One Last Summer (2007) (36 page)

My fingers are too stiff to search, so I settle for the ones I wore yesterday and the day before, and I think even the week before that. They are safe because they are the thinnest and most worn in the pile. No one else wants them.

The team leader drives us out of the barracks. I notice that I am leaving bloody prints. My boot soles have worn through. Too cold to shiver, I join the queue at the well. The bucket has come up empty. Paul, the strongest man in our team, because he has no qualms about stealing food from the sick as well as those weaker than him, sends the bucket down again, dropping it with all the force he can muster on to the ice that caps the water. It still comes up empty. Today, like most winter days, there will be no water for washing. Making tea means finding fuel for a fire, and a can to melt snow.

The rich who possess that rare luxury are envied. I have a can but I will have to give it up soon. I am too weak to hold on to it. There are only enough in the camp for one man in ten. The possession of a can means getting one of the first portions of tea from the pot and an early helping of soup at midday.

I look around for someone stronger than me who will protect it for both of us. Someone I can trust who will give it to me straight after he has used it so I can drink my soup and tea rations before the pot is emptied.

There is never sufficient for everyone, which is why Nikolai died last night. He has been at the bottom of the pile since I’ve been here, and no one in his team would help him, not even by lending him a can. He was too weak to help them fulfil their work quota, and unfilled work quotas mean half-rations for the whole team.

There are men here that I have, and would, trust with my life but they, like me, have been sentenced to hard labour and are in the same weakened state. Perhaps I should simply lie in the snow and wait for death. If I could be sure of closing my eyes and waking in that other real and perfect world with my wife, I would do so. But it doesn’t happen when I try to sleep in the day. It never works unless I am in my bunk.

A cart drives in through the gates; our team leader joins the other leaders who crowd around it. He returns with a sack of bread. He hands it out. In winter it arrives frozen, too hard to eat. No one can swallow it until it is soaked in warm water, and we will not be able to build fires to melt snow until we reach our workplace in the forest.

The guards arrive to march us out; their dogs growl at us as they approach. I hear Nikolai’s team leader tell them that Nikolai is going to report sick. They shrug in indifference, and we head off to the workplace.

We pass a mound of corpses stacked one on top of the other in neat layers, like logs, next to the entrance gate. The feet of those on the bottom layer point towards the road into the camp. The feet on the layer above rest on their heads. I wonder if it is easier to place them that way. Does it reduce the risk of the pile toppling over? All are frozen solid, their faces bleached white and, like their hair, coated with frost. No cart has been to pick them up for months, but there is no point because graves cannot be dug while the ground remains frozen. They will be buried in the spring and by then there will be many more.

We reach the work place. I see the trees waiting to be cut down. The team leader hands me a saw. My head is full of fog and mist and cold. I cannot think clearly. All I know is that, somehow, I must survive until the night, when I will take in that other world …

Laura snapped the book shut. Just as before, the contrast between the slow-moving, sun-drenched, perfect dream life and the nightmare winter world of the Siberian gulag was too harrowing for her to contemplate. Who was this man? Had he been one of the Russian prisoners who had worked at Grunwaldsee during the war?

Then she recalled her grandmother’s words: ‘Think of me when you read it.’

Was Oma the wife in the author’s dream world?

Chapter Twenty-two

Charlotte was still asleep when the telephone rang. She checked the clock when she picked up the receiver. Eight o’clock. Her first thoughts were of Claus, Carolyn and the baby, but her sister’s heavily-accented English grated down the line.

‘Is that you, Charlotte?’

‘Greta?’ Charlotte struggled to sit up. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Why should something be wrong?’

‘It’s eight in the morning.’

‘It’s six here. But I’ve been up since five. I’ve had to be an early riser with a house to run and a husband to look after. But, since you ask, I’m not so well. My stomach is playing up and my arthritis is extremely painful. It’s this damp weather. I suppose the sun is shining over there. East Prussia was always so much warmer and drier than England.’

