Dissonance (23 page)

Erwin emerged from the bathroom. ‘What?' he asked, bluntly.

She held his towelling pants in her two clenched fists. ‘It was a good day?'

‘Yes,' he replied. ‘You've gotta get away sometimes. Next time you should come with us.'

‘Next time,' she whispered, wondering if she should be angry.

The kettle whistled and the phone rang at the same time.

‘I'll get it,' Erwin said, and she was left to make his coffee.

She made it strong and sweet, although she knew he'd tip it out and start again. She left it on the kitchen table and sat staring at it. The mug had a picture of the Wandrahm Bridge on the side. It was a souvenir from an afternoon they'd spent exploring. She was going to send it to Grace but never got around to it. But so what? As if Grace would care. A bridge? And Sam would just laugh. ‘What do we want that for? I'd rather she returned some of our money.'

‘When she's ready, Sam.'

‘When's that?'

‘When Erwin starts earning.'

‘Ha.'

Erwin was standing in the doorway. ‘Professor Schaedel's sick,' he said.

She looked up. ‘What is it?'

‘The flu. He's teaching from home today.'

Half an hour later Erwin was walking through a suburb that was still waking. A flower seller on the corner of his street was transferring daffodils and stocks from buckets to sorting tables; a young girl was taking one of each of the flowers and making bunches, tying them up with twine and putting them back into buckets full of fresh water.

There was a boot polisher, staring at him indifferently, and a baker loading his van with glazed fruit buns; a news-stand with a mongoloid man and his girlfriend, who looked the same, who kept pinching his bum and laughing when he got angry. Another big man, a redhead in a suit with his jacket slung over his shoulder, stared down at the pavement, shocked, as if someone had just died.

Erwin followed the directions he'd scribbled on the edge of page thirty-two of the Hamburg telephone directory. Eventually he found Schaedel's place: an apartment on the fourth floor of a block squeezed between a dress shop and an insurance broker. He entered, climbed the stairs and stood at the door to 4E with his satchel in his hand.

He knocked. After some shuffling and mumbling the door opened and the professor appeared. ‘Come in,' he said, smiling, coughing into a handkerchief that was already soaked in mucus.

Erwin walked into the apartment. It was dark and warm, full of floating dust and the smell of talc. The floor was tiled but there were rugs to muffle the noise from the piano.

Schaedel closed the door and stepped back from his student. ‘I'll keep my distance,' he said, sniffing, giving up on the wet handkerchief and wiping his nose on the back of his hand.

‘The Con rang,' Erwin told him.

‘Yes. If you want to, we can leave it for this week. Only, I thought you'd be itching to look at the Greig.'

Erwin shrugged. ‘It's only a cold. The world can't stop for a cold.'

‘Exactly.'

Schaedel was dressed in suit pants and a jacket, a white shirt buttoned all the way up and slippers that slapped against his heel as he walked. ‘Have a seat,' he said, indicating the piano. ‘Do you want a drink?'

‘No, thanks,' Erwin replied, sitting at the piano, opening his satchel and taking out his exercises.

Schaedel took a stool and set it down a few feet away from the piano. ‘How have you been?' he asked, sitting down.

‘Fine.'

‘What have you been up to?'

‘Yesterday I spent the day in the country, riding, with Luise.'

‘Good for you,' Schaedel replied, wondering. ‘Just you two?'

‘Just us,' Erwin grinned. ‘Mum wouldn't have made it that far.'

‘No?'

But Erwin was already playing his scales. Schaedel was watching him, his legs crossed, massaging his chin whiskers between his thumb and index finger.

Positively glowing, he thought. What have you been up to, my boy?

‘This action is hard,' Erwin said, as he played.

‘Just what you need – the harder the better; just in case you end up playing songs in a beer-hall.'

‘Is that your secret, Professor?'

‘Ivan. How many times do I have to tell you, Herr Hergert?'

‘It's a habit. My mother wouldn't like me calling you Ivan.'

‘She's not here.'

‘She's always here.'

‘Pretend she's not.'

As he finished his scales he looked around the room: piles of scores, papers and books, dirty clothes on the floor, a half-eaten meal left on the stereogram, a sock on the piano lid, a half-smoked cigar in a brandy glass.

Schaedel saw his head move and knew what he was thinking. ‘You'll have to excuse me,' he apologised. ‘I haven't felt like cleaning up.'

