten on my nerves, of course, but I’d actually felt sorry for her, and I had never harbored any real dislike towards her. But now I was getting to know her unpleasant side. I realized how egotistical she was and what ironclad toughness she had hidden behind her girlish exterior. She was ruthless when it came to carrying out her own interests and desires. I realized it then, and later, time and time again she would reaffirm this image. Eventually all I felt towards her was contempt.”

  Franca hesitated. “But still,” she said finally, “you’ve stayed together all your lives.”

  Beatrice stared at her. She stubbed her cigarette out. There was aggression in her movement. “Yes, it’s hard to believe, isn’t it? She actually managed it. This fragile creature with the big blue doe eyes has actually managed to terrorize me to this very day. That’s an accomplishment, don’t you think? Many who seem much more hardy than she wouldn’t have brought it off.”

  Franca had the feeling that she’d said something wrong. “I’m sorry if I …,” she began, but Beatrice waved her off.

  “You don’t have to apologize, Franca. Your observation was totally natural. But we should go to sleep now. It’s almost one o’clock, and we’ll have more time tomorrow.”

  They left everything where it was and went upstairs. Franca noticed suddenly how tired she was. The red wine had a soporific effect on her, and the rushing of the rain past the windows made it even stronger. She’d scarce lain down in bed when she fell asleep.

  The ringing of the telephone woke her. In that unexplainable way that people have of dreaming, she had at first integrated the ringing into her dream. She had been at home and had been waiting on Michael, and all at once the doorbell had started ringing without cease.

  That must be Michael, she thought. I must open the door for him at once.

  She sat up in bed, looked around her in confusion and tried t
o figure out where she was. It became clear to her that she was on Guernsey and not at home, and that it was the telephone that was ringing, not the doorbell. She thought about whether she should run downstairs, but just then she heard Beatrice’s voice. She couldn’t understand what she was saying. Right afterwards steps could be heard on the stairs, and there was a knock at her door.

  “Franca?” It was Beatrice. “Franca, are you awake?”

  “Yes. What is it?

  “Your husband is on the phone. He’d like to speak to you.”

  So he had actually given thought to where she could be, and obviously Guernsey had come to mind. You couldn’t deny him a certain gift for deduction.

  Was he worried? Franca asked herself as she jumped out of bed. Or does it just rub him the wrong way that I’m doing something without asking his opinion first?

  A look out the window showed her that it was raining still, but much more gently and weakly than in the night.

  “The sun will be out again tomorrow,” said Beatrice, who was waiting outside her door. She was fully dressed, and there were damp patches on her clothes. Her hair was wet. She must have been out with the dogs already. “And then the nice weather is supposed to hold.”

  “Wonderful,” Franca said and yawned. “My God, how late is it? I must have completely overslept!”

  “It’s not even eight o’clock yet. Not to worry.” Beatrice smiled conspiratorially. “Your husband seems to be rather furious.”

  Barefoot, Franca went down the stairs into the hall and picked up the telephone.

  “Yes?” she asked, not managing to suppress another yawn.

  “Franca?” Indeed, Michael’s voice sounded extremely irritated. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah. What is it?”

  He seemed to be struggling to catch his breath. “What is it? You’re asking me?”

  “Yes. You’re the one who called.”

  “Now listen … I … tell me, is your head on straight still? You vanish all of a sudden, gone, just like that, you don’t say a word, and now you’re going to just blithely answer the telephone?”

  Franca noticed the mild tremor in her hands that always started up when Michael was angry with her.

  Why is it that I’ve always been afraid of him? She thought, and another thought followed right afterwards: This time I really don’t have to be frightened. He’s hundreds of miles away from me. And if he gets too unpleasant, I’ll just hang up.

  The tremor died down. She stood on one foot, then another, but only because she was cold, not out of any sense of anxiety.

  “Unfortunately there was no opportunity to report my plans to you,” she replied coolly. “Because the night before I left, you didn’t come home.”

  “I see. And that gives you the right to just disappear and not even leave me a note?” His tone had the perfect mixture of rage and self-pity. “Can you imagine how worried I was?”

  “Can you imagine, that I too might possibly be worried when a whole night goes by and you haven’t come home?”

  “You know perfectly well that …” He didn’t finish his sentence. Apparently even he got a little embarrassed sometimes.

  “… That you have a mistress and are likely staying with her,” Franca completed the sentence. “Don’t you think it’s somewhat grotesque, this situation we’re living in? Perhaps we should change something about it.”

  “By which you mean that you take off? You think you’re changing something that way?”

  She considered this for a moment, even though she knew that he wasn’t seriously expecting an answer to his question. “Maybe, yes,” she said finally. “Maybe this way we both have time and a little calm to think it over.”

  She noticed that she was confusing him.

  It throws him completely off balance when someone’s not afraid of him, she thought. And when someone stays calm.

  “Think it over!” He snapped. “Think it over! What the hell do you want to think over?”

  She made an effort not to lose her steady tone, though she was inclined to give a sharp remark. His ignorance was increasingly seeming like shamelessness to her.