‘The weather is fine, Greta. Thank you for asking.’ Greta had never telephoned her without wanting something, and Charlotte wished that her sister would get to the point of the call.

‘Charlotte, this telephone call is too expensive to waste on your sarcasm. Jeremy and Marilyn told me where you were staying. Have you been to Grunwaldsee yet?’ A hard note crept into Greta’s voice.

‘Yes.’ Charlotte answered shortly. ‘The house is exactly as it was. The new owner has renovated it beautifully.’

‘My God. You’ve actually spoken to the man!’ Greta’s voice rose in indignation.

‘His grandson, actually, but I’ve arranged to meet him.’

‘How could you –’

Charlotte interrupted Greta mid flow. ‘Marius is still here and living in the lodge.’

‘Then he must have saved some of our things,’ Greta said eagerly. ‘The jewellery, the silver …’

‘I’ve told you, Greta, the jewellery was stolen from me after I left the house,’ Charlotte snapped.

‘So you say.’

If Greta had been in the room at that moment, Charlotte would have slapped her. She took a moment to calm down. ‘Marius told me the Russian army set up their headquarters in the house. They stripped it. Literally. The soldiers even used the wooden floor as firewood. But he did manage to save some of our things.’

‘Ah! And would you have told me about them if I hadn’t telephoned?’

‘Of course.’ Charlotte struggled to keep her voice on an even keel. ‘He saved three of the leather-bound photograph albums from the set Opa bought in London when he was on his honeymoon. And our family Bible.’

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s all,’ Charlotte reiterated firmly.

‘There has to be more. The house was full, and then there were the attics. All the antiques … Papa’s family never threw out a thing. There has to be something …’

‘Papa’s cupboard, Greta. If you’re so keen to have a memento, I suggest you come and retrieve it.’ Charlotte slammed down the receiver.

She heard the key turn in the lock and Laura peeped around the door.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you but …’

‘You heard the telephone?’ Charlotte’s anger with her sister dissipated at the sight of her granddaughter.

‘Yes.’

‘It was Aunt Greta after the family heirlooms she’s convinced I’ve stolen and hidden from her.’

‘Poor you.’ Laura walked over and hugged Charlotte. ‘Are you hungry?’

‘Yes,’ Charlotte answered, determined that Greta’s call wasn’t going to ruin her or Laura’s day. ‘Let’s be extravagant and have it on my balcony instead of the dining room. I’ll order it be delivered at,’ she glanced at the clock, ‘nine. That will give me time to count to a hundred and forget Greta while I luxuriate in a long, lazy bath.’

‘I finished
One Last Summer
last night,’ Laura confided after they had finished eating.

‘And?’ Charlotte reached for the coffee pot and refilled both their cups.

‘I haven’t changed my mind about the misery in the Siberian Gulag. It was still unbearable.’ Laura steeled herself and looked into her grandmother’s eyes. ‘Were you the wife in the author’s dream world?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Charlotte said quietly.

‘Did you know the author?’ Laura pressed.

‘Yes, I knew him.’

‘And you were in love with him?’

Charlotte hesitated, just as a voice interrupted them.

‘Good morning, Fräulein Charlotte von Datski. Good morning, Laura.’

Charlotte turned and looked behind her. A boat had sailed up and berthed practically beneath her balcony. Mischa dropped down the sails, tossed an anchor overboard, rose to his feet and steadied himself on the balcony railings.

‘And good morning to you, Mischa,’ Laura replied.

‘It’s a beautiful day. Come for a sail, both of you? We’ll go back to Grunwaldsee, eat one of Jadwiga’s lunches and ride around the lake afterwards. What do you say?’

Charlotte shook her head. ‘My sailing days in anything smaller than a cruise ship are over. But Laura would love to go.’

‘Oma!’ Laura protested.

‘What? You’d prefer to sit around here with me?’

‘We were talking.’

‘And we can pick up the conversation later. Go on, off with you. Here, take my diary with you. I finished it last night.’ Charlotte went to her bedside table, picked up the book and thrust it at her granddaughter. ‘It’s not every day you get an invitation from a good-looking young Russian to spend time with him. If I were your age, I would jump at it.’

