Out of the Ashes

by Maisie Mosco

  “But should they later marry,” she continued her diatribe, “what is to become of their children? They will not be brought to this Centre, and more strength will be lost to us.”

  Though Jeremy rather fancied her, he changed his mind about asking could he see her again, such was her intensity – and all of it political, it seemed! “That’s what the rabbis in England are saying about what intermarriage is doing to British Jewry,” he said.

  “It is not intermarriage that we are discussing,” she flashed, “it is the special responsibility that German Jewry must honour.”

  “If that’s how you feel, why do you intend deserting German Jewry and emigrating to Israel?” A. P. inquired.

  She flared at him as she had to Jeremy. “In your opinion does that make of me a traitor? I am going where I shall not be undervalued.”

  The conversation then turned to the build-up of tension on the West Bank.

  “The Arab unrest, and how Israel is dealing with it, is having its effect on British campuses,” Jeremy put in. “Well, certainly on some of them.”

  “When,” said Karl, “did what happens in Israel not affect Jews everywhere?” His accompanying sigh seemed that of a weary old man.

  “Any excuse will do, for those with a mind to, to have a go at us,” Jeremy declared.

  Later, when he and A. P. emerged to the main road where Howard had told them they could catch a bus, he found himself drawing a breath of relief.

  “Do you think the people we met tonight ever think or talk to each other about anything else, A. P.?”

  “Well, they certainly seem what one might call obsessed with their situation.”

  Jeremy paused to consider. “It isn’t a happy situation, is it? The feeling I got about some of them was that they feel trapped in Germany by circumstances –”

  “And that girl in the white sweater came over as a caged tiger!”

  “Leaving the cage out of it, she would sure be a tiger in bed!”

  “And I was aware that you wouldn’t mind bedding her. Lindsey’s that sort, too, isn’t she?”

  “Since you couldn’t have failed to hear through the wall, from your virgin couch in that dump in St Ives that passes for a flat, you doubtless have grounds for making that remark,” Jeremy replied with a grin.

  “Not many would make the sacrifice you did for a pal,” he added as they walked past a darkened florist’s shop and crossed the street.

  “It was no sacrifice, Jeremy, which isn’t to say the duplicity it entailed didn’t go against the grain.”

  “I’m hoping you’ll return from this trip initiated into the rites of passion. Doesn’t it bother you that you’re the only male virgin either of us knows? And that probably goes for all the females of our acquaintance, too –”

  “Yes, but I shan’t let that be a reason for my joining the club,” said A. P. “I’d prefer my initiation ceremony to be conducted by the right girl.”

  Had Marianne been privy to her grandson’s words, she would have recognized him as the romantic his father and grandfather were, and perhaps have found herself fearing for him since along with romanticism went the capacity for disillusion.

  A suitable candidate for A. P.’s initiation presented herself to him and Jeremy immediately they arrived, three days later, in Berlin. She was also to prove the direct opposite of the young people they had met at the Centre in Munich.

  They were standing amid the bustling throng outside Tegel Airport, waiting to be collected by Herr Schulmann’s chauffeur, whom Karin had said would be there to transport them to her parents’ home.

  “Imagine us getting into a Rolls, dressed in our grubby jeans!” said Jeremy. “Not to mention our rucksacks. We ought to’ve been firmer with Karin about making our own way there –”

  “Since they know we’re students, how else would they expect us to look?” said A. P. “Grandfather Kyverdale no longer bats an eyelid when I show up at the stately home looking like this. Did you pack a jacket and tie, to wear for dinner, though, like I told you to?”

  “Laura made me bring a suit, but it’ll look like hell after how it’s travelled –”

  “There’ll be someone only too pleased to press it for you –”

  “And I wish now we hadn’t accepted the Schulmanns’ hospitality! It would’ve been more fun to stay at a hostel, there’d be girls staying there, too –”

  “That would have been unkind to Karin,” A. P. countered. “We couldn’t have done it.”

  “Why,” said Jeremy, “did my dad have to marry into a family where there’s practically no escaping relatives anywhere in the world!”

  “And I sometimes find it difficult to believe,” said A. P., “that it all began with the Sandbergs and Moritzes settling in a ghetto in Manchester at the turn of the century.”

  “Please don’t go all historical on me,” Jeremy snapped, “and why is that stunning girl eyeing us? Handsome we may be, but not that handsome –”

  “Well, my fly isn’t undone, is yours?” A. P. laughed when Jeremy glanced down to make sure.

  The girl then hesitantly approached them, her long hair gleaming like ripe corn in the afternoon sunlight and tossed by the wind.

  “If it’s you she fancies, I’ll consider it one I owe you,” Jeremy had time to say before she reached them.

  “If you are not whom I am here to meet, this will perhaps seem to you a joke,” was her preamble. “Are you waiting to be taken to where you are going in a Rolls-Royce?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Jeremy.

  The girl managed not to laugh. “Then I shall instead take you there. My godfather, Herr Schulmann, apologizes that he himself had need of his car this afternoon and he has asked me to deputize. I am Rachel Greenbaum, how do you do?”

