One Last Summer (2007) Read online

  ‘Is this Grunwaldsee?’ Laura repeated.

  Charlotte continued to stare, mesmerized. After all her nightmares of dereliction, to see it looking as though it had been trapped in a time warp was traumatic.

  She half-expected Laura to fade and Wilhelm and Paul to come running down the steps, riding jackets slung over their shoulders, crops in hand, shouting and play-fighting as they made their way to the stables. Her mother walking out on to the small balcony over the front door, calling down, warning them not to be late as guests were expected for dinner. Her younger self standing on the path that led around the back of the house, squabbling with Greta. Her father emerging from the side door that led to his study in the west wing, pleading with them not to quarrel …

  ‘Fräulein Charlotte?’ An old man walked up to the car. She opened the door, recognizing the voice but not the man.

  ‘You’ve come back, Fräulein Charlotte. After all these years, you’ve come back.’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Marius?’

  Charlotte left the car and moved tentatively towards him. ‘You stayed? All these years, you stayed?’

  ‘Did you think for one moment that I would leave Grunwaldsee to the mercies of the Russians, Fräulein Charlotte? Of course I stayed. Who else but a Niklas would know how to care for Grunwaldsee?’

  Marius’s German was halting, fractured from disuse. Charlotte recalled someone telling her that the language had been banned during the Communist years in the old Prussian states and had only just been reinstated.

  They continued to stand staring at one another, and, for a moment, Laura thought her grandmother might embrace the old man. But something – propriety, or a class structure that had died in the aftermath of a world war over sixty years before – kept them apart.

  It was Marius who broke the silence. ‘Come inside, Fräulein Charlotte. Drink a vodka and coffee with us.’

  An old woman stood behind Marius, obviously his wife. She clearly hadn’t understood a word her husband had said, who Charlotte was, or why she was there, but Marius’s gestures indicated that he had extended an invitation, and speaking Polish, she added her appeal to his.

  Sensing they were neither needed nor wanted, Laura and Brunon stepped back. Charlotte looked to her granddaughter.

  ‘Go on, Oma,’ Laura urged. ‘Talk to your friend. I’ll be fine here.’

  ‘I’ll show her the stables,’ Brunon said in English before speaking Polish to the old couple.

  Laura watched Marius and his wife escort Charlotte into one of the twin lodges built either side of the main entrance to the courtyard.

  One was in the same pristine condition as the main house. Scaffolding had been erected around the crumbling walls of the other, presumably in preparation for a similar renovation.

  ‘Would you like to see the horses?’ Brunon asked after his grandfather had closed the door of his house and they were alone in the yard.

  ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘My grandfather called your grandmother Charlotte,’ he commented. ‘She was Charlotte von Datski?’

  ‘Still is, but she never uses the von.’ Laura followed him to a series of buildings that enclosed the left-hand side of the yard.

  ‘It’s strange she uses her maiden name.’

  ‘She has done since her husband died almost forty years ago.’

  ‘She must have told you all about this place.’

  ‘Very little, and I can understand why.’ Laura turned and looked back at the main house. ‘It must have been a tremendous wrench to leave it.’

  ‘The Germans had no choice, at the end of the war,’ he said flatly. ‘If the Russians found them they were killed, or put on a rail transport to Siberia. There they were dumped in open countryside. Most froze and starved to death.’

  ‘I’m amazed your grandfather still lives here.’

  ‘The Niklas family were stewards to the von Datski estate for over three hundred years. It’s not easy to abandon that kind of history.’

  ‘Didn’t he have to leave when the Russians came?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Generally the Russians left the Poles alone, which was fortunate for me. If they hadn’t, I would never have been born. My great-grandmother absolutely refused to leave Grunwaldsee. She believed that my great-grandfather, Brunon, I’m named after him, who’d been conscripted into the Wehrmacht home guard in December 1944, would return, and that if she left they would never find one another again. Although my grandfather was only thirteen at the time, he wouldn’t abandon her. When the Russian army made Grunwaldsee their local headquarters, they gave her the job of cook, and made my grandfather a stable boy, paying them in food, which was worth more than gold at the end of the war.’

