One Last Summer (2007) Page 14

  Since Wilhelm, Paul and Claus have left, we live day by day, putting all our strength into running Grunwaldsee, waiting and praying for the war to end. And when it does? Claus has already said he will continue with his army career. Wilhelm has decided to finish his studies and set up a law practice in Königsberg. Irena would be happy anywhere as long as it’s with him. She moved into Grunwaldsee after they married, stayed for Marianna’s birth and hasn’t left since. I think she finds it comforting to sleep in Wilhelm’s bed even when he isn’t in it, and I am very glad of her company.

  I can talk to her about anything except my married life because she assumes that I am as happy with Claus as she is with Wilhelm. I cannot disillusion her. It would make her unhappy and I can’t bear the thought of upsetting her, especially when she is so kind to me and more of a sister than Greta ever was or could be. Only Paul hasn’t made up his mind what he will do after the war. I do hope he will take over the management of Grunwaldsee. I am so tired, yet at the moment I cannot imagine living any other life.

  If Claus does remain in the army he could be stationed in Paris, or Russia. He didn’t say whether he would want me to join him, and I didn’t ask. Sometimes I think he only married me to bear his sons. He is disappointed that Erich is still an only child. I wish it were possible to get babies some other way. After Paris I thought I would become accustomed to married life; after three weeks with Claus I know I never will. Even Paul noticed the contrast between me and Irena. She cannot bear to be parted from Wilhelm for a moment. I am always looking for excuses to get away from Claus.

  I have just read the beginning of this diary again. So much has happened since then. Herr Schumacher visited this morning. High Command has asked him to organize a concert party to entertain the troops in Poland. He wants me to join them for two weeks. The troops have so few pleasures. Should I go? It would be difficult to leave Erich and Mama, although Irena, Minna, Martha and Brunon insist they can manage without me. Perhaps I should. I will think about it.

  THURSDAY, 13 NOVEMBER 1941

  I am so angry and ashamed. Yesterday Irena and I drove into town to do some Christmas shopping, although we knew there would be very little in the stores. We went to the confectioner’s. It is rare to see sweets of any kind these days. The army takes so much food. Sugar, butter, cream and almonds are almost impossible to find unless you know a farmer who dares risk prison by hoarding extra. In the end, my pleadings touched Herr Meyer’s conscience; after all, we were among his best customers before the war. He gave us a small box of truffles, but he warned us that they weren’t up to his usual standard because of the poor quality of the ingredients.

  After we left his shop, Brunon drove us to Irena’s parents’ house. Herr Adolf bought a huge plot of land from the Jews in 1934 on which he built his house and the workshops he needed for his building business. The Jewish cemetery and synagogue adjoin his yard. I can’t remember when I last saw the synagogue open. Like most people, I avoid thinking and talking about the Jews. The slightest mention of them seems to bring out the worse in some people, especially young boys.

  Papa insisted they weren’t all bad; although he wouldn’t go as far as old Uncle Ernst, who used to invite every Jew he could find to stay in his house to annoy the authorities. It is a blessing Uncle Ernst died in 1938. If he hadn’t, he would have succeeded in getting the entire family into serious trouble.

  Papa told me that he was as sorry as I was when Ruth and Emilia and my Jewish friends were expelled from school in 1935 along with all the other Jews who were no longer allowed to study. They were good friends, and Papa never minded me visiting them or inviting them to Grunwaldsee, but I hadn’t heard from either of them since my seventeenth birthday and Papa warned me that it wouldn’t be wise to invite them to the ball for my eighteenth birthday.

  Since all the Jewish businesses in the town have been taken over by Germans I haven’t seen any Jews on the streets. I assumed that they were trying to keep out of trouble. There has been talk of resettling them in Africa or Madagascar, or giving them their own homeland in the East. I wasn’t sure if Ruth and Emilia’s families had already left, but today I saw them for the first time in over three years.

  Brunon had to stop the car when we turned into Irena’s street because the road was blocked by a convoy of trucks parked outside the synagogue. SS officers and soldiers were milling about, Georg amongst them. Trust Georg to join a new regiment with such an awful reputation. He was strutting about in his boots and field grey uniform like a bantam cock pretending to be a rooster.