But Erwin guessed it pre-dated the flu. This was a gentleman's residence. A bachelor's flat. Vintage dust, keys lost in couches, orange slices dried and preserved under armchairs. There was no hint of a feminine touch.

‘Is your wife out?' Erwin asked, searching through his satchel.

Schaedel almost laughed. ‘I don't live with my wife … or sons.'

‘Oh …' Erwin was too polite to ask.

‘We've separated,' Schaedel explained. ‘Can't you tell?'

‘Sort of.'

‘She has the boys.'

Erwin took out a few pages of score from his
Crime and Punishment
. He set them on the piano and looked at his teacher. ‘Do you see them often?' he asked.

‘My sons?'

‘Yes.'

‘Never. The old bitch won't let me near them.'

Erwin was taken back. ‘Why?'

‘The truth? I married the wrong person. Take Uncle Ivan's advice – choose carefully. She was a princess too. Not that it would happen to you. Luise is a nice girl, isn't she?' He leaned forward and studied Erwin's score. ‘What's this?'

‘My opera,' Erwin offered.

‘Ah … Chekov, wasn't it?'

‘Dostoyevsky.
Crime and Punishment
.'

‘And your friend …?'

‘Albert.'

‘He was writing the words?'

‘Yes.'

‘Come on then, let's hear it.'

Erwin played Raskolnikov's opening aria. He voiced a succession of chords and a melody that tied them together. Then he dared to sing – quietly at first, almost speaking the words, and then gaining confidence.

‘Let's make it theatrical,' Schaedel said, picking up the score, working his way past the piles of records and rubbish, clothes, wine bottles and rugs and linen across his floor, opening the cover on his old wooden harmonium, clearing books from a stool and sitting down.

He played a few bars of a fugue. ‘See, it has a churchy quality.' He demonstrated with some chords.

‘Now all you need's a monkey,' Erwin said, walking over and joining him.

‘Quiet … you little rascal!' Schaedel grinned, holding the boy's arm and shaking it. ‘This is an antique. I used to have to pedal, but I got an electric motor fitted.' His eyes returned to the aria. ‘Now …'

Each key produced meaty sounds, buzzing, blurring together in a sort of pregnant hum. Erwin reprised his aria, waving his hands in the air, scooping the low notes and using a falsetto for the high ones.

He took out the scrap of paper he'd used the previous day to scribble the song he'd heard in the field. ‘Instead of that melody, I want to use this one,' he explained. ‘It's the same harmonisation.'

As Schaedel repeated the chords, Erwin improvised the hay stooker's melody to Alfred's words. ‘See, that's better,' he said, when they'd finished the eight bars.

‘I know that melody,' Schaedel observed, and Erwin explained where he'd heard it.

‘You're a real little Percy,' Schaedel smiled.

‘Grainger?'

‘Yes, that's what he does – hikes around the country ­listening for tunes. He's an Australian too, isn't he?'

‘Yes, I think he studied in Frankfurt. His mother brought him.'

‘Another Madge?'

‘There's only one Madge.'

Then they heard the sound of drums and trumpets, marching feet and a chorus of baritones. Schaedel went to the window, looked out, and then closed it. ‘Idiots,' he said, returning to the harmonium and sitting down. ‘What I can't understand,' he continued, in a pensive voice, ‘is why your mother brought you here.'

‘What do you mean?' Erwin asked.

‘Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have you, but the way this country's going … Your mother had never heard about Spain, or Franco?'

‘We never read papers, unless I'm reviewed.'

‘Mussolini?'

‘We just stay out of it,' Erwin said. ‘It's none of our ­business.'

Schaedel paused for a moment. ‘Should we try that Greig?' He returned the score to Erwin. ‘This is coming along nicely. You've got quite a dramatic flair. Where did you get it from?'

‘Guess.'

He finished his lesson and left his teacher's apartment with a sort of sadness. In the same way he always enjoyed being in his father's shed. Both were full of puzzles, clues and mysteries. They were dusty, dark, full of imagined rats hiding behind broken furniture. Nothing was ever ironed, vacuumed, folded or washed. And yet both places were comfortable. No need to worry about where your jumper was. It was where you'd left it, packed in a hole in the wall to keep the breeze out.

He passed the flower seller and found enough change in his pocket to buy a bunch of tired, drooping roses. He walked home, planning what he'd say to his mother.

These are for you.

Erwin.

For putting up with me.

Son …

As she embraced him.