  They introduced themselves and shook hands with her, Jeremy doing the talking while they walked to where she had parked her car, and A. P. trying to recover from the impact of her gaze and the musky scent she was wearing. Both had gone to his head.

  Jeremy registered A. P.’s expression, gave him a wink, and allowed him to sit beside her in the blue Audi that matched her eyes and her clingy sweater. She too was wearing jeans, the kind that hugged her narrow hips. And probably had a designer label stitched inside the waistband, he wagered. Nor would it be Jeremy’s fault if A. P. didn’t get the chance to confirm that. Berlin was where the action was, and Jeremy wasn’t going to spend the few days they had here on cerebral pursuits.

  “I’m pleased that Herr Schulmann needed the Rolls today, and I’m sure my cousin agrees,” he helped A. P. along.

  “Well, it’s nice that we got to meet you, Rachel,” A. P. ventured.

  Jeremy would then have added, “What’re you doing this evening?” What was the matter with A. P.?

  “You would in any case have met me,” she replied. “My godfather he has asked me to show to you Berlin, if of course you would like that I should –”

  “I accept the offer with alacrity,” said Jeremy.

  “And I with double alacrity,” said A. P.

  Rachel laughed, a mellow peal that went with the vibrancy of her voice. “I could not wish for a more charming response.”

  But A. P. is going to have to do a lot better than that, thought Jeremy. Though he didn’t see all that much of the Kyverdales, their formality had sure rubbed off on him when it came to girls.

  “I am invited to dine tonight at the Schulmanns’,” Rachel told them, “my parents also. Afterwards the four will settle down to play bridge and you shall see Berlin by night. I promise you I shall be a good guide.”

  But for A. P.’s sake, not a good girl, hoped Jeremy. “In case there’s a disco or two included in our nocturnal itinerary,” he said, “it would be useful perhaps if we could meet up after dinner with one of your girlfriends.”

  “That is already tentatively arranged. Paula, who was with me at school in Switzerland, has made herself available.”

  Well, that sounded encouraging, thought Jeremy as Ra
chel began pointing out to them buildings that had become the landmarks of West Berlin.

  “I wouldn’t mind visiting East Berlin,” said A. P. recovering from his reverie. “Jeremy and I had intended to, but we can go there by train. From the Zoo station, Karin told us –”

  “That will not be necessary, we shall make it part of our programme.”

  “This is really terribly good of you,” said A. P. “We really appreciate the time you’re giving us and the trouble you’re taking.”

  They had halted at a traffic light and Rachel turned to smile at him. “It is no trouble, I am looking forward to spending time with you. And Paula will be delighted to meet your cousin.”

  Jeremy hadn’t any idea what Paula would be like, but for A. P.’s sake was pleased that the allocating of partners had indicated Rachel’s choice.

  After giving them tea, Frau Schulmann went with Rachel to the door, leaving the butler to show A. P. and Jeremy to their adjoining bedrooms.

  “If the young gentlemen would care for their unpacking to be done for them?” he said trying to avoid looking at the shabby rucksacks they had not allowed him to carry.

  “Thanks, Parker, but you would have a job unravelling the contents of our luggage,” A. P. said with a smile. “A pressing iron wouldn’t come amiss, though.”

  “I was about to suggest it, sir. If you would leave the garments in your rooms while you take a bath, you will find them as you would wish them on your return.”

  “That’s jolly nice of you, Parker.”

  “My pleasure, sir.”

  “We can draw our baths ourselves.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  The stilted exchange was conducted on the galleried landing while the butler opened with a flourish first one bedroom door and then the other.

  “Will there be anything else, Mr. Dean?”

  “If we require something we’ll ring for the maid,” A. P. replied.

  “Very good, sir.”

  Parker waited for them to enter their rooms before departing.

  A moment later they met again in the doorway allowing access from one spacious chamber to the other.

  “This is like a French farce!” said Jeremy.

  “Not a French farce, a British one,” A. P. said with a grin, “and the more farcical for its German setting. It’s always been my belief that an English butler can turn whatever setting into a bit of old England, and this proves it –”

  “If you say so, Mr. Dean. The manner born isn’t in it! If you hadn’t been with me, I’d have wished the floor would open up and swallow me, not that I didn’t anyway. And a bit of old England is right. Shall you employ a butler when you become Lord Kyverdale?”

  “I doubt it and my grandfather probably suspects that he is the last of the line to perpetuate the class distinction he inherited with the title. The new England is a different dish of tea, though Grandfather, if he thinks about it, wouldn’t let himself accept it.”

  “You intend to go on drawing your own bath, do you? I never heard that expression before. It has to be as archaic as the crumbling class system you mentioned. Shall I let drop to Rachel that you’re destined to be a lordship?”

  “Not unless you want it revealed that your father is a millionaire.”

  “I’ve never needed to use that to land a girl.”

  “If you had to, she wouldn’t be worth landing, would she? Shall we now draw our baths?”

  After dinner, Rachel retired briefly to change from her frilly white dress into more casual clothing.

  “You have my permission to put on again your uniform,” she said with a laugh before departing.

  They returned wearing unwrinkled jeans and tee shirts. While they ate, the garments left heaped on their beds had been meticulously pressed.