  ‘Yet they worked for my grandmother’s family.’

  ‘You find it surprising that they could work for the Russians after working for the von Datskis?’

  ‘Not at all, just incredible that someone my grandmother knew is still here.’

  ‘There’s something else that’s still here.’ He opened a wooden door and led the way into the stables.

  Laura followed and saw that although the exterior of the building was crumbling and awaiting renovation, the inside was pristine. The stalls had been freshly concreted and the wooden partitions so new they smelled of sawdust and pine. ‘What a beautiful horse,’ she cried out when a mare with an almost pure white coat came forward. It bent its head and nuzzled Brunon’s pockets for food. Even to Laura’s untutored eye it looked a magnificent specimen.

  ‘Surely your grandmother told you about the Datski greys?’

  ‘No.’ Laura realized that he was shocked by her ignorance.

  ‘Can you ride?’

  ‘My grandmother paid for lessons, but I’m not brilliant.’

  ‘If you like, we could tour the estate on horseback.’ He looked at her flimsy summer dress and sandals. ‘You have riding clothes with you?’

  ‘I have slacks.’

  ‘Then we’ll go, perhaps tomorrow, or the day after. And don’t worry, I’ll find you a quiet horse and a hard hat.’ He closed the stable door and they walked back across the yard.

  ‘It’s wonderful to see my grandmother’s old home looking like this.’ Laura almost mentioned Bergensee and how upset her grandmother had been by its dereliction, but something held her back. ‘Your family has looked after it well. It must have cost you a fortune to restore the main house.’

  Brunon threw back his head and laughed. ‘My family didn’t renovate this place. My grandfather couldn’t have afforded to buy the paint, let alone employ workmen to repair the roof and the walls.’

  ‘Don’t you own Grunwaldsee now?’ she asked in surprise.

  He headed for the lodge. ‘I told you, the Niklas family have always been stewards, not owners.’

  ‘But it’s in such marvellous condition.’

  ‘Even the Communists knew a good thing when they saw it. When the army abandoned the house in the fifties, someone in authority remembered the Datski greys. Most had ended up in the stew-pot or been shipped back to Russia, but my grandfather had hidden a few on neighbouring farms. There were enough left to establish a breeding programme. He offered to oversee it. The government were keen to sponsor sports that would enable them to compete in international competitions, especially the Olympics. They took him up on his offer, and when they opened this place as a riding school and stud farm they made him manager. Datski greys have been ridden in every Olympic show-jumping and dressage competition for the last forty years.’

  ‘If my grandmother knew, she never said anything.’

  ‘Oh, she would have known. There is no mistaking a Datski grey,’ he said authoritatively. ‘Once seen, never forgotten. Did your grandmother never ride after she left East Prussia?’

  ‘Not that I know about. But she still works; she’s an artist.’

  ‘An artist, not a musician? That’s surprising. My grandfather says no one could play the piano or violin like Fräulein Charlotte von Dat
ski. Before the war she was studying to become a concert pianist.’

  ‘My grandmother was musical? I had no idea.’ Laura stared at him in amazement, then remembered Charlotte mentioning that she’d been a member of a Hitler Youth orchestra. She’d assumed that her grandmother had played third violin or the flute along with several others – not been a potential concert pianist. ‘She has a vast collection of recorded classical music, but I’ve never heard her play a piano or any other instrument.’

  ‘The artist Charlotte Datski,’ Brunon Niklas mused. ‘It’s strange we haven’t heard of her in Poland.’

  ‘She illustrates children’s books. She’s very talented but not well known outside of literary circles.’

  ‘I suppose it only goes to show that we don’t know all there is to know about our families, especially our grandparents. What do you do?’

  ‘Make television documentaries.’

  ‘On what subjects?’ he enquired directly.

  ‘Mainly historical, and current affairs. I have just finished one on the Stasi.’ She sat on the steps that led up to the veranda of the main house and looked around, trying to imagine what it must have been like to grow up in Grunwaldsee.

