One Last Summer (2007) Read online

  I proposed that I telephone my father-in-law, General von Letteberg, in Berlin, and, while he made the necessary arrangements, Minna, Martha and I would wash the men’s clothes; as they were drying, the men could wash themselves. When the guards hesitated, I picked up the louse and reminded them that typhus is not fussy whether it kills Aryans or sub-humans.

  As I was leaving the kitchen to go to Papa’s study to telephone, I saw the guards check their own clothes. After what had happened the last time I spoke to the camp commandant, I did not even try to reach him but telephoned Papa von Letteberg’s office. His aide promised to get a message to him. I stressed the urgency of the situation, and said that Papa von Letteberg’s grandson, along with everyone else in the household, was at risk of contracting typhus. Also it was vital we bring in the harvest to supply the troops, and we couldn’t do that without the assistance of prisoner labour.

  I then went to the wash-house to help Minna and Martha with the Russian uniforms. Martha wanted to burn them, but I knew the guards would never stand for that, so we threw them into the wash boilers. In the meantime they had to wear something, so I went to Papa’s and Paul’s rooms and raided their wardrobes. Fortunately, they had a great many clothes. There were warm trousers, underclothes, shirts and pullovers, enough for all twelve prisoners and more. I sent disinfectant soap, combs, brushes and scissors into the barn with Marius and Brunon. (They hid the scissors; the last thing I wanted was an argument with the guards over whether or not the prisoners could use them as weapons.)

  It was hard to believe that the men who emerged an hour later were the same ones who’d entered the barn at lunchtime. Alexander saw me watching them from Papa’s study window, but gave me no nod of recognition.

  I understood. It would not do for the daughter-in-law of General von Letteberg, the wife of a Wehrmacht colonel and mistress of Grunwaldsee, to admit to knowing a prisoner of war, a sub-human and enemy of the Reich. Why does life have to be so complicated? Alexander’s family were kind to me when I lived with them in Moscow. If there hadn’t been a war, Papa would have insisted that I reciprocate their hospitality and invite him and Masha to visit Grunwaldsee as our guests.

  By late afternoon, Papa von Letteberg had gained permission for both guards and prisoners to be billeted at Grunwaldsee. Then we had to decide where to put them. Brunon and Martha offered to give up their house so the guards could move into it. It was generous of them. They knew I hated the thought of having the men living in the house with Mama, Irena, the children and me.

  I helped Brunon, Marius and Martha to empty the lodge of their personal belongings and carry them into the main house. I gave them the rooms at the end of the corridor on the second floor of the east side. There are four rooms and a bathroom there, and a door separates that part of the house from the rest, so they almost have their own front door.

  Brunon said that it was far better that he, Martha and Marius move in with us than the guards, but he repeated it so often that I knew it was a wrench for him and Martha to leave their home.

  Minna and I sorted through the linen closets. We found a dozen clean blankets. They were coarse and of poor quality, but warm enough for this time of year. There is enough straw in the barn for the men to sleep there tonight, and tomorrow we will make better arrangements. Martha boiled up another stew, and cooked all the windfall apples, so the Russians could have an evening meal.

  The guards locked the prisoners in the barn before returning to the camp to pick up their things. I warned them that the prisoners couldn’t remain in the barn indefinitely because we needed it to store hay and straw, and the chickens nested there. They wouldn’t hear of my billeting them in the ballroom, so Brunon and I decided that tomorrow the Russians will have to clean out the loft above the stables and move in there.

  The guards were happy with that because they think there is only one outside staircase that leads up to it, which makes their job easier. They don’t realize there is a door in Papa’s study that opens directly into the tack room adjoining the stables, and a hatch in the tack room ceiling that opens into the loft. My great-grandfather had it put in so sacks of feed could be lifted up or dropped down to save the bother of hauling them up and down the outside stairs.