But then he came across Luise walking back to the Con, struggling with a heavy backpack. ‘Can I take that?' he asked.

‘Yes,' she replied.

He took her backpack and started following her along Bramweg, in the opposite direction from his apartment. And then he thought, So what, they'll be dead by the time I get to the Con and back.

‘These are for you.'

‘Thank you.'

She took the flowers and said, ‘But where will I put them?'

‘It doesn't matter,' he replied. ‘They were only cheap.'

Finally, by mid-afternoon, he was walking home, clutching the bunch of near-dead flowers, their petals falling and flattening on the footpath. When the petals were nearly gone he put them in the bin.

He stopped to read a headline under a rusted metal grille:

‘
United at Last!
'

There was a picture of Hitler standing in his Mercedes, riding through the streets of Vienna as adoring mothers and children with their hair full of wildflowers threw rose petals in the great man's path.

But instead of singing and cheering all he could hear was Schaedel's harmonium, wheezing, making long, straight lines of Bach.

Part Three
War

Chapter One

The next eighteen months followed a weary routine: Erwin versus Madge, Madge versus Luise, Luise versus Erwin. Trips to the cellar to gather coal, complaining to the landlord about lukewarm water, scales, buttons sewn on, windows prised open and mould scraped from cheese. Everything Austrian had become German – soccer teams, art collections, scientists, everything. Hitler was sweet-talking his way across Europe – in turn praising and bluffing, intimidating and flexing his Krupp-muscles in front of countries that just wanted to grow eggplant, repair dams and drink home-brewed beer.

Erwin could see it. As he walked to his lesson one cold October morning he noticed a photo in a newspaper: Hitler and Chamberlain in Munich, shaking hands, smiling, signing off on a deal for Germany to reclaim a chunk of Czechoslovakia. Erwin saw the pictures, and read the reports; he noticed the flags hung out (again) along Blumweg, heard the songs in praise of Hitler and saw circles of Sülldorf residents dancing in the brown cobblestone streets, holding hands in a sort of paper-chain.

Luise was at the door. ‘Come on, Erwin, let's celebrate.'

As Madge stood with her arms crossed. ‘Celebrate what?'

‘Czechoslovakia.'

‘What's that got to do with us?'

‘You're German now.'

‘We most certainly are not,' Magda-Madge said slowly. ‘We are Australian.'

Madge and Sara continued their unspoken war. In early November, Sara persuaded her brother, an assistant to the mayor of Hannover, to use his influence to secure the town hall for an all-Schubert recital. Erwin and Luise would repeat their performance from the student recital with a few extra songs and solo piano pieces thrown in.

At first Madge was having none of it. ‘Erwin is busy with lessons.'

‘It will be good for them,' Sara replied. ‘They need to get their names known.'

‘In time.'

Erwin and Luise sat watching, silent, their faces primed. ‘Come on, Mum, it's only a few days,' Erwin urged.

‘How could we afford such a thing?'

‘My brother has booked the hall, and he can get the ­programs printed cheaply.'

Madge looked at Luise. The girl was smiling, her eyebrows lifted hopefully. She was holding Erwin's hand. ‘Mrs Hergert,' she began, ‘if Erwin wants to tour here, and overseas, he'll need to – '

‘I know what it will take,' Madge interrupted. ‘Look how far we've come.'

‘So far.'

Madge was stumped. There was no point arguing. It was a good idea. She looked at their hands, locked together, and felt defeated.

A few weeks later the four of them caught a train at Central Station. Madge insisted on a compartment, but second class would have to do for now. She placed Erwin at the window seat and sat next to him. As they moved through familiar countryside – covered with tall, green grain, farmers fixing fences and children riding bikes through mud pools – she started to feel like their excursion might not be so bad after all.

‘This is pretty country,' she said, thinking of the colour­ised prints of Bavarian landscapes that Jo had hung up around their shop.

Sara looked at her and smiled. ‘This is Paradise,' she replied.

‘Well, maybe not Paradise. There are parts of southern Australia …' She stopped. Luise was mouthing words to her son. Perhaps she was telling him she loved him, or perhaps she was mimicking her words.
There are parts of southern Australia
 … Either way, it was enough to test anyone's patience. ‘What was that?' she asked the girl.

‘Nothing,' Luise smiled.

Madge fell silent – a sort of moody, raised head silence.

Erwin sat forward. ‘She was just saying …' He stopped.

