by Maisie Mosco
Had they lived on a desert island… Instead they had been prey to the outside influences love was not necessarily able to withstand. Marriages were not unknown to fall foul of in-law trouble. But this was different.
Marianne was aware that her own daughter-in-law felt an outsider in the family. But not in the way Christina did. As if she represented to her husband’s family the nation that had sent six million Jews to the gas chambers and crematoriums.
Marianne’s compassion for Christina had not, however, lessened her mixed feelings about going to Germany. Her efforts to apply logic to her repugnance had not succeeded.
Howard emerged from his thoughts and turned to smile at her. “I’m grateful to you for lending me moral support, Auntie Marianne.”
“There’s no need to be. And I can’t remember when you last called me ‘Auntie’.”
“Well, you’ve always been more like one of us, haven’t you?”
“And what does that mean?”
Howard paused before replying, and Marianne noticed some grey amid the unruly red hair that he, like her grandson, had inherited from Abraham Sandberg. It seemed the private torment he and Christina had endured together had prematurely aged him.
“I suppose what I mean,” he said eventually, “is you’re easy to talk to and never censorious. I’m never conscious of the age gap when I’m with you, and I wasn’t surprised when Matthew once mentioned you being the first one he told about him and Pete.”
Howard managed to laugh. “But how I feel now is like I did the time when I was still a kid and you went with me to the dentist. You’d come to Manchester for some family emergency – I was too young to know what it was, but I recall my mum not having time to go with me – and the dentist letting you hold my hand while he filled my tooth.”
Over the years there had been no shortage of such emergencies, Marianne reflected. Now, along with the rest, it was just part of the family tapestry woven by time and events, and another strand was about to be added.
The arrival of the drinks trolley interrupted their conversation and she was not surprised when Howard ordered a brandy, though he was not a drinker.
“Tomato juice for me, please,” she said. “One of us had better keep a clear head!”
“Munich is an interesting city,” Howard said when they had been served and were sipping their drinks, “steeped in history.”
“Some of which we could have done without.”
Howard put down his glass. “That’s the sort of remark I’d expect from my dad, not from you.”
“Then I’m sorry to disappoint you, Howard, and I may as well tell you that only for you would I be on my way to where we’re going.”
“Believe it or not there are plenty of good Germans, Marianne –”
“I have never believed otherwise.”
“My mother-in-law for instance,” Howard went on. “If you met her and she weren’t German –”
“The fact remains that she is,” Marianne cut in, “and I can’t help my feelings. What sort of man is your father-in-law?”
“Well, let’s just say that I’m now prepared to admit I’ve never felt comfortable with him – which helps me to understand how it’s been for Christina with our family.”
Klaus Schmidt watched Christina cut up the food on her child’s plate. As was his habit, he had closed his print shop for the lunch hour and was eating at home. But how could he enjoy the Bratwurst mit Sauerkraut his wife had put before him with his only child’s unhappiness before his eyes?
Christina had not heeded Klaus’s warning that for a German girl to marry a Jew, go to live with him in his country, among his family, would not be easy for her.
Klaus would not have wanted the marriage even if Howard were a German Jew, but even so, that would be different. They would have lived in Germany and here, he reflected, we are host to the Jews who returned, as we always were. Who would try to make their host feel uncomfortable? A word not strong enough to describe how Klaus’s daughter had been made to feel by her husband’s relatives in England. He had not seen Christina smile since she came home. This time to stay.
“Must we now eat all our meals in silence!” he exclaimed. He quaffed some beer to wash down the food his sudden surge of anger had caused to stick in his throat. How dare those people do this to his beloved daughter!
“Is my grandson to grow up in a house where nobody laughs?” He unwedged his belly from where it rested against the table and went to fondle the cheek of the alien-looking child whom he nevertheless adored.
Eventually, he told himself, Christina would marry again, and the man be a Bavarian, with whom she would provide her parents with a brood of happy grandchildren who looked like German children should.
“Do not be sad, little one,” he said to Ben. “All will be well.”
Christina put down the fork with which she was toying with her meal. “Would you please tell me how, Father? Ben is too young to understand what is wrong, but he can feel that all is not well.”
Though the child was bilingual the conversation was of course beyond his comprehension. But as Christina had said, he was sensitive to the atmosphere, and now glancing back and forth from his mother to his grandfather.
“One day he will perhaps blame me,” said Christina with distress when Ben dug his knuckles in his eyes and began crying.
Her father replied, “I do not wish to hear that word spoken in this house again. What but blame is at the root of this trouble?”
“I want my daddy,” Ben said in English.
“He will forget that language when he no longer hears it spoken,” said Klaus.
“But he will not forget his father,” said Christina, “and I would not wish for him to.”
She too began weeping and Lisl Schmidt gave her husband a rebuking glance while cradling Ben against her ample bosom.
“It is not good to discuss such matters in the little one’s presence,” she said to Klaus. “And should you not now be on your way back to work? The Apfelkuchen you do not have time to eat I will save for you to have tonight.”