  It will be useful for passing up forbidden items. The guards have already berated us for giving the prisoners soap and disinfectant, which are in short supply at the Front. I pointed out that Grunwaldsee isn’t the Front, and that if it will help I will send parcels of both to my husband and brother in Russia so they can distribute them there. That shut the guards up. They have a very cosy billet at Grunwaldsee while Claus and Wilhelm … I can’t bear to think what they will suffer during a second winter on the Russian Front.

  I don’t feel good about what Brunon and I are doing. We haven’t made the Russians’ lives any safer or easier, only ensured that they will be in better health to work, which means that we can produce more food for the war effort. A war the Russians are praying that we Germans will lose. And I wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help them if Alexander hadn’t been one of the prisoners. Why is it so easy so ignore people you don’t know, even when they are starving to death, and so difficult to walk away from someone who has once shown you kindness?

  ‘Why indeed?’

  Charlotte set the diary aside, walked to the window, opened the balcony door and stepped outside. Above her the vast dome of the night sky stretched infinite, immeasurable, over the shimmering lake. Moonlight shone on the water that lapped below her. Fire and candlelight flickered on the bank to her right, and the melancholy strains of a Brahms violin concerto echoed in the cool night air. She could smell meat roasting and hear the high-pitched voices of young people raised in song wavering in snatches on the breeze.

  It was a scene that had been played out on the banks of the lake time and time again during her youth, and, she didn’t doubt, in the decades since and the centuries before. If she left the hotel and went in search of the party, would she see boys who’d remind her of Paul and Wilhelm, and girls like she and Irena had been?

  A shadow of a yacht moved into view. Its ghost-white sail flapped and picked up the wind, and the boat sliced through the surface of the lake, scattering the reflected images of the moon and stars. On the opposite bank, darkness encroached with the woods at the water’s edge. She looked for and found the light that marked the lakeside end of Grunwaldsee’s jetty. Was it her imagination or could she really see the glimmer of white that was the little summerhouse?

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t be sleeping.’ Laura was standing on the balcony of her room next door. She turned on the outside light, and mosquitoes danced in a cloud around it.

  ‘I trust you are wearing insect repellent,’ Charlotte warned. ‘The Grunwaldsee species can be particularly vicious when offered fresh meat.’

  ‘Why do you think they are all up there, well away from me?’ Laura leaned on the railing and looked out. ‘It’s beautiful. I hope it never changes.’

  ‘It’s bound to in some ways, but, with luck, not drastically, so something will be saved for future generations. There are many more buildings around the lake than there were in 1945, but the waters are not polluted and, judging by the singing and barbecue smells, young people still come here to have fun.’

  ‘Did you ring room service?’ Laura asked.

  ‘I forgot, but I helped myself to a brandy from the mini-bar, which was very extravagant, knowing the prices they charge,’ Charlotte confessed.

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t send down for something, so I asked the waiter for take-out.’ Laura went into her room and returned with a plate, napkin-wrapped cutlery and two boxes. ‘A kielbasa on rye sandwich and a slice of poppy-seed cake.’

  Charlotte took them. ‘Who’s the grandmother and who’s the granddaughter?’

  ‘If you’re not hungry, dump them.’

  ‘What was your dinner like?’

  ‘Good. Polish pork with cabbage rolls, or rather golabki – you see, I’m learning Pol
ish. Washed down by krupnik.’

  ‘I’d forgotten about fire vodka.’

  ‘Two was my limit. Three and I’d have forgotten my name,’ Laura joked.

  ‘And is there a documentary?’ Charlotte set the boxes on her balcony table.

  ‘With the Jewish girls, no.’ Laura shook her head. ‘The area where the family farm once stood is covered by Communist tower blocks, and the cemetery where their great-great-grandparents were buried is now a hospital car park.’ She looked at her grandmother. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think. Your parents—’

  ‘Were buried in the family vault in the church at Grunwaldsee. I must ask Marius if their memorial is still there.’

  ‘There’s a church at Grunwaldsee as well?’

  ‘There is. You still look tired, Laura.’

  ‘I am. When I’m making a film I work such long hours, I don’t even realize I’m tired. Then, when I stop, I’m ready to sleep around the clock.’

