by Millie Gray
The doorbell tinkling caused Kate to slip off the stool but as she crossed over to the door she was disappointed to be met by the postman rather than Hans. Without acknowledging the man she accepted the letter that he offered her.
‘Hmmm,’ Maryann simpered as she squinted at the envelope. ‘A blue letter? Hope it doesn’t smell nice. Cause if it does,’ she teased, ‘it usually means it’s a billet-doux from a . . .’ She paused before sensuously adding, ‘secret lover.’
Kate lifted the envelope to her nose and breathed in deeply. ‘Smells right enough,’ she replied with a chuckle, ‘but not of “Mischief Perfume” just smoked fish.’
‘Ah, well that’s all right then,’ chanted Maryann whilst giving Kate a knowing nudge in the shoulder.
Before Kate could respond the door opened again and there stood Hans.
Kate’s hand flew to her mouth. She didn’t understand what had put him into such a state of shock. ‘Darling, what’s wrong?’ she pleaded.
But Hans, unaware of anything that was going on, could only stare into space.
‘Look, Mrs Busek,’ Maryann began as she tried to push past Hans, ‘I would like to stay and help you with poor Hans but I am on duty . . . just skipped out to cover the shop for him. That’s all I ever do.’
Kate nodded, and when Maryann was safely away from the shop, Kate sat Hans down before she locked the door and turned the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’.
It was well past the Anderson family teatime when Johnny, by now quite merry, arrived home.
‘Mummy, Mummy,’ screeched Rosebud as she hurled herself towards her father. ‘It’s Daddy. So can I now get a poke of chips from the chippie?’
‘Careful, Rosebud,’ Johnny cautioned as he attempted to unwrap her arms from around his legs.
‘Dadadada,’ gasped eleven-month-old Jackie as she toddled ungainly towards Johnny.
It was at times like this that Johnny most keenly mourned the loss of his left arm in an accident in June of last year. Before then he could have held his two youngest children in his arms. Today he could only scoop up one . . . but which one? If he lifted Rosebud, Connie, his wife of fifteen months, would take umbrage. She would, no doubt, think he was favouring Rosebud over their darling infant, Jackie. If he instinctively lifted baby Jackie then Rosebud would throw one of her famous tantrums. Johnny did regret that it was impossible to get Rosebud to understand that she wasn’t playing second fiddle to a baby, a baby she had no intention of tolerating. This all being the case, Johnny thought that he had best play safe and he moved away from the children and turned towards Connie. However, when Connie spurned his advance, he was dumbfounded. He was further confused when she announced, ‘Your tea’s in the oven and don’t moan that the lorne sausage is frizzled and dried up and the chips are limp and soggy. Both were cooked to perfection when you were supposed to be home for your tea.’ She glanced up at the clock before adding, ‘some two hours ago.’
Without another word, Connie retreated into the kitchen and retrieved Johnny’s sorrowful looking supper from the oven. She then banged it forcefully down on the table. Johnny looked at it and shrugged. He was going to complain but there was something in Connie’s stance that had him think the better of saying anything.
Rosebud, however, thought she had a right to say something. ‘Daddy,’ she began whilst drawing in her lips, ‘you’re lucky Connie didn’t go’ – she now gave an imitation of someone wretching and vomiting – ‘right into your porridge like she did to mine this morning.’
Johnny was now looking at Connie. ‘Well?’
‘Well nothing,’ she replied. ‘And it is not my fault . . .’ Connie sank down on a chair and began to weep.
Instinctively Johnny began to rub Connie’s back. ‘Come on now, lass,’ he coaxed. ‘It’s just that you are in the change of life and when that happens women get all moody.’
Connie’s head jolted upwards. ‘Johnny, it is not the change of life that is bothering me, it’s me giving life . . .’ she stopped to sob and brush her hand under her nose ‘. . . to another bairn . . .’ Johnny’s jaw dropped and his eyes popped. Connie was now weeping uncontrollably and he hardly heard her when she spluttered, ‘And I’m nearly forty! . . . Don’t you realise I will be the talk of the street?’