  Paula proved to be a bubbly brunette, as Semitic in appearance as Rachel was not.

  “There’s a big Jewish community centre here, isn’t there?” A. P. remarked as the four headed in Rachel’s car for the first of the several clubs and discos they were to visit.

  “If you wish to go there, you must do so without me,” said Rachel, “and Paula will say to you the same, as would all our friends. If the Jewish activities are what you have come to Germany to observe, you must find those interested in them to show them to you.”

  “Frankly,” said Jeremy, “we had a basinful of that in Munich and I’d welcome a change.”

  “In that case,” said Rachel, “I shall keep my promise to escort you. Had you not said that, I would have introduced to you my elder sister, who lives, eats, and thinks Jewish.”

  “Some of our generation at home are like that,” Jeremy told her. “Most, though, are what I’d call the happy medium, like me.”

  “With German Jewry there is no such thing,” Paula informed him.

  “Why is that?”

  “According to my parents, who side with my sister against me,” said Rachel, “the community here is in a special position.”

  “I agree,” said Jeremy, recalling the intensity with which the girl in Munich had spoken of it.

  “I had not yet finished. We have to be seen to be standing together, my father says, not only by our host country, but by Jews elsewhere who have contempt for our living here. I did not ask to be born here and shall not allow the past to spoil for me the present,” Rachel declared.

  The kind of silence Jeremy had not expected to feature in this outing briefly followed.

  It was Paula who broke it. “What Rachel has said cannot be easy for those who do not live here to understand. We and our friends do not want the responsibility laid upon us by our families’ return. Those prepared to shoulder it are welcome to it.

  “Speaking for myself, as for every person I have only one life and shall make the most of it in my own way. If you encounter sufficient German Jews, young or old, you will find that there are two kinds and must draw from that your own conclusions.”

  Rachel turned the car into a parking space and pulled up. “From here we shall continue our night out on foot.”

  Though Berlin by night, the cosmopolitan atmosphere throbbing with life, could not but be exciting to the sheltered youngsters A. P. and Jeremy were, there were moments in this noisy venue, or that, when they found themselves exchanging an uneasy glance.

  The four were consuming nothing stronger than Pepsi, but there was about the girls a false intoxication. Something that didn’t ring true, as if they were determined to enjoy themselves.

  Like those people Jeremy and I saw sitting in deck-chairs wearing raincoats and sou’westers, on the beach at St Ives, thought A. P., as if they weren’t going to let a wet day ruin their holiday. But what sort of pleasure was that?

  Rachel and Paula too had resolved not to let something get the better of them and it wasn’t the weather. It had to be connected to the choice both had made. To the feelings they had expressed in the car.

  After a while, even Rachel’s engaging laughter began to sound to A. P. artificial, and suddenly the girl he had thought might initiate him to the rites of physical love seemed to him pathetic, if none the less attractive.

  When at the end of the hectic round she parked the car on the tree-lined avenue leading to the Schulmanns’ mansion and wound her arms around his neck, her proximity and her perfume again overwhelmed him.

  “My godparents have a summer-house,” she whispered. “Shall you and I go there and leave the car to our friends?”

  Why was A. P. having last minute scruples, with her breasts thrusting against him and her hand wandering to his thigh?

  They weren’t scruples, they were second thoughts. A girl who’d let you lay her when you were little more than strangers wasn’t the one he wanted to remember as his first lay.

  It was she who broke away from their embrace.

  Since her hand had reached its destination, A. P. wasn’t surprised. His erection was no more, as if dismissed by those second thoughts.

  “Our visitors have had an exhausting day,�
�� she said to Paula, breaking up the action on the back seat. “I suggest that we now allow them to retire to their solitary beds and rest.”

  “We’ll see you tomorrow,” said Jeremy, sounding dazed as well he might.

  “I am not too sure about that,” Rachel replied.

  A moment later the car was zooming down the drive.

  Jeremy stopped wiping lipstick off his face. “What the hell did you do to her, A. P.?”

  “I’m afraid it’s a question of what I didn’t do to her.” A. P. felt in his pocket for the key the butler had reluctantly provided and let them into the house.

  “Are you going to stay a virgin for the rest of your life?”

  “Just until I find the right girl. I imagine we shall now be left to explore West and East Berlin unescorted and I have to say I’d prefer that. If we’re distracted by girls, it’s bound to dilute our impressions and I might one day need to dip into mine for something I’m writing.”

  “One way and another I’m beginning to see myself as the wrong companion for you on this trip,” Jeremy said scathingly as they tiptoed upstairs. “It ought to have been your grandmother!”

  Chapter 11

  October 1987 was a month that Marianne was unlikely to forget, she thought while gazing through her study window to where once had been her beautiful garden.

  It was now November 5th, the mist of approaching winter hovering, and there would be no shortage of fallen branches for the children to burn on their Guy Fawkes bonfires tonight.

  The hurricane that had wreaked havoc in the south of England, changing the landscape as it felled the sturdiest of ancient trees, tearing tiles from rooftops and mowing down fences, had done its worst to the ornamental bushes Marianne and Ralph had planted together years ago.