‘I said, I love you.'

Madge looked out of the window. ‘This country resembles the Eden Valley.'

Sara looked at her daughter sternly. ‘Luise.'

‘What?'

‘There's a time and place.'

‘And the hills around Lyndoch,' Madge continued, clutching her purse.

The following night, as Madge watched Luise and her son on stage at the town hall, she wondered what Erwin might have said if she hadn't been sitting beside him.
I love you.
In a sort of desperate, pleading voice. She wondered if Luise's words might have led to other things.

Sara had claimed the armrest. Madge lifted her arm and squeezed it beside Sara's to claim half of the narrow, leather-padded rest. Sara dropped her arm, looked at her and smiled. ‘She seems to be more comfortable,' she whispered to Madge. ‘Did you see that grin on her face, during
Gretchen
?'

Madge smiled back. ‘Yes.' Thinking, Of course I saw the grin on her face, and I know how it got there.

‘The more they do it, the better they get,' Sara continued.

‘Yes. Indeed.'

After they'd finished and returned with an encore of
Heidenröslein
and
Im Frühling
, Erwin and Luise made their way down a set of stairs to a dressing-room full of broken seats, operetta costumes and coffee urns. There was an intercom and they listened to the last of the applause. Then they held each other, and kissed, desperate for contact before their mothers appeared. ‘Only one mistake,' Erwin said, but she covered his lips with her fingers and said, ‘No, perfect.'

‘Do you think the old girl will be convinced?' he asked.

‘Probably not. Do you care?'

‘No.'

‘You do.'

‘You're right. She's never happy. I don't care.'

Luise wedged her fingers between his body and belt. ‘This has left me feeling …'

He removed her hand. ‘She's about to come through that door.'

‘So what?'

‘Any second.'

‘She can watch.'

‘No.' He held her arms and gently moved her a few paces back. Then he sat on a lounge with springs straining to emerge through worn fabric. ‘Patience,' he said, as he loosened his tie.

Luise unbuttoned her shirt and dropped it on the floor. ‘So, are you ready to answer me?' she asked.

She unclipped her skirt and slipped it off. ‘Some men would run naked down the street, screaming it out,' she said. ‘
I love you!
I love you!
'

‘I love you,' he said, at last.

‘Too late.'

‘I love you, I adore you, I crave you … and your body.' He stood up and latched his arms around her hips. Then he kissed the skin at the top of her bra.

‘Careful, the old hags will be here soon,' she replied.

‘So?' He knelt in front of her and took her hand. ‘I love you,' he said, in a guttural French accent.

Sara and Madge were standing at the door to their room.

‘Erwin, bring your things,' muttered Madge.

Erwin stood up, grabbed his bag and followed his mother from the room.

‘I love you,' Luise called after him, but he didn't reply.

Later that night at their guesthouse the door between rooms 4A and 4B was firmly locked from the Hergert side. There was noise outside – chanting and singing; groups of SA and SS marching in columns; crowds of ordinary people talking and arguing in raised voices;
Hitler Jugend
whistling and hitting saucepan lids with wooden spoons; PA vans crawling the streets, filling the crisp night with, ‘This is our night of Protest … Germans come out, show your anger, follow the directions of local leaders … Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues have been marked with yellow crosses'. But Madge closed the blinds and curtains, sat Erwin at a desk and made him write a report of the recital for Sam and Grace. Then she switched on the radio (for a while, until it too became a loud, angry exhortation to take to the streets).

At eleven-thirty there was a knock on the door. Madge answered it. Luise stood smiling at her. ‘Are you coming out?' she asked them.

‘What is it?' Erwin asked.

‘A protest. Against Grynszpan.'

Madge shook her head. ‘Who's he?'

‘A Jew. He shot someone at our embassy in Paris.'

‘Who?'

‘Who cares? He was angry because his father was deported to Poland. Come on, we've got to show them how we feel.'

‘Show who?'

‘These filthy … rats.'

Madge closed the door. She looked at her son and said, ‘Finish off, so we can go to bed.'

‘Maybe I should go watch her,' Erwin said.

‘Why?'

They could already hear smashing glass, screaming, and see the reflection of yellow flames through their blinds.

‘She'll be safe,' Madge said. ‘Maybe she can throw a few stones. Now get that finished.'

Erwin returned to the letter. Madge sat on their double bed scanning the radio stations, eventually finding a Brahms symphony and turning it up to full volume. Then she lay on the bed, her head resting on four pillows. ‘I've got the worst headache,' she said, ‘and nothing to take for it.'