Johnny really didn’t care what the street’s gossips would think. He was more concerned about what this could possibly mean for his dreams and ambitions. He then did what he normally did when he was faced with panic; he began to slowly whistle ‘The Old Rugged Cross’.
‘Aye, well may you whistle that but it is me that is up there on the one next to Him! And I haven’t even had time to get my figure back after Jackie and here is me about to wiggle and waddle again.’
Johnny diplomatically stayed silent, but taking a covert look at Connie’s figure, he could only agree that she hadn’t got back into any kind of shape since Jackie’s birth. To be truthful, Connie was never what you would call the perfect shape. She was voluptuous, cuddly and comfortable and just so easy to love. He grimaced when he accepted that was probably the reason she was in the family way again. His next thought was to mollify the situation so he put his arms about her and whispered in her ear, ‘Let’s get the wee ones away to bed then you and I will sit down and have a talk.’
‘What’s there to talk about?’
‘Plenty,’ Johnny replied, shaking his head dolefully. ‘Firstly we have to decide what we are going to do . . . especially . . .’
He never got to finish what he was going to say because Rosebud started to scream, ‘I’m not going to bed and I want a piece and jam.’
‘You, young lady, are going to bed and right now at that. So through you go.’
Rosebud’s response was to lift up her foot and kick her father in the shin. ‘You little . . .’
‘Shit . . . that’s what they say I am,’ Rosebud hollered.
‘Who calls you that?’
‘Your mother,’ Connie responded.
‘My mother!’ Johnny expounded with ‘Huh, huh,’ before continuing, ‘Aye, most folks’ mothers might but certainly not mine.’ He mumbled, ‘Huh, huh,’ again before adding, ‘Never ever would my mother ever use such language about a bairn . . . especially one of her own.’
‘No? Well when our Rosebud threw a humdinger of a paddy today because your mother didn’t have a sweetie for her, and I suggested that her behaviour was because she was tired, your mother said, “I am sick and tired of people saying that Rosebud’s appalling behaviour is because she is tired. If that was the case then you should just put her to bed. But as it isn’t . . . you will all have to get around to realising she is nothing but a precocious, spiteful little shit!”’
Johnny’s jaw was in freefall again. ‘No, my mother would never have used such a word.’
Connie sighed and looked up at the ceiling. It was difficult for her to say to Johnny that there was another problem that he would have to address. Well, one that he and his sister Kate would have to face, and that was that there was something going far wrong with their mother, Jenny. Slowly she drawled, ‘Johnny dear, your mum . . . well there is something amiss.’
‘Amiss!’
‘Yes like, like . . . her starting to swear and she does such queer things now like . . .’
Fear began to arise in Johnny and in an effort to stay in control he grabbed hold of Connie before roaring, ‘Like what?’
‘Well, well, well . . . like . . .’ Connie being Connie did not wish to worry Johnny so, hesitating, she took time to compose herself before quietly uttering, ‘Like . . . talking to your dead dad. And believe me when I say I can cope with that.’ She then stopped and took time to inhale deeply. After counting inwardly to ten she then said, ‘But, Johnny, today I was gasping for a cup of tea but we had run out of milk and your mum said she would go for a bottle.’
‘So,’ Johnny interrupted, ‘what was wrong with that?’
‘Nothing . . . except that when she came back it was a bottle right enough of �
�� Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry.’
Kate and Hans had just crossed over the door of their Parkvale Place home when Kate insisted that Hans should just drop himself down into her father’s old comfortable armchair.
‘No. No,’ he replied, ‘I couldn’t speak to you in the shop but the walk home has . . .’
Hans was of course referring to the way Kate had closed the shop early for the day. She had then taken a benumbed Hans by the hand and they had zigzagged their way home through the crowds.
Firstly they had pushed their way down Morton Street and then on through Leith Links. The strange thing was that Kate and Hans, who found such succour in their never-ending chats, hadn’t uttered a single word to each other during the journey. It was as if each was putting off facing up to what had happened – and must happen.
