Leeway Cottage (11 page)

 

When she heard Laurus's voice in her kitchen in Copenhagen, his mother burst into tears. At once he said, “I am coming home, Mama.”

“No,” she said.

Fortunately for Sydney, he was speaking in Danish, or she would have cried, No! as well.

“You're going to need me.”

“We don't. Kaj and Nina are right here.”

“Kaj can't remember where he left his housekeys. Nina's a child.”

“I'm putting your papa on.”

Almost instantly his father was on the line.

“What time is it there?” he wanted to know.

“Late. Papa, I think I should come home.”

“I forbid it,” his father said. Laurus was taken aback; this was not the way they talked to each other. He could picture them standing at the phone on the wall by the door, his mother in her blue sweater pulled on over her nightdress, his father in his slippers.

“I should be there. We don't know what's going to happen.”

“Nobody needs you here, don't talk nonsense. We need you right where you are.”

“This is a nightmare.”

“Fine. When we all wake up, then you can come. How's your girl?”

“Fine, but—”

“Kaere,
we're all right here. Denmark isn't Poland. The sun is shining and your mother is making coffee. Don't worry. Live your life.” At least Laurus thought that's what he said; some words were lost in static.

They had asked the operator to ring back with the charges for the call. The amount was staggering. Laurus and Sydney counted it out to the penny and put it in an envelope with the date. Candace had a great dislike of finding guests' charges on her phone bill.

Back in New York that fall, Laurus and Sydney spent their evenings with Laurus's friends, many of whom came from Europe or had family there. They talked constantly of Danzig and Memel and the Polish Corridor, and not just as places on a map. It was irritating to hear New Yorkers on the street chatting about trivia, as if they'd forgotten what was happening.

Imre Benko disappeared. Gudrun and Eric believed he was on his way to France and would make his way to Hungary. He had a fiancée in Budapest and sisters.

Laurus played the piano. He played obsessively, like a man taking a drug. He played Chopin for several weeks, as if he could defend Poland with music.

One evening, when Sydney came to his studio after classes, as she often did, she heard his piano as she came up the stairs. Now he was playing Schumann, the
Abschied
from the
Waldzenen.
She stood outside and listened for several minutes. The beauty of his playing was unearthly.

When she knocked, the music stopped.

“Come! It's open.”

As she came in, he whirled around on his piano stool.

He said, “I made a vow that I wouldn't play German music. But I can't help it. It's so beautiful. It makes me furious.”

She went to him and put her arms around him.

“It's so hard not to do anything.”

“I know,” she said. “And remember the good Germans. This can't go on, someone will find a way to stop the Nazis.”

“I want to go to Canada,” he said.

To enlist? Sydney had been about to suggest they go to the bistro down the street for dinner. She was dumbstruck.

Fortunately for her, staying silent was the best thing she could have done, for it left Laurus to imagine her thoughts, fierce and courageous like his.

“But I don't want to leave you,” he added.

O
n the morning of Tuesday, April 9, 1940, Nina
Moss is asleep in the small room behind the kitchen in the apartment around the corner from Vester Voldgade. She sleeps in a discarded shirt of her brother Laurus, buttery soft, with frayed cuffs and collar. Her middle brother, Kaj, is not at home; he is on call this week, and is sleeping at the hospital where he works. It is very early morning, and Nina is dreaming that she is outside the bakery on the next street, and the baker's boy is inside, where he inhabits a bright yellow hive of light in a dark world, filled with the scents of butter and marzipan. She is trying to get the boy to sell her kringles out the back door, although the shop isn't open yet.

Then the sound of the low-flying aircraft gets into the dream. Then she is awake and the dream is gone, leaving the sounds of the planes behind, loud and close over the city. She wants the dream back but has lost all but a sense of the color of the sky outside the bakery, a blue that is almost black like the June sky at midnight. Now it is gone, diluted to invisibility by the colorless light of morning, and the metal-gray burr of airplane noise.

What planes? Danish? British? Nina gets up and goes to the sink to wash her face. Maybe France or England has decided that declaring war means something. The Soviets finally smothered little Finland, though it took all winter, and so far no one has lifted a finger. No wonder she wants her dream back.

She can hear her mother in the kitchen. She goes out, still wearing only Laurus's shirt, which reaches almost to her knees. In the kitchen, her mother, wearing her wrapper over her long blue nightgown, has opened the window and put her head outside. The fresh-washed smell of April morning is in the room, mixed with the tang of the earth in the window boxes on the sill outside.

“Can you see them, Mama? What is it?”

Ditte pulls her head in and turns around. “Germans,” she says.