  The soldiers were driving crowds of young children and girls out of the synagogue. There were so many I couldn’t imagine how they had all crammed in there. It isn’t a large building. Most were beautiful with blond hair and blue eyes, nothing like the ugly, horrible old Jews on the posters. Some of the older girls were carrying babies, and then I saw that Georg was pointing a gun at Ruth and Emilia.

  I couldn’t believe it. He was in the same class as us in kindergarten; he had played in the orchestra with Ruth and Emilia until they had to leave. Despite the cold I wound down the car window. I know Ruth saw me because she called my name and began to run towards the car, but Irena caught hold of my sleeve and whispered, ‘In God’s name, close the window. Think of the children if you won’t think of yourself.’

  Georg hit Ruth on the side of her head with his gun. She stumbled, obviously hurt, but he forced her back into line. We sat there watching the soldiers beat and kick the young girls and children, and herd them on to the trucks for what seemed like hours, although when I looked at my watch afterwards it was only ten minutes. And the whole time Marianna slept and Irena held her hands over Erich’s eyes so he wouldn’t see what was going on. He thought we were playing a game of hide and seek.

  After Irena wound up the window we sat in silence. Neither Irena nor Brunon said a word, although I’m sure Irena recognized Ruth and Emilia as I did. The first truck moved off, and the rabbi and some old men were brought out of the building. At that point the SS waved Brunon on. When I looked back I saw the rabbi lying on the ground and the soldiers kicking him. He was covered in blood.

  I suppose the SS were angry because he’d hidden so many children in the synagogue. Was he trying to save them from deportation? Why bother, if they can have their own country? And why beat him? He was old; he couldn’t fight back or hurt any of them. The soldiers were laughing as though they were enjoying what they were doing, Georg loudest of all.

  I tried to talk to Irena about it but she wouldn’t say a word, and when I saw that she was as upset as I was, I didn’t press her. My life has been nothing but secrets ever since Herr Schumacher said we weren’t to tell anyone about our accommodation in Russia. I can’t confide my feelings about Claus or our marriage to anyone, and now this.

  How could Georg hit Ruth? How could he and the other soldiers be so cruel? How can anyone beat a helpless old man until the blood runs from him?

  Irena’s mother was waiting for us with coffee and little cakes, but I couldn’t eat a thing. I felt sick. Some of her windows overlook the synagogue. How could she ignore what was going on?

  I hate the war. I hate not being allowed to be friends with Ruth and Emilia. I hated seeing them being driven away at gunpoint by an idiot like Georg, and I hate living all these lies and not being able to say whatever I want to; and having to tell everyone that I miss Claus all the time when I don’t.

  Perhaps I am following Uncle Ernst. He never cared what people said about him or his opinions. For the first time I understand why he argued against the Führer’s policy of racial purity. It is one thing to be proud of being a German, quite another to see Jews being kicked and marched off at gunpoint. Especially when they are your friends.

  But will Ruth and Emilia ever think of me as their friend again when I ignored them and allowed Irena to wind up the car window, shutting them out?

  Although I tried to join in the conversation at the coffee afternoon, I couldn’t pretend to be
happy. I was glad when it was time to go home. While the maid was helping us on with our coats, Herr Adolf returned. He winkled Brunon out of the office kitchen downstairs, where he had been drinking tea with Herr Adolf’s secretary, then, with Frau Adolf, walked us to the car. The cold air felt good after the heat of the house. Herr Adolf began to tell us about the peculiar noises they’d heard in the Jewish cemetery behind the house late at night and in the early hours of the morning.

  Only a low wall separates part of the Adolfs’ garden from the Jewish cemetery. It really isn’t a good area, but Irena told me it was the only place her father could buy enough land to build a house, offices, all his workshops and garages, and everything else he needed for his business. I had wondered how Herr Adolf could afford to buy such a large plot of land and open a business, when only seven years ago they were living in a rented house and he was working for someone else. Now I think he bought it below market price from Jews who were forced to sell because of the racial laws forbidding them to own land and businesses.