Kate, although grateful to Maryann, felt undermined by her because she had seen Hans’ need and had catered for it. Kate now knew that there was a pressing need for her and Hans to talk things over. She wanted him to know that she was here to listen to him – here to help him unburden himself, listen to what was troubling him. She already knew that he was most concerned about what had been mercilessly inflicted on Poland and his country folk but, she hesitated, what else was troubling him?
However, as urgent as the clearing of the air was she thought that it should not be done in Hans’ shop or as they strolled among the merrymaking throngs. The best location for it was here in the safety of Parkvale Place, their home. After all, Parkvale Place was the place they had first made love to each other and where Hans had asked her to marry him and share his life. The thrill and happiness she’d felt on the day he had asked her to be his wife was still as real today as it had been on that very day.
Hans, on the other hand, stayed silent because he was overloaded with guilt. Firstly, this feeling of remorse was because he had survived the war, not only in Poland, but also here in Leith. Secondly, he deeply regretted that he had tried to put into the past his very loving wife and children who had been so mercilessly killed – he now knew that this was an impossibility. The third thing that wrung his conscience was that he had married Kate and had found peace and contentment with her but he had never been truly honest with her. Never had he told her about his previously happy family life. ‘Why,’ he asked himself, ‘have I never told my Kate the names of my loving wife, who had also loved me as she does, or my beautiful children?’ He knew this omission was so very wrong because he had lost count of the times that he, with his arms still around a sleeping Kate, remembered them, longed for them, felt so bereft and cheated.
Breathing in deeply he acknowledged that his family memories were bad enough to bear but now that the Pathé newsreels were showing him in detail what had happened to the children of his wider family, friends and colleagues, it was all becoming so unbearable. Every day he watched these films and every day he had to suppress the mounting need to do something to assist those needy little survivors. It was now so very clear to him that he could never be truly happy again until he tried to relieve some of the suffering of even one or two of those abused, innocent children. Indeed, if he didn’t do something, he knew that the ghosts of his own children would never ever allow him to know peace again.
The problem was how could he confide all that was bothering him to Kate and still have her believe that he had wooed and married her because he loved her, saw the beauty in her and not because she was able to give him, a penniless Polish refugee, a home and security.
Kate saying his name brought him out of his reflections. ‘Yes, dear, what is it?’ he mumbled.
Quietly but firmly she said, ‘Hans, we have to talk.’
He nodded.
‘Firstly . . . why did you not tell me how upset you were about the newsreels . . . ?’ She hesitated before stressing, ‘And since January at that.’
He nodded again but this time he sought her hands. Her reaction was to place them behind her back. He shrugged. ‘Of course you are right. I have not been as honest with you as I should have been. So get a chair and sit opposite me and I will tell you all about my family, my life in Poland and how I feel now and what I wish to do about it.’
Kate grew anxious, but she got a chair and sat down on it. Looking directly into Hans’ eyes she became concerned as she could see that silent tears were now trickling down his face.
‘Esther, dearest Esther,’ he began wistfully, ‘was my loving wife and she bore me three children. The eldest, David.’ He paused. ‘We chose David as his name because . . . it means beloved. Oh Kate, he was my beloved eldest son and he was just so talented.’ Hans’ tears were now drying and as he spoke of his family Kate could see that he still loved them and had so much pride in them. ‘Our old piano,’ he babbled, ‘oh for sure David would play it and the whole world seemed such a melodic, loving place. He was followed by Asher, and his name means blessed.’ He was now quite animated when he added, ‘You see we felt blessed by having been given the gift of another perfect child. Lastly there was my lovely, lovely daughter, Dalia, who like her name was indeed a precious flower.’ Hans became sad again. ‘Dalia, my Dalia was precious and hadn’t even celebrated her fourth birthday when . . .’ He was now weeping profusely. ‘She lay broken and . . . they were all gone, Kate . . . all gone.’
He stopped for a full two minutes – two minutes of complete silence except for the tick, tick, ticking of the old granddaughter clock. Eventually Hans managed to mutter, ‘All that was so very dear and irreplaceable to me . . . in life then . . . was no more.’