Nina takes her place at the window. There are people in the street now, standing in little clumps, looking upward. Nina can hear the inhuman buzz of the machines in the distant sky to the north. Now it again grows louder, coming toward the city. Now very loud. Two boys in the street point upward. Nina looks, and sees. Black crosses. Swastikas. A great flock of leaflets explode from the plane, swirl madly in its tailwind, then settle into a gentle mess of drift to the streets below. Nina watches people stoop to pick up leaflets, or stretch to catch them as they fall. While they read, they stand as if wired to their spots. Some then look to each other and speak, others walk off, carrying the paper, some throw the thing back onto the ground and leave it there. Since throwing things into the street is a very un-Danish thing to do, Nina knows this last response is very angry. She pulls herself inside and shuts the window. She and her mother stare at each other.

It is a terrible day. By the time Nina makes her way to the university, German soldiers are in the street, strutting in their green uniforms in a high straight-legged gait that is boastfulness in motion.

Nina finds her friend Harry and his girl-of-the-moment. The girl, who takes her cues from Harry, is in tears of rage. They sit over coffee at a student bar that serves coffee in the morning and beer anytime, surrounded by dark wood and tobacco smoke. From the state radio come instructions from the king and the government to accept the presence of their neighbors from the south; they are here to protect Danish borders from English aggression. There will be, no doubt, some installations to guard the west coast of Jutland, so vulnerable and open to the North Sea, and naturally, some good efficient German attention to the airport at Aalborg, so necessary for refueling German planes en route to Norway. The king will continue to be in his counting house, the government will go on sitting, the civil service will carry on, Danish as usual. To the students, who are young and have shorter memories than their elders, the humiliation of this is scalding. Denmark has fallen with almost no struggle. Thirteen dead, thirteen and it's over. They are no longer a free people. Norway is fighting on, and Harry feels betrayed by everybody. Hitler. Their elders. Themselves. Nina hotly repeats a little of this to her parents at dinner that night. Her father is content, as the table is loaded with nutty rye bread in thin slices and black bread and Danish butter and plate after plate of fish paste and sausage and cheese and herring and bottles of beer. “It's good to listen carefully,” he says. “We weren't wrong to stay out of the last war.”

“We lost plenty in the peace,” Nina retorts. The students have talked all afternoon of Germany, Denmark's ancient enemy.

“Others lost much more,” says her father, and passes her the liver paste. “We're a small country.”

“Hitler isn't Bismarck,” says Nina.

“We're still a small country,” says her father, and her mother touches Nina's shoulder gently as she sets a last plate down on the table. She sits down across from Nina and meets her daughter's unhappy eyes as she reaches to put a hand over her husband's. We will not quarrel about this. The young are holy fools, she will tell Henrik later, in their room. They will know that themselves someday, but when they do, they'll be our age and we'll be dead. Henrik, soothed by his after-dinner pipe, already agrees with her. They will not quarrel with the children about this, although there will be times of division ahead; harmony and contentment are precious and they will need their creature comforts.

 

On April 22, 1940, a Monday, Annabelle Sydney Brant and Laurus Moss were married in New York City, at the Municipal Building across from City Hall. Many years later, recapturing the day (as well as he ever could), Laurus would remember only a feeling of unbearable homesickness and impotence, an inchoate sense that he had to do
something.
This was something he could do. Eric and Gudrun were their witnesses, and took them afterward for a wedding lunch at a place near the courthouse with candles in Chianti bottles on checked tablecloths. Laurus made a courtly toast to his bride. Eric claimed to feel like Cousin Feenix in
Dombey and Son,
who is so proud to be a witness at a wedding that he “puts his noble name into a wrong place, and enrols himself as having been born that morning.”

Laurus wrote a full account of the day to his family, telling them that they would all share the joy of it when they were together again. He said they were going to love Sydney, and she them. It had been very strange to stand in a dingy room in New York City and pledge to honor and protect a woman his family didn't even know. He had always thought that when he married, Kaj would be his best man. That little Nina, with her big wide-set eyes, would be standing beside his bride, holding her flowers. Putting this expectation aside proved more disorienting than he had thought it could be.

In the evening, at Laurus's urging, Sydney called her mother.

“She's just going out for dinner,” said Maudie, “do you want me to catch her?”

“Please, Maudie.”

When Candace came on the line, she said, “Yes, dear?,” instead of hello, indicating she had time for about one sentence.

“I wanted to tell you that Laurus and I were married this morning.”

There was a silence. Then, “Well, dear. I wish you every happiness.” She sounded as if she'd just bitten into a quince. Oh, of course. Of course, Sydney thought. This doesn't mean a fine man loves your daughter, it means you didn't get to plan the wedding. “Would you like to speak to Laurus?” she asked, and handed the phone to him.

“Hello, Mother Brant,” he said pleasantly.

“Hello, Laurus. I understand congratulations are in order.”

“Thank you very much. I wanted to tell you I mean to take very good care of your daughter.”

“I'm sure you do. Congratulations. Thank you so much for calling. This is very exciting but I'm afraid I must run.”