  Herr Adolf opened the car door for me, but I insisted on hearing more about the peculiar noises. I imagined the SS coming back late at night and burying Ruth and Emilia. Herr Adolf lowered his voice and told me that the noises were people opening graves, not to hide bodies or rob them but to conceal valuables. Frau Adolf thinks it is because of the law that doesn’t allow anyone to take more than ten marks out of the Reich.

  The Jews who are going to be resettled want to hide their property in the hope that they may be allowed to return at the end of the war to reclaim it. But will they be allowed to return? I remember one of the Führer’s speeches before the war. I didn’t take much notice of it at the time, but Wilhelm did. And I heard him and Paul talking about it with Uncle Ernst afterwards: ‘In the event of war the result will not be the bolshevization of this earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.’

  Does ‘annihilation’ mean the imprisonment and deportation of all those children and young girls like Ruth and Emilia? Or, after what I saw the SS do to the poor rabbi, perhaps even worse? Why doesn’t anyone ask questions or try to stop it?

  No matter what the Jews have done, surely young girls like Ruth and Emilia don’t deserve to be beaten and forced on to trucks by boys like Georg, who then go on to beat up old men. Very brave of them to pick on people who are too weak to fight back. I will talk to Paul and Wilhelm about it when they next come home on leave.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘You are absolutely sure?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Charlotte echoed emphatically, as they walked into the hotel’s secure car park.

  ‘We can put it off.’

  ‘Until when? Next year?’ Charlotte asked. ‘I gave myself a stern talking-to this morning. We’ve been here two whole days –’

  ‘A day and a half,’ Laura corrected.

  ‘Either way, it’s time we visited the place I flew halfway around the world to see.’

  Laura unlocked the car. ‘Do we go back on the road we came in on?’

  ‘No, you turn right at the gates.’

  ‘Then Grunwaldsee isn’t near Bergensee?’

  ‘They’re built on different lakes at opposite ends of the town. It’s not far. About two miles down the road there’ll be a lane to the right.’

  Laura drove in silence. Occasionally she glanced across at her grandmother, who was sitting, poised, in the passenger seat, ostensibly studying the view.

  ‘Has anything changed?’ she ventured when they left the grim tower blocks of the Communist-built suburbs behind them.

  ‘Too much. That pile of rubble was a flourishing farm. It belonged to a family called Zalewski. They had a son the same age as my brothers; they used to go riding together. Turn just up ahead.’

  Laura reached over and covered her grandmother’s hand with her own. ‘It will be all right.’

  ‘I’m not sure what I dread the most. To find Grunwaldsee neglected and decaying like Bergensee, reduced to rubble, or vanished.’

  ‘Is this the drive to the house?’ Laura asked, as the car bumped from pothole to pothole.

  ‘No. This leads down to a summerhouse. My father renovated it for my brother Wilhelm when he married in 1939.’

  ‘I can see the lake ahead.’

  Charlotte felt as though her heart had lurched into her mouth as they drew closer to it. ‘The summerhouse is on the left,’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s beautiful. A fairytale cottage!’ Laura exclaimed as she drew up in front of a dacha set in a small orchard that bordered the lake. Ripening miniature apples, pears and full-size cherries hung from the branches that framed the baroque roof.

  Charlotte opened the door before Laura stopped the car. Rummaging in her handbag, she pulled out an enormous bunch of keys that Laura had never seen before.

  ‘You still have the keys to the house?’

  ‘Silly, isn’t it?’ Charlotte was embarrassed at being caught out. ‘I didn’t lock anything against the Russians. I saw no point. I knew they’d only smash down the doors, and I couldn’t bear the thought of the damage.’ Pushing the gate open, she walked up a paved path towards the front door.

  ‘It looks well maintained and cared for,’ Laura observed.

  ‘The old locks are still here.’ Charlotte pointed to an enormous keyhole, but above it gleamed a bright new lock. She knocked on the door; the sound echoed hollowly back at her. After waiting fruitlessly for an answer, she stepped into the garden of the cottage, sinking down on to a wooden bench set against the wall. She blinked against the strong sunlight, and Laura saw a tear roll down her cheek.

