Читать книгу The Dutch Maiden - Marente De Moor - Страница 16

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6

The mother must have been stunningly beautiful once. Now she was less sure of her charms, though she fluttered her eyelashes as she sipped her wine and held her head like a porcelain trinket on her thin, bejewelled neck. Empty cigarette holder between her fingers, high heels abandoned in the grass, stocking feet resting on von Bötticher’s lap.

‘This heat just won’t let up,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I should take something off.’

Von Bötticher, a dominant presence in his riding boots, was smoking a cigar. He peered in the direction of the percussive crescendo of baking trays, pans and slamming cupboard doors that was coming from the kitchen. The sounds of someone cooking with a vengeance.

‘Why is Leni taking so long?’

‘Leave that poor woman alone for once.’ She stretched out in her garden chair and the skirts of her coat dress parted. She made no attempt to rearrange them. ‘Or are you utterly famished?’

Von Bötticher continued to stare morosely at a point somewhere above her head. She pressed her toes against his belly. ‘Is my big growly bear so very hungry?’

As if I wasn’t even there. Perhaps I’d have been better off playing on the lawn like the sabreurs, who were charging around in circles with the dogs at their heels. They were solidly built for twins, but they behaved like little children. I guessed their mother must be in her forties, perhaps even a little older than von Bötticher himself.

‘Egon, are you being sweet to this poor girl?’ She sized me up with her bright blue eyes. I was still wearing my hand-me-down riding togs—handed down by God knows who. Not by her, I hoped. What an indignity that would be, walking around in the skin shed by that serpent. I had taken a distinct dislike to her without really understanding why. Von Bötticher went as if to remove her feet from his lap, but then sat still with his hands cupped around her ankles. She smiled. Granted, her beauty was still intact.

‘Well? Are you sweet to her? You can be such a brute at times.’

I stood up. ‘May I be excused? I would very much like to get changed.’

‘Be quick about it,’ said von Bötticher, without turning his head. ‘Dinner is almost ready. If you run into Heinz, tell him to come too.’

From upstairs I could hear her chirping again. Clearly von Bötticher only turned jocular when I was out of earshot. I would not be gone for long, with all of two summer dresses to choose from. Strictly speaking, even this was an exaggeration: the gold-coloured satin option was actually a slip, meant to be worn under the other. Of course, I could always put on my fencing uniform and march downstairs to demand my afternoon training session. According to the schedule it should have started long ago, but clearly all appointments were off as soon as she showed her face, the woman who could make him laugh. Now they were laughing together. I closed the balcony doors. There was no way I could wear the slip on its own. Static made the satin cling to my thighs. In a flash I saw myself sitting down at the table as a gleaming Isis, clad in gold leaf. Open-mouthed astonishment: look how dazzling she is, our blessed virgin, how could we have been so blind? But no, on went the cotton dress over the top. Grit fell from my hair. That blasted desert mare had engulfed me in a cloud of sand. Would anyone notice if I undid my braids? I’d die if anyone thought I had been tarting myself up for someone else’s benefit, if anyone were to say, ‘My, haven’t you made an effort.’ This was a simple, striped summer dress, nothing special. My pinafore was too warm, my skirt was dirty—all perfectly plausible, surely? Besides, I could hardly walk around in riding gear all day. I was determined to be inconspicuous and slip lizard-like onto the terrace. No such luck. Leni was ahead of me with the tea trolley and the wheels got stuck in the gravel. She turned around and immediately began to coo, ‘Pretty as a picture! Sure you won’t catch a chill once the sun goes down? Hurry to the table now, our honoured guests are waiting. As for those strange boys, let their mother round them up. We’re not at the fairground now, for heaven’s sake. Oh look, there she goes already. On her stocking feet across the grass! Oh well, why ever not … Nothing around here surprises me any more.’

At the table, the sabreurs shoved their food into their mouths without so much as glancing at it. A toddler lets himself be fed, grinning trustingly at the world around him till he tastes what’s on his tongue and his face clouds over. With these boys, even that realization failed to dawn. They only had eyes for each other. They left the asparagus untouched and fed each other devilled eggs, a sight only I appeared to find distasteful. Their mother made no comment. Von Bötticher shook water droplets from the glasses and filled them to the brim. She tipped back the bottle when he spilled some on the tablecloth.

‘You’re keen! Can you actually see what you’re doing?’ She shot me a conspiratorial look. ‘He can’t, you know. That eye of his has affected his depth of vision, don’t you think?’

‘There is nothing wrong with my eyesight.’ Von Bötticher pushed his chair away from her. ‘With my eye. I wasn’t hit in the eye, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

Heinz came marching up to the table wearing a blacksmith’s apron. His master showed him the bottle.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Heinz.

