Dissonance (11 page)

Part Two
Hamburg 1938

Chapter One

Spring appeared. One day the linden trees outside Erwin's window were bare, the next, covered in small, green shoots spaced every two inches along branches dancing in a cold, beer-scented breeze. This was one of many smells from the pub across Bramweg, always full to overflowing with businessmen, prostitutes and train drivers shouting insults and singing love songs. Erwin would appear in Madge's doorway at two in the morning and say, ‘I can't get to sleep,' and she'd ask, ‘What do you want me to do?' Soon she'd be opening the window and shouting down, ‘Ich muss schlafen, schlafen!' She'd thought of complaining to the accommodation officer at the conservatorium but he'd already done them a favour finding them a flat in a city short on rentals.

So they'd just have to put up with it – like a lot of things they didn't like: unlockable windows, taps that might or might not work, the customs officer next door who played Strauss waltzes through paper-thin walls every time Erwin tried to practise. ‘I can't keep time,' he'd complain to Madge, as she hammered on the wall. The neighbour would counter by coming to their door and asking how a man could exist on so little sleep; he'd show them his red, bleary eyes and the cotton he stuffed in his ears to block out Erwin's playing.

‘My son never practises after eight,' Madge would insist.

A lot to put up with. Such as a book burning at the end of their street, Erwin stepping forward to ask if they could spare the score to Mendelssohn's
Variations sérieuses
, a dim, feeble little man replying, ‘You like Mendelssohn?'

‘I'm a piano student.'

‘What about Mozart?'

‘What about Mendelssohn?'

Bramweg was an unremarkable street in the western suburb of Sülldorf. It could be reached from central Hamburg via the S-Bahn or a ferry along the Elbe. Bramweg was brown. Sandstone-brown; ironstone-brown; cobblestone brown. It was soot-brown and sodium-streetlight-brown. The big, blue sky of the Flaxman Valley was a rare thing. The sun had retreated from the earth and left a pallor of wood-grain and dusty butcher shop windows (not topsoil dust, blown down from wheat farms – more a grey-brown, a coal-brown). The streets were brown and the precast concrete panels of Madge's and Erwin's apartment building were brown.

Spring had brought some sense of life – the smell of hot bread, warm sun on the back of a hand, children making bike ramps in a gutter. Erwin sat at his window looking out on all of this. He was dressed in a towelling top and shorts his mum had made him. They were variously white, striped and floral, and rough against his skin. He'd just been for a run, barefoot, through the streets of Sülldorf, and his body was hot. A breeze came in the window and settled across his face. He pushed his sweaty hair back, tucking it behind his ears, and wrote:

Now, more about the recital on the
Gera
. They had a Blüthner concert grand and it was a real treat to play. I hardly struck the keys and ssh, the hammer hit the string. And sweet! Most of the day it was abused by a tall, bald man in a tuxedo. All I heard were songs – music hall and sentimentals (which could be tolerated, but not played that way). The pianist (if I could call him that) slowed through the difficult passages, turning and smiling at us like a monkey, and thumped away at the simple one-five choruses. He was trying to make us think he was a virtuoso.

Anyway, when the lounge was closed at ten pm I was allowed on. I practised most mornings until two or three. Then I returned to our cabin and crawled into bed. I missed breakfast and I was hungry until lunch but it didn't matter, it was worth it to play a proper piano.

So, one morning a steward overheard me. He asked if I'd like to give a concert and I agreed …

Once again, the Grainger, Scarlatti and
Counterpoint
of his farewell recital. Afterwards a small group of admirers gathered around the piano. ‘You're going to study where?' they asked, as Madge stood back with her arms crossed, smiling, too modest to mention that
she
was the mother, as the
Gera
's resident pianist watched from the bar, brooding over a glass of watery brandy.

Back in Bramweg, Erwin heard the cracking of concrete. He went to the window and lifted it a few inches. A blacksmith's anvil had fallen from the back of a cart and three men were trying to lift it. One of them stopped and walked away, holding his back. Erwin returned to his small desk and squeezed into the corner of the room between his bed and a wardrobe. Then he picked up his pen and started again.