  ‘Why don’t we breakfast in my room tomorrow morning on the balcony? Then we can eat whatever time we like,’ Charlotte suggested.

  ‘Is ten o’clock too late, Oma?’ Laura knew her grandmother was an habitual early riser.

  ‘Ten o’clock sounds perfect.’

  Charlotte watched her granddaughter close the balcony door and the curtains of her room. Then she took the boxes and returned to her own room, closing the door behind her. The mosquitoes around Grunwaldsee had never bitten her before. But as Greta used maliciously to say when she dabbed lotion on her bright-red swellings, ‘If there’s any justice, one day there will be a first time for you, Charlotte.’

  SUNDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 1943

  We hadn’t used the loft for anything, not even feed storage, for years – probably, as Brunon said, for a century or more – so it was very dirty. But the Russians had it scrubbed out before eight o’clock in the morning after spending their first night at Grunwaldsee. They worked hard, especially after Brunon whispered to Alexander’s lieutenant, Leon, who can speak Polish, that it was going to be their new living quarters. Brunon made sure they were given plenty of fresh straw to make beds with, and, when I went to see it, it really didn’t look too bad.

  The guards are careful to keep all civilians away from the prisoners. Thinking that I had forgotten about the hatch, Brunon reminded me about the trap-door that leads from the tack room into the stable loft. He said it will be comparatively easy for us to smuggle extra food to them. Not that we will have that much to give them other than vegetables, oats, and the rabbits and hares Brunon traps.

  Martha has been given the guards’ rations to cook. They are good. I know because their first full week’s allowance was delivered this morning, but all we were given to feed the twelve prisoners for a week was one small bag of worm-infested swedes. They’re not even fit to feed the pigs.

  I would like to tell Alexander what Wilhelm said about events in Russia, but it is too dangerous. Perhaps in another week or two, when the guards and prisoners are used to a routine, it will become easier to find a time and a place where we won’t be overheard.

  SUNDAY, 26 DECEMBER 1943

  There was some Christmas joy this year, but only because everyone at Grunwaldsee has learned to be happy with the small things that we would have taken for granted before the war. Fortunately, Erich, Marianna and Karoline are too young to know any different. It was Papa von Letteberg who gave me my best present. Wilhelm and Claus have both been transferred to staff posts in Berlin, effective as of four weeks before Christmas.

  I suspected he used his influence, although he denied it when I tried to thank him after following him into the library on Christmas Eve. He had gone in there to borrow a book. I would never have dared to mention it if we hadn’t been alone. And I am always very careful whenever I telephone his office in Berlin.

  Wilhelm has been posted to the General Army Office, which is based at the Headquarters of the Reserve Army in the Bendlerstrasse, so I really have grounds to hope that he will never have to see Russia or active service again.

  There were no toys in the shops, so I cut up some old clothes and a rabbit-skin coat, and made three toy rabbits, but I doubt they will replace the real rabbits on the farm in the children’s affections. We grown-ups were prepared to settle for good wishes and whatever Christmas dinner we could organize. But Claus and Wilhelm changed everything by coming home laden with presents.

  Claus brought a carved, wooden farmyard and a little cart for Erich, one that he can fill with toys and pull along. He also brought a perfect little Wehrmacht uniform in Erich’s exact size. As we have both lost brothers to this war, and with so many of our friends and neighbours killed, it seemed a peculiar present. But I didn’t say anything when I laid it on Erich’s table along with his rabbit, the suit I had made him out of a pair of Paul’s trousers and the rest of Claus’s gifts; although I must admit I was delighted after church on Christmas Eve to see that the presents Erich liked best were the pencils and papers Papa and Mama von Letteberg gave him, Claus’s cart and my stuffed rabbit.

  Mama von Letteberg is to stay with us the whole of Christmas week; Claus, Wilhelm and Papa von Letteberg could only spare us two days. They left at dawn this morning. I know that all the problems between Claus and me are my fault, but that does not bring me any nearer to resolving them.