‘Your grandmother’s right, Laura. I am a very good-looking Russian and if you keep me waiting I might change my mind,’ Mischa teased.

‘Ever had the feeling you’re being got at?’ Laura left her chair. ‘I’ll fetch my jacket.’

Charlotte leaned over the edge of the balcony. ‘She’ll be with you shortly, Mischa. Would you please tell Marius that I’ve changed my mind about resting today? I’ll drive up to see him this afternoon.’

‘One of us could fetch you, Fräulein von Datski,’ Mischa offered.

‘No need. I’m not so decrepit that I can’t drive myself.’

Charlotte stayed on the balcony until Laura joined Mischa. She watched him raise the anchor and sails of the yacht, then head out to the centre of the lake.

The waiter knocked on the door and cleared away the remains of their breakfast. She was debating whether or not to rest for the remainder of the morning when the telephone rang. She crossed the room, steeling herself for another fight with Greta.

‘Frau Datski?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s reception. There is a man at the desk who said he heard someone call your name outside the hotel. He was most insistent I telephone you and ask if you would be prepared to meet him, that’s if you are the Charlotte von Datski who lived at Grunwaldsee.’

‘I haven’t used the “von” in many years,’ Charlotte replied. ‘What would you like me to tell him, Frau Datski?’

‘What is his name?’ Charlotte listened to a hurried whispered conversation but she couldn’t make out a word.

‘He says he knew you when you were a girl and would like to surprise you.’

Curious, Charlotte asked, ‘What does he look like?’

There was suppressed laughter in the receptionist’s voice. ‘Distinguished, mature, grey-haired.’

Charlotte recalled the average age of the staff manning reception, and realised that ‘mature’ could mean anything from forty to eighty. She glanced at her watch. Ten o’clock. What could be the harm in meeting this strange man in a public area of a hotel at this time of the morning?

‘Tell him I’ll be in the bar in fifteen minutes.’

Charlotte took more care over her appearance in the ensuing ten minutes than she had done in years. She slipped on her favourite black skirt and copper silk blouse, applied her make-up carefully, took down and brushed out her hair before twisting it back into a knot, pushed in the amber earrings she had bought years ago to match the necklace she always wore, and freshened her perfume. Checking the time and her reflection in the mirror, she locked her balcony doors and stepped out into the corridor.

‘Distinguished; mature; grey haired’ was a description that could be applied to almost any man from her past, even, heaven-forbid, Georg. In her eagerness to see an old friend who remembered the Allenstein she had known and loved instead of the Olsztyn of the present, she hadn’t considered the people she would have preferred not to become reacquainted with.

Wondering if there was any possibility of seeing whoever it was before he saw her, she walked cautiously into the bar.

‘Charlotte, I’d know you anywhere. You haven’t changed from the elegant woman who ran Grunwaldsee all through the war.’ The receptionist had been right. He was distinguished, with thinning grey hair.

‘Don’t you remember me?’

Like Marius, Charlotte recognized the voice before the features. ‘Helmut?’ She looked for a trace of the young man who had spent so many holidays at Grunwaldsee with her sister during the war. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘The same as all the other East Prussians who return. Taking a last look at the old country before I die. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard that young man call out Fräulein Charlotte von Datski by the lake. Are you here by yourself?’

‘No, with my granddaughter.’

‘You and Claus had grandchildren? How marvellous.’

‘Not Claus’s granddaughter. Laura is English.’

His face fell slightly, but he soon recovered. ‘I should have remembered the English.’

‘The peace treaties were signed a long time ago, Helmut.’ Charlotte spoke gently. She felt he had a right to be bitter after the way Greta had jilted him.

 ‘I’m with my wife. She’s on the terrace waiting for us. You heard I married?’

‘No. I’m afraid I lost touch with everyone.’

‘We never saw you at any of the reunions. You did know about the Allensteiner reunions?’