  ‘I’m studying agriculture in the local technical college. My mother and brother live in Warsaw but I’ve always spent a lot of time here. I love this place. Even when it was full of Party officials, there was something special about it. You’re going to stay, of course?’

  ‘In Poland, for a week or two perhaps.’

  ‘I don’t mean Poland, I mean here. Your grandmother must have a lot to show you, and my grandparents will insist that you stay with them.’

  ‘This trip was my grandmother’s idea. She’s wanted to return for a long time. I’m only here to keep her company and because I was curious to see where she grew up and what she left behind. She is the one making the decisions as to what we will do.’

  He nodded. ‘Then let’s go and see what she has decided.’

  They found Charlotte and the old couple sitting in a small, dark, congested living room. An enormous stove took up a third of the floor space, and massive pieces of dark wood furniture which looked as though they had been made for a giant’s kitchen, took care of what was left. In the centre was a round table covered with a hand-worked lace cloth. On it stood a bottle of vodka, a plate of home-made marzipan and a pot of coffee.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Charlotte rose to greet her granddaughter and Brunon. ‘I didn’t introduce you. This is Marius Niklas, the son of my father’s last steward, also called Brunon. And this is Marius’s wife, Jadwiga. Marius, Jadwiga, this is my English granddaughter, Laura Templeton.’ She repeated the introduction in German for Marius’s benefit and wished she could do the same in Polish for Jadwiga, but her Polish had never been fluent, not even when the estate had employed Polish workers before and during the war.

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Laura intended to shake the old man’s hand but he lifted it to his lips and kissed it.

  ‘Brunon was named after his great-grandfather?’ Charlotte asked Marius.

  ‘He was born the year my mother died. It pleased her to think that my father’s name would live on.’

  ‘You have something of the look of him about you.’ Charlotte said in English, before shaking young Brunon’s hand.

  ‘I am pleased to make your acquaintance at last, madam. My grandfather talks about you and the old days incessantly.’ Brunon translated his comment for the old man.

  ‘Only the good things,’ Marius qualified in German before speaking to his wife.

  ‘We’ve missed out on a party here, Laura.’ Brunon glanced at the vodka.

  ‘Please sit down, Fräulein Laura,’ Marius invited in German, rightly assuming that Laura was fluent in the language. ‘Jadwiga will get more cups and glasses.’

  Laura looked at the floor space and doubted that another chair could be squeezed into the room.

  ‘I thought this might be a good time to take our guests around the main house,’ Brunon suggested.

  ‘I have the key, but the owner might not like it,’ Marius cautioned.

  ‘He won’t mind,’ Brunon replied confidently.

  ‘He may prefer to show Fräulein Charlotte and her granddaughter the house himself,’ Marius warned.

  ‘And he might not return for days.’

  ‘The owner is away?’ Charlotte asked, only just following the gist of their Polish conversation.

  ‘He could be back at any moment,’ Marius answered briefly.

  ‘He’s Polish?’

  ‘Russian.’ Marius turned aside, unable to look Charlotte in the eye. He thought he knew how a von Datski would feel about a Russian owning Grunwaldsee. Before he’d met him, he’d had mixed feelings about staying on in the lodge that had been the Niklas family home for over three hundred years. ‘He’s not a bad sort,’ he added in an attempt to temper the news.

  ‘How long has he lived here?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘A year. The authorities put Grunwaldsee on the market after the revolution in 1989, but between the red tape and legal hold-ups it wasn’t sold until early last year.’

  ‘And so far he has spent fifty times more than he paid for the estate in renovating the main house,’ Brunon interrupted.

  ‘These days the Russians are the only ones with money,’ Marius commented.

  ‘Does he have a family?’ Charlotte had difficulty keeping her voice even. Finding Grunwaldsee unchanged was miraculous. But facing the harsh reality of anyone other than a von Datski making the house their home hurt more than she would have believed possible.