Lisl surveyed Christina, who was drying her eyes on a corner of the apron she was wearing. “And if our daughter does not quickly recover her appetite, Klaus, we shall soon not recognize her,” she added as he departed.
Once a younger version of her buxom mother, Christina had shed weight along with the tears she had been unable to stem since returning to Munich.
“Your father is right,” Lisl said gently. “Our life it must continue as always, despite what has now happened. You have made a painful decision, Christina, but the hurt will pass. You will not go on crying forever.”
Lisl, however, was less inclined to believe, as Klaus did, that once their daughter’s initial distress was over, all would be well. This could not be like the broken marriages experienced by the sons and daughters of some of Lisl’s friends. More was at stake here than the usual matters of alimony and arrangements for the children to spend time with their father.
Divorce was always painful for the children, Lisl reflected. But the reason for Christina’s leaving Howard was, as Klaus had said, rooted in a matter Germans preferred not to think about. Until Howard entered their lives it had not been necessary for Lisl and Klaus to think about it.
Munich’s Jewish community had a synagogue, also a centre for their activities, Lisl had heard. But their number was small, lessening the odds of encountering any of them. Lisl never had. Nor had she paused to ponder on the fate of the Jewish children with whom she had played at kindergarten, in the days when Munich, like every major German city, had many Jews among its citizenry.
It wasn’t until her daughter gave her a Jewish son-in-law that she had questioned her own indifference. Then an evening had come when she had found herself facing up to a good deal more than that.
It was Klaus’s uncle’s birthday and the family was helping him celebrate it in a beer hall. Many toasts were made amid the drinking and the laughter, and Uncle Ernst had stood u
p and raised his Stein to the good old days. It was possible that he had done so at his previous birthday celebrations and that Lisl had thought nothing of it. But what those good old days had included for Uncle Ernst and his cronies, some of whom were present, had suddenly come home to her and she had got up and left.
A terrible quarrel with Klaus had taken place when he followed her. He had demanded an explanation for her rudeness to the elder of the family, but she was too sickened by his requiring one to provide it. By then they were the grandparents of a half-Jewish child.
Lisl returned Ben to his chair and began feeding him his unfinished meal, affected by the docility with which he allowed her to do so, though he was by nature a spirited little boy. Destined to grow up with a built-in inner conflict passed down by his parents, she thought eyeing him compassionately.
His growing up would now be on his mother’s ground, and it might perhaps have been easier for him had he remained on his father’s – in a country where his appearance would not single him out as a reminder to its citizens of the sins committed in their name.
Her daughter’s broken marriage had brought to Lisl’s mind a passage from the Bible; that the sins of the fathers shall fall upon the children. So it had proved for Christina, now listlessly clearing the table. What but the unthinkable crimes committed in the years Uncle Ernst still saw fit to drink a toast to had risen from the past to mar Christina’s happiness with the man she loved?
Though the Nuremberg trials had ensured punishment for many of the war criminals, it was well known that there were those who had escaped justice to make new lives in other countries. And it was not a secret that lesser figures had gone unpunished, returning to the positions of trust they had held in Germany before the war.
“You are no less subdued than I, Mother,” Christina interrupted Lisl’s thoughts while brushing some crumbs from the tablecloth, “and for that too I am to blame.”
Lisl sliced some Apfelkuchen for Ben. “Did you not hear your father tell you that word is not to be spoken in this house? But I myself will speak it one more time. Though blame is responsible for why you have come home, Christina, you yourself are responsible for none of this.”
Lisl left Ben to munch his cake and went to kiss her daughter’s cheek. “Now, Liebchen, instead of feeling sorry for yourself, though you’re entitled to be, let’s put our minds to practical matters. You cannot go on refusing to speak to Howard on the phone.”
Howard was at that moment helping Marianne into a taxi on the forecourt of Munich Airport.
“Kindly don’t treat me like an old lady!” she said with a smile. “And get that apprehensive look off your face. There’s nothing to be scared about.”
Howard got in beside her. “Except for the reception I’m likely to get.”
“Will your father-in-law be home at this time of day?”
“Normally, no. But under the circumstances – well, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was there standing guard in case I arrive out of the blue and try to grab Ben.”
“Was that the impression you got when you last rang up?”
“Well, let’s just say he didn’t hang up on me that time, but he was the opposite of friendly.”
They fell silent and Marianne surveyed the rustic environs through which they were travelling, which matched her preconceptions of Bavaria. Pastel-pink rooftops peeping between tall trees, ahead the gleaming steeple of a little white church. The fairy-tale quality of the surroundings, though, was at odds with her feelings when they reached the city, a place of spacious squares and stone buildings mellowed by time.
The genial taxi-driver, who spoke some English, assumed they were tourists and reeled off a list of historic edifices they must not fail to visit. Was it from the balcony of one of them that Hitler had ranted at his Munich rallies?
Marianne was tempted to inquire but thought better of it. She was in the country where Hitler was understandably unmentionable. But that hadn’t stopped the evil from rising as a phoenix from the ashes. According to Henry Moritz, neo-Nazi activists like the British National Front were spreading their poison and biding their time in the States as well as in Europe.