‘Whose hooves have you been trimming?’ von Bötticher asked.

‘Careful,’ said the mother, ‘there will be more spills if you don’t watch out. Heinzi, don’t you agree that Egon has trouble judging depth?’

Heinz stared at her blankly. You could almost hear the wind whistling in one ear and out the other. ‘Megaira. And I treated the crack in her left back hoof.’

They raised their glasses and drank greedily. The wine brought a flush to Heinz’s cheeks, and his paper mask became a face of flesh and blood. He gazed down at his half-empty glass as if it were a source of amusement, pulled up a chair and in a single motion shoved three stalks of asparagus and an egg onto his plate. Von Bötticher nodded approvingly. ‘Thank you. But keep those hooves greased in future. Prevention is better than cure. Why aren’t you drinking?’ He was talking to me all of a sudden. Having cast a fleeting eye over my summer dress, he said firmly, ‘You’re allowed to drink you know. It will help you get over your fright.’

‘Leave the girl be,’ said the mother. ‘You’re always picking on her. She doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going.’

‘Why don’t you leave me be, and spare me your nonsense. Or would you like me to show you how deep my vision goes? The depth of this garden, for example. I’ll knock you from one end of my estate to the other. Heinz, fetch my rapier, so I can drive this woman off my terrace. A fencer with no depth of vision, now wouldn’t that be something.’

She did not react but drank with her eyebrows raised, gazing at her stocking feet in the grass. She looked fragile. It was hard to imagine she had ever been through such a difficult birth. To say nothing of what came next! One child, fair enough. A single infant you can park on one arm while holding onto your hat with the other, but two—two boys at that—must have been hard going. Suckling both at once, like an animal.

‘The blacksmith told me cracked hooves have nothing to do with greasing,’ said Heinz. ‘But don’t worry. I’ve carved a notch in the hoof to stop the crack spreading.’

Von Bötticher shrugged irritably. He poured me a glass of wine, passing the sabreurs over. Not that they showed any interest. They behaved as if they were still getting to know each other. I had been introduced to them briefly out in the hall — Friedrich and Siegbert—but seconds later I had been unable to tell them apart. Most twins differ in height—not these two. They wore their hair the same way and the golden lock they kept flicking out of their eyes struck me as their mother’s idea. When Siegbert asked if he could go to the toilet, Friedrich leaped up too, but his mother reined him in: ‘Stay here Fritz.’ Without his brother, Friedrich barely knew what to do with himself. He sat out those few minutes looking like he might choke. Such was his plight, it pained me to look at him and he didn’t eat a thing until Siegbert returned. Together they were at their most beautiful, no doubt about it. Both had their mother’s blue eyes and flawless skin, both had a hint of golden down along the jawbone. There were differences, but even these seemed calculated. Siegbert had a mole on his left cheek, Friedrich on his right. Friedrich had the same smile as Siegbert, but it began at the opposite corner of his mouth. Siegbert revealed a chipped top tooth when he laughed, while one of Friedrich’s bottom teeth had taken a knock. They moved with chronometric precision. Their pale hands crumpled their napkins simultaneously. They even chewed in synch. If Friedrich wanted water, Siegbert had already picked up the carafe before a word was spoken. They were well aware of their beauty, sitting bolt upright at the table in their red waistcoats, two kings of hearts pulled from identical packs.

Leni brought in the second course, her voice ringing with reproach. Her oblivious husband hadn’t even cleared the table. What a useless creature he was, while in Leni he had a real woman with a plentiful supply of everything a man could need. He was halfway through his second glass and already reaching for the bottle.

‘Top up my glass while you’re at it,’ said the mother.

‘How are things with your husband?’ Heinz inquired.

Leni hurriedly began serving up helpings of meat. ‘There’s more in the kitchen if this isn’t enough. The butcher always gives us more than we order. That swindler knows I can’t just send him away once he’s here at the gate. Might as well pick our pockets and be done with it.’

‘Your husband was a first-rate sportsman,’ said Heinz, dodging his wife’s behind. ‘Far and away the best long jumper at the club! No one else came close. You know what he should be doing with his talents?’

‘Do tell,’ said the mother, icily.

‘Kraft durch Freude! Now there’s an organization that can use people like him. Excursions, activities for the working man. Sport in the open air, and then it’s back to serving the fatherland with renewed energy!’ He slammed a triumphant fist down on his blacksmith’s apron. In the silence that fell, he quickly drained his glass and continued his rant.