  “The future,” she said, “and what it’s supposed to look like.”

  “Ok. And you want to decide this for yourself all alone on Guernsey?”

  “Together with you it might be very difficult to come to a decision. I didn’t have the impression that you’d like to change anything about the situation as it now stands. You’re rather satisfied and actually have everything you need.”

  He thought about this. She knew that he was usually very malicious after he’d thought something over.

  “You know,” he said. “It’s all following the same pattern yet again. You find a situation uncomfortable, something or another doesn’t suit you, life just doesn’t go the way you imagined it would — and you go ahead and throw in the towel. You have no staying power, Franca. As that wonderful saying would have it, you’ve got no bite. You can’t stomach any tension, and even less can you meet trouble head on. You just do what you always do: You run away. You cower, you hide, you stick your head in the sand and hope that disaster will somehow pass over you. And you don’t notice that in doing it you get weaker and weaker, more and more afraid. Ever more incapable and ever more …”

  His voice hammered on like machine gun fire. Franca noticed that her hands were beginning to shake again. Her knees grew weak, and sweat broke out all over her body.

  “Michael …” she croaked.

  “I really just have to tell you, Franca, even if it’s brutal: You’re the biggest coward I’ve ever known. The weakest person. And my mistress, to whom you always refer in such a derisive tone of voice, in contrast to you at least has the courage, the drive, the capacity to look unpleasant truths in the face and take up the fight against them. You, however …” He had the upper hand. In just a few moments the tables had turned. Franca’s initial advantage had fallen apart, there was nothing left. Michael’s confusion had died away. Now he could smell her weakness, and he swooped down on her as mercilessly as a bird of prey catching the scent of an injured rabbit.

  “Michael …,” she got out once more, but already his voice sounded far away. Her fingers were no longer trembling; they had turned numb. At that moment the phone was taken, gently but insistently, out of her hand.

  Beatrice stood next to her. She smiled and put the phone on the hook.

  “Before you keel over,” she said, “just put an end to the conversation. Come along now. We’ll drink a cup of strong coffee and you can tell me what’s wrong.”

  After breakfast, Franca set out on a walk. It had stopped raining, the wind was driving the clouds apart, and more and more the sun was shining through. The wet fields glistened. Seagulls darted through the air, cawing loudly. It smelled of fresh earth, of new blossoms, of the salt of the sea.

  She strode along the edge of the cliffs, high above the ocean. She breathed the clear air and with every step she felt better and more free. She had told Beatrice what was wrong, and it hadn’t bothered her that Helene had also sat with them and listened. She gave a sped-up account of her failed career, of her fears and panic attacks, of her pill addiction, of the contempt that Michael displayed towards her, and of his turning to another woman.

  Strangely she hadn’t cried during all this. Her voice had been clear and astonishingly matter-of-fact. Helene had made a few sympathetic remarks in her usual sentimental way, but Franca had found them comforting nevertheless. Beatrice had listened silently; only once, when the phone rang, had she said, “Let’s let it ring. I’d bet anything it’s your husband, Franca, and this time he can just keep beating his head against the wall.”

  Later, she leaned back in her chair, looked at Franca and said, “My goodness, stop making yourself so crazy! Lots of other people have had to give up
their careers, for all kinds of reasons. Panic attacks are daily routine for lots of people. You’d be surprised if you knew how many people live constantly with pills for treating anxiety. But somebody talked you into thinking that you were a hopeless and absolutely out of the ordinary case, and so you sit there thinking you’ve just got to put up with the situation.”

  “I don’t think I have any self-confidence left at all anymore,” said Franca.

  Beatrice had laughed. “At the moment, I should think not. You look like a spooked mouse. But self-confidence can be relearned, believe me. Almost everyone loses it at some point in life. It’s completely normal.”

  This morning, for the first time in a long time, Franca felt the first signs of a newly awakening confidence. She had taken a pill, of course, just after her conversation with Michael, but adding, to that, the calm way that Beatrice had listened to her story had given her encouragement. Suddenly everything seemed cast in somewhat better light; life wasn’t filled with despair anymore. It might also have had something to do with the physical distance from Michael. She’d felt better with every mile she put between him and her. As often as she’d travelled to Guernsey without him, it had always been at his instigation, had always been planned by him. She’d never really been away. On threads that were long, invisible, but exceedingly strong, he had held and controlled her. She’d been a willing puppet, carrying out his orders. She’d regularly taken money out of the bank that he’d smuggled away from the German tax authorities and put into a bank account on Guernsey; she had stuffed it in her suitcase and every time had been nervous passing through customs at the airport. She had had to take massive amounts of pills to be able to do what he asked of her. She had been so eager, had made such an effort to win his favor; she had seemed to herself like a show horse at the circus, waiting for a sugar cube as a reward for doing its trick. She had never gotten the sugar. Not even a pat on the back in recognition of her efforts. Michael was so sure of his control over her that he hadn’t even made an effort to keep her spirits up for the sake of protecting his shady dealings.