“You haven’t told me what, exactly, you’re hoping to achieve from this visit?” she said to Howard, returning her mind to practical matters. “And if it’s what your dad is expecting, and your mum hoping for, let me warn you now that Ben is unlikely to be with us when we return home.”
Howard gave her an agonized glance.
“It’s no use looking at me like that,” she said gently. “Only a fool, and you’re not one, would let himself think that Christina will allow you to have Ben. She loves him as much as you do –”
“There’s no need to tell me that.”
“But it seems to be something that my brother Harry, who’s always been a fool in some ways, hasn’t paused to consider.”
“As if I didn’t upset my parents enough by marrying Christina – look what I’ve done to them now,” was Howard’s response.
Marianne patted his hand comfortingly before saying what she must. “You’re going to have to harden yourself to that and to a lot of other things, Howard. Or how shall you cope if your father-in-law won’t let you over the doorstep?”
She kept her tone firm, though she could have wept for the sadness in Howard’s eyes. “Since you’re still Christina’s husband, you have the right to speak with her. If I’m allowed over the doorstep with you, I shall insist that your discussion take place in private. If I’m not, I suggest that be the line you take.”
Howard would wish anyone luck to get the better of his Aunt Marianne the way she looked right now, her shoulders squared and a determined gleam in her eye.
In the event, Marianne’s intervention was not required. It was Lisl Schmidt who opened the door to Howard’s ring, nor did she hesitate before inviting them in.
“How nice to meet one of Howard’s family,” she said when he had introduced Marianne.
As if we’ve dropped in for tea, Marianne thought, and one platitude calls for another. “But it’s sad that we should meet in these circumstances,” she replied.
Christina then appeared from the living-room, avoided looking at Howard and came to kiss Marianne.
“I shall not forget your many kindnesses,” she said, “and if only things had been different…”
When was “if” not the operative word? Marianne reflected. Many of the crises in her own life could be traced back to that little word with which most people’s lives were liberally strewn, causing their paths to twist this way or that, for good or for ill.
The first “if” in this case was Howard’s opting to ski in Austria, instead of going to Switzerland as he usually did. And there he had met Christina.
But the “if” Christina had just mentioned could not be related to the making of a decision. The family hadn’t decided en masse not to like its new, German member and likeable she had proved to be. A girl with a lively personality and a caring nature, who had done her best to fit in. But how long was it before Christina became aware of something unspoken? From which she had finally fled.
“We have just put Ben for his afternoon rest,” Lisl said. “This would be the good opportunity for Christina and Howard to talk with each other. I am sure that Howard’s aunt will agree.”
Displaying that she was not a woman to stand on ceremony, she led Marianne into her roomy kitchen, where the German version of a Welsh dresser occupied one wall, the blue and white china reposing on it reminiscent of Marianne’s willow pattern dinner service.
Dominating another wall was an Aga stove, on which stood a huge copper saucepan, its simmering contents sending forth an appetizing aroma to mingle with the scent of cinnamon and spices of which the room was redolent.
By the lace-curtained window was the sturdy table at which the Schmidts ate their meals, and Marianne’s impression of Frau Schmidt was that her dinner guests too would eat in the kitchen and eat well.
Christina had said that
her parents still lived in the house where she was raised. A cosy home for a child to grow up in, Marianne reflected, and Munich was certainly a charming city. But just a few kilometres away was Dachau, the notorious concentration camp, now a public memorial to those whose lives were cut short there.
Marianne willed herself to stem the association of the past with the present that had dogged her since she stepped off the plane but did not succeed in putting from her mind that the homely woman whose kitchen this was had once been a flaxen-haired girl in the wildly cheering crowds for whom their Führer had replaced God, and his ravings become their creed.
“Please to sit down, Mrs. Dean,” Lisl said. “May I offer you some refreshment?”
“No, thank you.” Had that sounded as brusque to Frau Schmidt as it had to Marianne?
“This is for all concerned the difficult situation,” Lisl said as if she had divined Marianne’s thoughts. “And it is possible that we shall not know the outcome today.”
With that, she changed the subject. “I have seen in paperback some of your books here.”
“In English, or in German?” Marianne asked politely.
“I believe in both languages.”
“And you speak mine as well as your daughter does.”
“I had, like Christina, the excellent education,” Lisl replied, while noting Marianne’s black leather trousers, that would have made her own hips look like the back of a leather armchair.
“But my English speaking,” Lisl went on, “it was how you would call rusty, and was much improved by talking with your nephew.”
They had heard Christina and Howard enter the living-room and shut the door, and Lisl was suddenly unable to hide her distress. “My heart it is breaking for them –”
“Mine, too, Frau Schmidt.”
They abandoned their attempt to make conversation and sat listening to the tick of the grandfather clock, and Marianne thought, The hell with what her people did to mine. Right now we’re just two middle-aged women wishing we could put things right for the young couple in the next room.