  However hard I try, I simply cannot love him as a wife should. It is as much as I can do to stop myself from screaming whenever he touches me. He must sense how much I dread being alone with him. I have to force myself to lie still and allow him to do what he wants, because I know how much he and Mama and Papa von Letteberg want me to have another son. And not only them. I love Erich so much that I too would also like another child.

  It is obvious that the Berlin shops, especially for staff officers, are nowhere near as empty as those in Allenstein. Wilhelm and Claus not only brought presents and sweets for the children but a whole carload of food and gifts for the entire family. I had an emerald and gold necklace, earring and bracelet set from Claus. Wilhelm brought jewellery and lingerie for Irena. Claus gave me lingerie, too – in private. It is too big, and not at all the kind of thing a wife would wear. I couldn’t help wondering if Claus had asked his mistress to choose it for me. I know he has one from the hints Greta took such delight in dropping when she helped Irena and I make supper on Christmas Day while the men sat and talked over their brandy and cigars. Irena was horrified by the thought, but I have no reason not to believe Greta.

  Greta and Irena don’t understand that I really don’t mind the thought of Claus sleeping with other women. The more often he does those disgusting things to someone else, the less he will want to do them to me. It is only when I see Wilhelm and Irena in perfect harmony, each thinking the other’s thoughts before they are voiced, that I become jealous. Not of Claus’s mistress, but what my brother and his wife share. It is very hard knowing that I will never experience that perfect love.

  I want this war to end. I want to be able to go into Allenstein and walk the streets without seeing more and more women and children wearing black. I want to be able to switch on the radio without hearing Wagner’s bombastic chords preceding ‘special war announcements’. But the end of the war will mean living with Claus.

  If Claus does stay in the army when peace comes, I hope he will allow me and Erich either to live here or at Bergensee. Then he can visit us on his leaves and spend as much time as he likes with his mistress.

  I wish I could stop comparing us to Wilhelm and Irena. They live for the moments they spend together. It was as much as they could do to leave the cottage to bring the children to eat Christmas dinner with us. While we were all sitting at the table, Papa von Letteberg suggested that, as I can run Grunwaldsee this well in wartime, with the help of only a few prisoners of war and conscript women and Poles, fulfil all the military quotas, and lay on hospitality and a fine meal like the one we were enjoying, then Claus could retire at the end of the war, put Bergensee in my hands and concentrate on writin
g his memoirs.

  Unfortunately, that comment turned the conversation on to what is happening at Bergensee now. The army medical department has commandeered the house and turned it into a convalescent hospital for severely wounded and mutilated soldiers. Mama von Letteberg can’t even bring herself to visit.

  I go once a week with whatever little we can spare, which isn’t much, mainly a few apples and vegetables, and to play the piano for the patients. I started calling there after Paul was killed. It is terrible to see so many young boys with eyes, hands or limbs missing. I told Mama and Papa von Letteberg how grateful they are for the loan of their beautiful home.

  Wilhelm said I shouldn’t feel sorry for them. They are alive, and they can learn to adapt. His new commanding officer was badly wounded in the retreat from North Africa. He lost an eye, his right hand and two fingers from his left, and has severe shrapnel wounds in his legs and back, yet all his junior officers regard him as the best soldier they have ever served under. They all admire and respect him, and are ready to follow him to the ends of the earth. It is obvious Wilhelm adores him. I am glad. His talk of injustice and the futility of the war after the defeats in Russia were close to treason, but his new commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg, seems to have given him a renewed interest in his work. I am so pleased for him and Irena. She cannot bear to see him unhappy.

  As always, whenever Claus, Wilhelm and Papa von Letteberg leave after one of their short visits, the house seems unnaturally quiet. Brunon has set the Russian POWs the tasks of cleaning tack, mucking out the stables and pigsties, and chopping down the dead trees in the woods for firewood. It means that during these winter months the land army girls have an extended holiday, but we are terrified that if we don’t give the Russians enough work they will be sent back to the camp.