‘I heard, but unfortunately I never had the time to attend any of them.’ It wasn’t the truth, and Charlotte sensed Helmut knew it. No time in over half a century? She could have made the journey if she’d wanted to. It was the memories that held her back. Memories of Ruth and Emilia being herded on to a truck at gunpoint by Georg. Of her brothers dead years before their time. Of the immorality of every principle she had been taught to believe in by school, state, Hitler Youth and even her parents.

‘We knew you were doing well. Your book illustrations are famous.’ Helmut led her to a table. A woman turned to face them, an apprehensive look on her lined face.

Unlike with Helmut, Charlotte recognized her at once. She’d lost weight, and most of her beauty, but her eyes were just as blue, if less open and trusting. She rose to her feet as they approached, drawing close to Charlotte, but holding back from an embrace.

‘Irena.’

‘We’ve followed your career, Charlotte.’

‘We even managed to stretch our budget to buy two of your paintings,’ Helmut added.

‘How kind,’ Charlotte stammered in shock.

‘Kind had nothing to do with it,’ Helmut assured her, feeling the need to say something to fill the silence that had fallen between the two women. ‘I know a good investment when I see one. I had no idea that you were such a talented artist. A musician, yes, but not an artist. You never played professionally after the war?’

She finally turned away from Irena and looked at him. ‘I didn’t have the time or the money to continue my studies, even if I had wanted to.’

‘And you had a family to care for. How is young Erich?’

‘Not so young any more.’

‘I’ve often wondered if he is the Erich von Letteberg who made such a name for himself in the law courts in the sixties.’

‘He is,’ she answered briefly.

‘He never used Claus’s title?’

‘The days of kings, princes and counts are long gone, Helmut. But Claus was proud of Erich’s choice of career. Erich’s younger son, also an Erich, will be going to Berlin to study law later this year,’ she volunteered, happier to talk of her grandchildren than her children.

Helmut pulled out a chair for Charlotte. ‘Please, sit with us. I think this calls for champagne, not coffee.’

‘Please.’ Irena kissed Charlotte’s cheek.

Charlotte returned the pressure of Irena’s hand on her arm, before taking the chair Helmut offered her. ‘Erich has an older son, too, named after Claus. He has built a successful business designing and making furniture. He lives close to me in America.’

‘A carpenter.’ Irena smiled. ‘Your father would have approved of that.’

‘Yes, he would have,’ Charlotte agreed, thinking of the practical side of her father’s nature. ‘But what about you two? How did you meet? You must tell me everything that’s happened to you since the war.’

‘That’s a long story,’ Irena said. ‘I’ve wanted to get in touch with you for years, Charlotte, but I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me after the terrible things I said to you after the war.’

‘It was understandable you felt that way, after being imprisoned in a camp, separated from the children, and losing the baby and Karoline.’

‘We never found her,’ Helmut broke in quickly, and Charlotte knew that even after sixty years Irena hadn’t entirely given up hope of finding her daughter.

‘I’ve often thought about you, Irena.’ Charlotte laid her hand over Irena’s on the table.

‘What a lot of wasted time. If it hadn’t been for my stupidity we could have remained such good friends.’ Irena leaned forward and hugged Charlotte.

‘Perhaps not, Irena,’ Charlotte said soberly. ‘We would have constantly reminded one another of things best forgotten.’

‘I could never forget …’ Irena began.

‘Every German had to,’ Helmut interposed. ‘At least to the point where they could look forward instead of back.’

‘But we’ve a lot to catch up on now.’ Irena took a tissue from her pocket. ‘I went to my father’s house yesterday, stood in the street outside the synagogue and thought back to that afternoon.’

‘I’ve never been able to forget it,’ Charlotte said quietly.

‘I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped you from leaving the car.’ Irena crumpled the tissue in her hand.

‘We would probably have been loaded on to the truck along with the children. Babies and all.’

‘We still should have done something,’ Irena murmured. ‘You wanted to …’

‘Who was it said, “For evil to flourish all it takes is good men to be silent.”’ Charlotte looked at Helmut. ‘You know what happened?’