Another long silence followed before he continued with, ‘Do you know that the final blitzkrieg on Warsaw began on the night of 25 September 1939, and it was relentless? Over one thousand of the Luftwaffe planes continually bombed us. There was no place to escape to. We were sitting targets. The Polish airforce had been destroyed in the first week of September . . . no blame could be laid on these brave, brave young men. The poor souls tried their very best but they were so heavily outnumbered and their aeroplanes were outclassed by the German ones. The last of my family, my loyal wife, Esther, my sons, David, Asher and my pretty little daughter, Dalia, were murdered on that Sunday night. Only my cousin Josef and I survived and we fled Warsaw on Tuesday 26 September. That was only the day before Warsaw could do nothing other than surrender on Wednesday 27 September 1939.’ By the way he was so punctilious in his recall of the dates Kate knew that they were imprinted in his mind forever.
A further strained silence now took over both Hans and Kate. Kate’s late father’s granddaughter clock loudly tick, tick, ticked the seconds as they passed. Eventually, when Kate could bear the strain no more, she whispered, ‘And where does all that you have told me tonight leave us, Hans?’
Leaning over he sought her hand and this time she allowed him to enclose it in his. ‘That is what I hope you will tell me. You see, yes, I loved Esther,’ he sighed. ‘I still do but I adore you just as I adored her. You have been my passport back into wishing to go on living . . . before you death was preferable.’
Kate nodded. She accepted what he had just said because to have done otherwise would have broken her heart. She loved him and she knew he was telling the truth because, even though Hans now fully consumed her life, she still loved Hugh. She gave a little sigh as she accepted that there was no way that she could ever forget her first love, her young love, gallant Hugh who at eighteen had made the ultimate sacrifice at Gallipoli.
She was about to ask Hans about the newsreels and other things about his past life when they heard the front door open. Both Kate and Hans then looked towards the inner door and they were surprised when Johnny, Kate’s brother, entered.
‘Where’s Mum?’ was Johnny’s first desperate question.
Kate, bewildered, looked about the room before uttering, ‘I thought she was up at your house with Connie. She said Connie was a bit poorly so she had offered her a hand with Rosebud and Jackie.’
Johnny and Kate stared accusingly at each other before
Johnny mumbled, ‘Connie says Mum has been acting a wee bit funny of late.’
‘Nonsense,’ exploded Kate. Turning to Hans she said, ‘You don’t think Mum has been . . . well not herself of late, Hans?’
Hans lowered his head and then appeared to give his feet his full attention. Before raising his head again he rubbed his hands together and then ran his fingers through his hair. Without looking directly at either Kate or Johnny, he began to speak so quietly that both Johnny and Kate had to strain to hear him. ‘Well I think your mum, my dear mother-in-law, Jenny, is becoming . . . like a lot of old people.’
‘In what way?’ demanded Kate.
‘Look,’ he continued, ‘I know of a disease that affects old people.’ Hans now hesitated because he did not wish to offend Kate and Johnny. ‘My grandfather died of it and a woman who also succumbed to these unusual symptoms had her brain tissue examined by a German neurologist, Doctor Alois Alzheimer.’
Johnny, eyes blazing, interrupted, ‘Look, Hans, what has all this to do with my mother?’
‘Just that for about three months now, your mother has been displaying similar behaviour patterns.’
Johnny turned to Kate. ‘Look, I know he is educated but do you think you could get him to get to the point and tell me in plain English what is wrong with Mum?’
Kate looked directly at Hans, and although she chose to say nothing, her eyes pleaded with Hans to do as Johnny had asked.
‘Well this Alzheimer doctor examined the brain tissue of a woman who, as I have said, had an unusual mental illness.’
‘I trust she was dead when all this took place?’ snorted Johnny.
‘Of course she had expired and because her symptoms were like your mum’s . . .’
‘Kate, when is he going to get to the point?’
Hans ignored Johnny’s further outburst and quickly added, ‘Which included memory loss, language problems, and unpredictable behaviour.’