‘We cannot allow ourselves to be overtaken. Negroes winning medals at our Olympiad: it should never have been allowed to happen. What did your husband make of that?’

‘I have no idea. I didn’t ask.’

‘We missed the boat, me and my Leni. KdF didn’t exist when we were younger, all we had to join was the union. Oh, I would have loved to go on a trip like that, even if it was only to the cabaret. Matthias Schmidt tells me the whole club is off to the Baltic coast next month. Imagine! And for free! They don’t have to pay a pfennig!’

Leni huffed. ‘Matthias Schmidt is always shooting his mouth off about something. Raeren beats the Baltic coast any day. Am I right, sir?’

Von Bötticher’s face was drawn as he chewed his meat. I sensed his anger brewing. Two pale-brown moths fluttered in front of his face, heralding the approaching dusk. Anyone else would have swatted them aside, but because von Bötticher let them be—perhaps this was a mating flight—they seemed to give him the gravitas of a man of nature. Next to him, Heinz looked more threadbare than ever. But the sickly biscuit baker, condemned to the natural world in spite of himself, was busy taking all kinds of liberties with the lady at his master’s table. She went to light a cigarette and he provided the flame. He must have thought they had something in common, an urban brand of savoir-vivre or something of the kind. There was no stopping him.

‘Be sure to pass my recommendation on to your husband. About the KdF. Tell him Heinrich Kraus urges him to do so. I know his heart is in the right place. He’s not one for jumping on bandwagons. He was a member of the Party from its earliest beginnings. I can ask around if you like, find out from my old chums who he should get in touch with.’

No one said a word. Not even when the twins left the table and darted off toward the field, like a couple of colts let loose.

‘Why, I made a similar recommendation to you. Remember, sir? Fencing lessons for the working classes. Raeren would be ideal. Bags of room for Kraft durch Freude.’

‘Freude,’ von Bötticher muttered. ‘Joy has nothing to do with fencing. Fencing is an art, a world away from seeing who can jump furthest in a sandpit. How can I explain in terms you might understand? It is the difference between my Megaira and a carthorse.’

‘Oh, I would have loved to go on a trip like that. If only to the cabaret.’

‘Free time controlled by the state can hardly be called free time.’

‘You and your imperialist cronies don’t want the workers to have anything, you old Stahlhelm rogue.’

The word crackled in the air. I had no idea what it meant, but Leni leaped out of her chair, grabbed the first thing she could lay her hands on—the carving fork—and waved it in Heinz’s face. ‘Sir, you must forgive him. You know he can’t hold his drink. Just look at the old mongrel, all bark and no bite. He’ll never interfere in your affairs, sir. You know that don’t you? Heaven forbid.’

Von Bötticher let out a deep sigh. ‘It’s fine, Leni. His Communist prattle is fascinating in its way. Stahlhelm rogue? Interesting choice of words. Lest you forget, Heinz, we fought for this fatherland of yours.’

‘As did we all,’ said Heinz. ‘And I am anything but a Communist.’

‘Communist, socialist … what exactly did you do during the war? I don’t believe I’ve ever asked you. Wait, let me refresh your glass. This, in case you hadn’t noticed, is an outstanding Riesling from the Rheingau. A great German wine, with more than a hint of National Socialism, after all I am sharing it with you, my worker.’

Leni was still wielding the carving fork. She did not look at her husband: he had become someone to be spoken about, not spoken to, a point she was eager for their master to grasp. ‘No more drink for him. Does him no good at all. See for yourself, he’s no use to anyone.’

‘Surely a real man can handle a glass of wine? Even the ladies are drinking it! Come, Heinz, enlighten me. How did you spend the years between fourteen and eighteen?’

‘Twenty-fifth reserve corps, Lodz. Until I wound up in the field hospital.’

Out on the grass, the twins were spinning around like mad, hanging from each other’s arms. It was a game I knew from the school playground. As the paving stones whirled beneath your feet, you clung to your partner’s wrists for dear life—by that stage slowing down was no easy matter. It was best to close your eyes, and give in to the blur of terror and delight. The twins had long since surrendered to centrifugal force. They were perfectly in balance, so what had they to fear?

‘Take a leaf out of our book,’ said von Bötticher. ‘We find joy in the close companionship of a select company. Why invite the masses in? What is there left to enjoy if everyone is doing the same? The new politics is focused on the neutral. The faceless masses.’

‘Look who’s talking,’ giggled the mother. ‘Faceless, indeed.’

‘The anonymous multitudes. Who wants to devote their energies to them? We are all prepared to help our fellow man, provided we are free to decide which fellow we help. Where’s the good in depriving people of their natural instinct to love their neighbour?’