Hamburg is no Lyndoch, but you get used to everything quite quickly. Mum and I borrow bikes from a family downstairs (we are on the second floor) and go riding in a park near here. We stop at shops and Mum gets talking to people. When they realise how bad our German is they ask, Where are you from? Next thing we're telling them about Australia. We tell them we're from a German region and they get very excited. Of course, no one's heard of the Barossa but we tell them and they say, We'd like to visit some time.

Then he explained why Madge had insisted they get out: to mingle, to meet, to become German (in a temporary sense); to master the language and the outlook. He described his mother sitting on a bench in the park introducing herself to anyone handy. ‘Guten Tag, Ich bin Magda. Wie heisst du
?
'

As people thought, What have we got here?

Going on to explain how her son studied at the Conserva­torium, with Herr Schaedel. ‘You've heard of Herr Professor Schaedel, of course?'

‘I'm sorry, I don't follow music.'

‘Well, he is a world authority on the piano.'

Or another time, someone asking, ‘You'll stay in Germany?'

Madge smiling politely. ‘Perhaps, if this is where Erwin is recognised.'

‘Where else would you go?'

‘London, perhaps.'

‘Stay in Germany. There are plenty of opportunities for young people.'

Mum tells people about God's Hill Road, but of course it's a different God's Hill Road: large herds of cattle grazing the Kaiserstuhl, sheep lost in dry creek beds, kangaroos hopping fences. She has me riding a horse, droving cattle to market …

‘The Goat Square market is the biggest in the Valley,' she'd explain. ‘Hundreds of pigs crammed into pens, freshly slaughtered goats, warm bread and a dozen different ­chutneys.'

‘Why so many?' someone would ask.

‘Well, we are a very proud community.'

As Madge became Magda, favouring the
We
, putting herself at the centre of a previously second-rate valley full of dull, ordinary people.

‘It must have been difficult to leave?' someone asked.

‘But you see it was Erwin, he had outgrown all of his teachers.'

Oh, Grandma, did I tell you about Mother's carry-on? Every morning on the
Gera
I would go for a run. There was this girl who was always playing shuffleboard. I'd run past and she'd watch me. Then she started smiling, and I smiled. She said Hello and I said Hello. And then I stopped to talk, and she asked if I'd like to play.

Well, along comes Mother …

‘Here you are. I was expecting you an hour ago.'

‘Mum, this is Jane.'

Madge ignored her. ‘Come and get changed, we'll be late for lunch.'

‘She's travelling with her parents,' Erwin continued, indicating an older couple sitting in deck chairs. He smiled at them and the mother waved, and the father dipped his head. Madge smiled at them but looked back at her son. ‘Come along.'

‘Will I see you tomorrow?' Erwin asked Jane, and she told him she had a painting class after lunch.

‘I'm a painter!' Erwin grinned.

‘I thought you were studying music?'

‘But I paint. I'll see you there perhaps?'

Madge held her son's arm as she walked him back to their cabin. ‘Erwin, I'm relying on you to stick to the schedule.'

‘Why?'

‘I'm relying on you!'

‘Why don't you …?' He trailed off. Do something by yourself, he almost said. There's plenty to do – eurhythmy, needlepoint, sitting in the sun, going for a walk … by yourself. ‘I can't go far, it's a ship.'

‘When you say something, do it.'

‘She asked me to play.'

‘What about me?'

Sitting on the end of the bed, waiting, brooding, fuming, noticing the sheets were crooked, stripping the bed and starting again.

‘Who is she?' she asked.

‘They're on a holiday, to Europe.'

‘They must have some money.'

‘Her dad's a stockbroker.'

‘Of course.'

‘What?'

‘A parasite. A money-mover. Taking from the poor and – '

‘She just asked me to play shuffleboard.'

Madge didn't argue. She knew the type: all smile, and smell, and hat. Lazy. Tempting the self-starters of the world with promises of the easy life. Still, she thought, as she hurried her son up, he'll be safe in Hamburg.

She was still thinking this the next day as she sat behind Erwin and Jane, watching them paint a view of the bridge and funnels from the stern. ‘Erwin, put that scarf around your neck.'