  Charlotte realized Laura was watching her. ‘This place looks exactly as it did during the war. New cement between the stones, everything clean and tidy. It reminds me of the work Papa had done when my brother Wilhelm became engaged to Irena.’

  ‘Did they live here after they married?’

  ‘Not really. Irena stayed in the house with us when Wilhelm was away. But they did spend Wilhelm’s leaves here. I doubt they had more than two or three weeks together in the whole war.’

  ‘But they must have been happy. There is a wonderful atmosphere about this place.’

  ‘Yes, there is.’ Charlotte turned aside. If people’s happiness contributed to the atmosphere of a place and a house, it wasn’t only Irena and Wilhelm’s happiness that had been captured. ‘I wish we could go inside and see what it is like now.’

  ‘Perhaps some of the furniture has survived.’

  ‘For sixty years?’ Charlotte shook her head. ‘Papa had it furnished with old pieces from the house. They weren’t the best, even then.’

  ‘We could go round the back and look in through the windows,’ Laura suggested.

  ‘And if anyone is inside?’

  ‘They would have answered the door.’ Laura offered Charlotte her arm. Before they had taken half a dozen steps, a young man walked up from a path that bordered the lake. He addressed them in Polish.

  Charlotte, who was still tearful, was unequal to replying. Laura tried German. He shook his head.

  ‘Oma, can you try to explain why we’re here?’

  ‘English?’ The young man beamed at them.

  Before Charlotte could stop her, Laura plunged headlong into conversation. ‘This is my grandmother; she used to live here.’

  ‘In this house?’

  ‘No, not this house, in Grunwaldsee.’

  The young man frowned. ‘The big house?’

  ‘Oma?’ Laura prompted, looking for help.

  ‘My grandfather lives there. Come, I will take you to him.’ Suddenly, remembering his manners, he checked his hand for cleanliness, wiping it on the back of his trousers before holding it out. ‘Pleased to meet you. I am Brunon Niklas.’

  Charlotte stared at him. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, of medium height and stocky.

  ‘We have a car.’ Laura closed the gate as they left the garden.

  ‘I saw it. I’ll show you the r
oad. Follow me.’ Picking up a pair of shears and a scythe, Brunon tossed them into the back of a battered old truck parked at the back of the summerhouse, and climbed into the driving seat.

  ‘You shouldn’t have told him I lived in Grunwaldsee,’ Charlotte remonstrated when they were alone in the car.

  ‘Why not? You want to see the house, don’t you? And he said his grandfather lives there, so it can’t be in as bad a state as Bergensee. Do you remember this road?’

  ‘The road, yes, but it has been widened. We never brought cars down here, but in my day carts were used for everything around the farm.’ Charlotte’s knuckles whitened and she gripped the seat hard when the stables came into view.

  Brunon swung his truck sharply to the left and left again. Not wanting to see Grunwaldsee crumbling and neglected, Charlotte closed her eyes.

  ‘Is this it, Oma?’

  There was a catch in Laura’s voice, and Charlotte dared to look. Where there had been tall, silver-painted gates, there were rusting posts. The farm workers’ cottages that formed the right-hand side of the quadrangle that enclosed the courtyard were framed by scaffolding, and men were busy working on the buildings, ripping out broken windows and rotting wooden casements. She was glad they were being renovated. There had never been enough money to keep the cottages in good repair, not even in her father’s day.

  The yard itself was full of rusting farm machinery. But behind the tangle of abandoned iron stood the house, exactly as it had looked when she had driven out of the yard on a farm cart on that snow-filled January afternoon in 1945.

  The walls were painted the same shade of rich cream, the stonework around the door and windows picked out in the deep tint of burgundy that her father had chosen before the war. The lawn between the front of the house and the cobblestone yard had been trimmed and mown. The wooden crossbars on the sash windows had been freshly painted in white and the slate roof was in good repair. The pillars either side of the front door were white, banded with fresh burgundy paint. The steps that rose above the half-windows of the basement had been newly tiled in marble, and the ironwork balustrades and railings on the balconies looked as good as the day they had been forged, even on the small balcony that opened out of her father’s dressing room.