‘Why don't you ask Sara?' Erwin suggested, but she didn't reply.

There were three or four rapid gunshots. Erwin stood up and started for the window.

‘Sit down,' his mother barked.

The mix of noises grew louder. Madge tried to turn up the radio. ‘Some of your tempos were slower tonight,' she said to her son, eventually.

‘The songs?'

‘Yes. That girl can't keep time. She gets slower and slower. And she never seems to improve.'

A fire flared up across the street. Madge didn't move. She put her hands across her chest and closed her eyes. ‘And she's brainwashed,' she said.

‘I know,' Erwin replied. ‘But what can you do?'

‘It's very simple.' She opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘She needs you more than you need her.'

‘She'll come good.'

On the way home the next morning the compartment was almost silent. Luise sat with her arms crossed, grinning at Erwin. Madge was busy with her head in a newspaper, scanning images of broken windows, looted shops, the skeletal frames of burnt-out synagogues and ransacked homes with furniture, clothes and books thrown out onto the streets. ‘Five million marks, for the glass alone,' she muttered. ‘What were people thinking?'

‘Careful,' Sara said. ‘Talking like that could get you in trouble.'

‘What happens when they claim on their insurance?' Erwin asked.

‘They'll take care of that,' Luise replied.

‘Who will?'

‘The government.' Then she sat forward. ‘I saw a dead body.'

‘Luise,' Sara scolded.

‘A Jew, in a suit, and someone had hit him on the head, here.' She used a finger to draw a line across her skull.

They all looked at her. Erwin squinted as the morning sun tumbled across his face. ‘What happened?' he asked.

‘Someone said he tried to stop them getting into a synagogue. They said it was boys,
Jungvolk
, with metal bars.'

They finished the journey in silence, in their own separate worlds.

They returned to a town full of hope and optimism, chilling itself like chocolate mousse, ready for winter. Fir trees had been cut and put up in living rooms and public squares, decorated with home-made paper chains and spinning wheels. The Elbe was crammed with ships full of coal and Meccano sets. Oil was pumped from tankers, trucked to factories full of apprentices, young fathers and war veterans who had jobs because of Hitler. The Stülcken shipyard was busy with naval contracts and a
Strength through Joy
ship that would take German workers on cruises through frozen fjords, to Rome and Naples, and to Franco's tapas bars and bull fights.

It seemed everyone had money – except the Hergerts. The Altona fish market and the Rödingsmarkt were always busy, the pubs and clubs of the Reeperbahn were full to overflowing, spilling architects and hairdressers out onto the footpath. Al fresco dining on the footpath, in the Italian manner, had taken off on at least some of the cold, brown streets.

Although Madge could feel the optimism, she couldn't share it.

Dear Madge,

It's so good to hear from you and Erwin, and thanks for the review of the Hanover recital. Our boy seems to have won some hearts, doesn't he?

… It's been a good season, and now we're paying for it. Plenty of green feed and fat cattle. An oversupply. So the price has dropped. This is the first time in years we've lost money.

So, what am I saying …?

Madge replied to say her rent had gone up and there were only so many English lessons she could give. Anyway, her numbers were down. The English language had lost popularity. ‘As a result, I have had to start piano lessons, Father. This is a bore as my students are all dim and untalented. But I leave the better ones for Erwin, who has had to become a teacher too, to help pay the rent and put food on the table. Unfortunately, this keeps him from his practice, but it is ­unavoidable. Maybe, I think, something good will come of it, but probably not. So this is why I can't send you money right now. I hope you understand. I hope the reviews I send will make it clear. Erwin is flourishing and making a name for himself. Praise the Lord!'

That winter Madge saved money by cutting back on heating. Erwin would warm himself with gymnastics, jogging to the shops, to school. The rest of the time they'd dress in five or six layers of clothes and sit with rugs across their lap. Once, Luise brought them a bucket of coal, but Madge said, ‘No, there's nothing worse than getting a taste for it.'

Then there was the landlady, again. ‘Too much music … all day.'

‘We observe our curfew,' Madge explained.

‘But it goes all day.'

‘We teach, for our income.'

‘That was never part of our agreement.'

Madge was thundering. ‘You want your rent?'

‘Yes, three days ago.'

‘You'll have it tomorrow.'

Slamming the door.