Erwin obliged but then leaned over to Jane and said, ‘How would you like a mother like that?'

Jane looked at Madge and giggled, as the matriarch lifted her head and narrowed her eyes. Then the young, blue-eyed girl looked at Erwin's painting and said, ‘That's intriguing.'

He shrugged. ‘It's just an idea.'

A cubist
Gera
 – the ship compressed into a wool bale of colour, shape and function; the bridge crushed between the propeller and a velvet slipper; the captain squeezed into a salt shaker, his tongue woven between the strings of the grand piano; the balding pianist curled up in a soup tureen and ropes and anchor-chains holding the whole thing together.

Erwin looked at Jane's naturalistic water colour and said, ‘You've gotta work out what you're good at.'

‘Like the piano?'

‘It could be anything. The thing is, no one remembers an amateur.'

She picked up her painting and pretended to break it over his head. ‘You're so cruel,' she whispered.

‘So?'

She took his arm and touched her face to his shoulder. It was too much for Madge. She stood up and approached them, removing the girl's hand. ‘Erwin, take me back to the cabin, please.'

‘What's wrong?'

‘Please.'

On the way back she came good. Erwin tried to hold her but she shook him off. ‘I don't want you seeing that girl,' she said.

‘Why?'

‘It's best.'

‘Why?'

‘Soon you'll get separated and …'

Erwin stopped. ‘We're just friends.'

Madge kept walking. ‘It's best.'

‘Mum, you can't keep doing this to me.'

Madge stopped, turned and looked back at her son. ‘Would you like to tell the whole ship?' Then she walked on.

‘Mum, you don't understand,' he called, following her.

‘Enough.'

A week later they left the ship early in Genoa. ‘It'll be good for us,' Madge explained, handing over the money for their train tickets to Hamburg.

‘Good for us?'

‘It will give us a chance to see some scenery.'

Since when have you ever cared about scenery, Erwin thought, curious as to why Madge would forfeit the cost of the rest of their journey. A woman who ate week-old bread to save a few pennies.

Back in Hamburg, a few weeks after their arrival, Erwin was still sitting at his desk, writing his letter to Grace, looking out of the window and wondering how his life had changed so quickly. A city of narrow streets that wound together like barbed wire, around half-timbered houses, churches turned black with grime, exhaust and factory smoke, apartments with picture-frame windows decorated with reliefs of Greek gods and harps. Some buildings were concrete blocks or strange chalets with every balcony covered with pots of geraniums, carnations and tomatoes. Across the road, beside the hotel, was the Garten Café, its wood-shingle roof sagging in the middle like a wet blanket. Locals sat at tables along the footpath, pushed up close to the walls. They smoked and drank beer and rolled up their sleeves to catch some sun.

There were some older homes in Bramweg. Single- and double-storey, their faces covered with grapevines and ivy, small, arched horse-and-cart openings leading into courtyards full of ducks and chickens, handcarts and bags of wheat, overhung with washing lines strung with workpants, socks and
Hitler Jugend
shirts.

There was always entertainment in Sülldorf. If it wasn't someone burning books it was the
Arbeitsdienst
, marching down Bramweg in boots and heavy, canvas pants, shirts off and spades over their shoulders.

Erwin had quickly worked out that Germans loved a parade: stormtroopers,
Jungvolk
or the League of German Maidens, the Postal Police, war veterans, the Factory Protection Service or Red Cross. Anyone really. It seemed that everyone in Germany had a purpose and a uniform to prove it. It was a nation of collar patches, armbands and riding boots. And where there was marching there was a band, tapping toes, smiles and the body odour of a good-sized crowd. There was always an official on a reviewing stand and plenty of flags and leaflets, and organisation. Erwin wondered who was responsible for it all. Things just seemed to happen, but someone somewhere must have been planning it. These were no vintage parades down the main street of Lyndoch. These were whole suburbs, towns and cities waiting in anticipation of straight lines.

Madge appeared in the doorway and said, ‘Come on, you're going to be late for your first lesson.'

Erwin dressed in the clothes she'd laid out for him: a white shirt with a narrow tie, a matching jacket and pants and polished shoes. Then she took him to the bathroom and combed his hair flat.