‘Matthias says factory strikes are a thing of the past,’ said Heinz. ‘They’ve fixed everything up. Life’s getting better, brighter. Showers, bigger windows. That is what the Führer has done for the worker. Oh, if only I could … ’

Von Bötticher dashed his glass to the ground. ‘Then go, man! Don’t let me hold you back. I gave you work when you were out on the street, when that union of yours could do nothing for you. And now I have to put up with this? Run on back to your stinking city, perhaps they’ll have a job for you now.’

This was the last straw for Heinz. He rose melodramatically to his feet, untied his apron and tossed it aside. He must have had an entirely different image of himself, the image of the worker on the posters, gazing off into the distance, sun rising behind his broad shoulders. He was drunk, his eyes were watery, and the veins were pulsing beneath the thin skin of his forehead. ‘No sooner said!’ he roared. ‘I am not your property. Come Leni, our work here is done.’

Leni ran off and Heinz tottered along behind her, putting an end to any pretence of manliness by bending down to pick up the carving fork she had dropped in the gravel.

‘Well, this is turning out to be quite an evening,’ said the mother. She sat on the chair with her knees drawn up in front of her, the red coat dress draped around her shoulders. Cleopatra. Hadn’t she given birth to twins after a fling with Mark Antony, a married man, and wooed him a second time four years later? Another persistent piece of skirt. Perhaps there’s not much mothering to be done when your children always have each other to fall back on. The mother sat with her back to her children, she had no desire to see that bizarre little dance of theirs. They danced in the pink glow of sunset without music and without an audience, just as birds and native tribesmen have no need of such things. They spun around each other, tumbled across the grass, walked on their hands with their belly buttons showing. Sometimes they seemed to merge into one, like a disappearing trick with mirrors. Just watching them made me dizzy. Gingerly, I put my empty glass back down on the table, having held onto it all this time for fear it might be refilled. The house echoed with wailing and the slamming of doors. Von Bötticher looked around under his chair and found nothing. He gave a tragic smile, the only kind in his repertoire. By this time I had realized that some of his facial nerves must have been severed and looking stern was the expression that came most readily to him. Heinz, an alarming shade of puce, re-emerged from the house with his wife trailing wearily behind him. They looked like sailors after a stormy voyage. ‘Sir! Sir!’ The words could be heard from afar. It was a pitiful display. ‘I spoke out of turn. Please accept my apologies. I only wanted to offer a word of advice. It’s none of my business … not my place … I wouldn’t dare! I’m a humble gardener, sir, in every way your subordinate, no question about it.’

‘Apology accepted,’ said von Bötticher, pointing to the apron lying on the grass. ‘You are not worthy of a duel. From tomorrow you will grease Megaira’s hooves every day, do you understand?’

‘Listen to Egon,’ the mother slurred. She uncoiled from her garden chair and flopped onto his lap, burying her nose in the spot where her toes had been. She was not a natural blonde. Dark hair curled in the nape of her neck like tree roots on a riverbank. ‘Listen to my sweet hussar. Look at me, my hussar sweetheart, at this little horsey of yours. Saddle her up, ride her all you want. See how well I’ve been broken in, mein lieber Leibhusar!’

‘Janna! Come here,’ hissed Leni. ‘A nice young girl like you shouldn’t have to witness such goings on.’ She had her hands full with Heinz, who was determined to remain standing. Routinely, she dodged a slap, like a mother staying clear of her infant’s clawing little mitts, before dipping under his shoulder, parking him against her hip and dragging him off to their den behind the kitchen. Poor thing, before she could crawl into bed beside him she had a least two hours’ work ahead of her.

Up in my room, the first thing I did was look out of the window and, sure enough, there they were still out in the field, the sabreur brothers. They were taking a stroll, talking earnestly, arms around each other’s shoulders. Alone at last. The adults had all gone inside, the front door had been locked with a bang, a glass had shattered on the paving stones, there had been the sound of crying or laughter, and insistent whispering that had carried all the way up to the attic, but no one had paid the twins any heed. They did not seem to mind in the slightest. They had ignored me completely. I was growing accustomed to such treatment from the maître, and the attentions of their mother left me cold, but these boys were my fellow students. We were almost the same age.

A few hours later I woke with a start. The hard, metallic light of the moon was shining through the curtains. I got out of bed to push them aside and was just in time to see the cabriolet driving off. Leni, in her dressing gown, closed the gate and trudged back toward the house. I was about to turn away and crawl back between the sheets when I saw them lying there. Was I dreaming or had the grass around their bodies grown taller? They lay beside each other, looking so inert in the nickel-grey light that it was easy to take them for dead.