For a wedding present she sent them Annabelle Brant's six-hundred-piece monogrammed silver service. It was Victorian, not Candace's taste; she ordered a new service in a moderne design from Tiffany for herself. She also sent Sydney a letter, saying she must explain to Laurus that he could not call her “Mother.” She said she was sorry to have to be that way, but it made her sick to her stomach.

 

The war news grew worse and worse as the spring progressed, until the Germans reached the English Channel and the British forces had to be taken off the mainland from the beach at Dunkirk, France, and carried to safety in workboats and pleasure boats. In the pictures in
Life
magazine, the escape fleet looked more like vessels for an oddly sorted yacht club cruise than a military flotilla. Holland and Belgium surrendered, France was invaded, and by mid-June, the Nazis were in Paris.

 

Paris. Which Sydney had still never seen and now maybe never would. Who knew what would happen to it now?

In July, Gladys McClintock and her handsome Californian, Neville Crane, were married in Dundee by the Reverend Davidson in the living room at Leeway Cottage. Happiness shone from these two, both so young and kind and hopeful as they said their vows before the fireplace, between two large potted palms. Laurus played Bach, a transcription of “Sheep May Safely Graze,” on the McClintocks' grand piano before the ceremony and a Schubert impromptu after. Sydney and Elise Maitland gave a reception for them at the Country Club. The McClintocks' finances had never recovered from the punishment of the Depression, and Mrs. McClintock hadn't been well. Sydney, the old hand at marriage, was everywhere at the reception, in and out of the kitchen, directing how the food should be presented, and where Glad and Neville should stand to receive, and where the flowers should be and when to cut the cake. She had made a wonderful discovery: if you're busy running things you don't have to stop and be civil to anyone you don't want to, like your mother.

The party was a great success. There was dancing to a gramophone, and a wedding cake baked by the Maitlands' cook, covered in coconut, Gladdy's favorite. When the champagne was poured, Dr. McClintock offered a toast to Neville. “I'd thought the expression about gaining a son was just politeness, but today it states exactly what we feel,” he said. Neville stood very straight with tears in his eyes, and Mrs. McClintock smiled her gentle smile and put her hand to her heart, meaning that her husband spoke for both of them. Gladdy toasted her parents for all their love for her all her life, and her friends Elise and Sydney for the beautiful party. Then Neville thrilled everyone by going to the piano. He played and sang in a warm sweet baritone to a hushed room. I'll be loving you always. With a love that's true, always. “Not for just an hour, not for just a day, not for just a year, but always,” he sang, with his eyes on his bride's. Then he stood and raised his glass to her, and all over the room, people cheered and wiped their eyes and blew their noses.

“Who'd have thought it,” Elise whispered to Sydney. “The Prince of Princeton, and he has the sense to choose plain little Gladdy.” Elise looked as proud of Gladdy as if
she
were the mother of the bride. Sydney was trying impatiently to catch the maid's eye; they were supposed to be pouring more champagne.

Candace came late and left early. While she was there she stayed quietly at the edge of things, watching her daughter, the happy wife, the gracious hostess, bustle about. She had that silly Mr. Christie with her again.

T
HE
L
EEWAY
C
OTTAGE
G
UEST
B
OOK

That visit was as much as Sydney could stand of being under her mother's roof that summer. She and Laurus spent the rest of it in New York, listening to the news of the Battle of Britain on the radio. Laurus was preparing for a concert tour of the Midwest in the fall and Sydney was furnishing their new apartment on Perry Street in the Village. It was a ground-level floor-through with a sunny front room for the grand piano Sydney gave Laurus for a wedding present, and had a tiny shade garden off the kitchen in back. Sydney was learning to cook,
frikadeller
and buttermilk soup and cauliflower in shrimp and dill sauce, recipes sent by Laurus's mother, and meat loaf and applesauce from
The Joy of Cooking.
In the evenings, she and Laurus would sit outside after supper, grateful as cool air began to stir at last against their bare arms and the city recovered from the baking day. There were nights when it was too hot to sleep, when Sydney thought of cool fir-scented nights in Dundee, of fires on the beach and the stars seeming to curve so close overhead you could touch them. Laurus talked in the dark about his childhood summers in Nyborg, on the island of Fyn. The little house was right across a quiet road from the beach. You could see the sea from the little parlor, and upstairs there was one little bathroom, added long after the house was built. Each bedroom had a pitcher and basin for face washing and tooth brushing. For breakfast every morning they had a rich plate of clotted milk with bread crumbs and brown sugar on top—he could taste it, just thinking of it. He told her how the summer twilight would linger almost until midnight and then it was only full dark for a couple of hours. One slept much less, he said. It was too hard to say good night to the light; instead, you soaked the colors into all your cells to illuminate the dark season that was coming.

He pictured his mother, playing her beloved Brahms in the front room, watching the endless evening light making the sea a glittering mauve, shading to gray-black as night finally fell. He pictured his father, reading in the lamplight and smoking his pipe. Laurus could smell the sweet tobacco scent of his father kissing him good night when he was little.