  ‘He’s not married.’ Marius stared down into his glass. ‘And he hasn’t moved into the main house. He lives in the summerhouse down by the lake. That was the first building on the estate that he restored, not that it needed anything more doing to it than your father did back in’39. But it didn’t look good before he put in new windows and repaired the roof.’

  ‘I saw it,’ Charlotte said softly.

  ‘It would have broken your heart to see the estate before he started work on it, especially the main house.’ Marius finished his vodka. ‘Like every other building in the country under Communist rule, Grunwaldsee was used, abused and neglected.’

  ‘The first thing the Russian did after he bought the place was call in a builder who specializes in restoration work. He had very definite ideas about what needed to be done. Brickwork and external repairs first, new roof timbers as well as tiles, new internal woodwork, plumbing, electrical wiring, all the inside walls replastered, the ceilings restored, everything re-painted. But why are we sitting here talking about it when we can look at it?’ Brunon opened the door.

  ‘How did he know which colours to choose?’ Charlotte followed Brunon outside.

  ‘I helped,’ Marius confessed, wondering if Charlotte would take his collaboration as defection to the enemy.

  Charlotte’s voice wavered. ‘Is any of our furniture left?’

  ‘The Russians took everything,’ Marius said shortly. ‘They made big piles. All the electrical equipment, the sewing machines, the lamps, radios, stoves, hotplates, everything with a plug on it was taken from the town and villages and heaped in a clearing in the forest, and there they stayed for two years. Two whole winters before they were loaded on to trucks and sent to Russia.’ He shook his head dolefully. ‘You can imagine how useful they were after that.’

  ‘What a waste,’ Charlotte murmured.

  ‘The furniture was piled in another clearing.’ Marius led the way across the yard. ‘Jewellery, toys, everything small and valuable was slipped into haversacks and kit bags. They were like locusts. The entire countryside was stripped bare, of people, valuables, food. All that was left was empty houses. Which displaced Polish families from the south were resettled in.’ Marius took his wife’s hand. ‘And thankfully for me, one of those Polish families was Jadwiga’s.’

  Brunon walked up the steps to the front door of the house. He held out his hand to his g
randfather for the key. But Marius held back.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go inside, Fräulein Charlotte?’

  ‘It’s a long time since I’ve been Fräulein Charlotte, Marius. I’m plain Charlotte now. And yes, I am sure. I would like to see it again, just one more time.’

  Brunon opened the front door. Charlotte was conscious of everyone standing back, waiting for her to make the first move, and she stepped inside.

  Charlotte almost reeled back, overwhelmed by the smell of paint and varnish. Looking down, she saw that she was standing on new parquet flooring.

  ‘All the floors had to be replaced,’ Marius explained. ‘The winters of forty-six and forty-seven were cold ones. The Russian soldiers ripped up the blocks to feed the boiler; afterwards, the authorities put down cheap linoleum. It didn’t last long.’

  Charlotte felt she was expected to say something. ‘This is good quality wood.’

  ‘Not as good as the old flooring, but at least it’s free from the scuff marks your mother used to chide the maids for never being able to remove.’ There was a huskiness in Marius’s voice that Charlotte found difficult to ignore.

  ‘Is this new, too?’ She touched the staircase, unsure whether the stairs and balustrade had been stripped of varnish and restored, or entirely replaced.

  ‘Like the floor, the rails were used to feed the boiler.’

  ‘Whoever did this had a good eye for the original. You said that you helped?’

  ‘As much as I could,’ he admitted diffidently.

  ‘You did well, Marius. It would have been dreadful if Grunwaldsee had crumbled into rubble.’ She glanced up at the ceilings. They were obviously new, but the ornate coving and ceiling roses were identical to the old.

  ‘These were cast from moulds of the original. There were just enough pieces left for the plasterer to recreate the patterns.’ He sank down on the bottom step of the stairs and looked around. ‘The hall suffered the most at the end of the war because it’s where the soldiers used to wait for their orders. But if you go into the drawing room you’ll see it still has the old fireplace.’