One More River, page 16
What had brought him back? What complex bundle of psychological threads now pulled—he had thought it the lost, obliterated German mother driven out with the hatred and derision so many in England still feel and show and mouth. It was a lot more than that.
But one wasn’t going to brood about all that now, today. Simple friendship towards Gunther, that straight, honest, just man. A kindness, and goodwill, towards Barbara, a good and generous girl. He had wanted to see them, wanted to know them happy. A bit of vanity, also: he had written and published his first books, and they existed now in German translation, and the ‘official’ reason for his voyage was to talk business in Hamburg—one wasn’t averse to a display of newfound confidence and even splendour.
What a welcome they’d given him. Simple, utterly unaffected. Glad to see him? He’d ‘dropped in’ and they insisted he stay, and on his way back from Hamburg he’d stayed again, a fortnight, and when he left he took Sibylle with him. ‘Whirlwind courtship’ is the applicable cliché.
Gunther’s house rebuilt, full of brand-new kitchens and bathrooms and guestrooms and lots to eat and drink. (That was not this house—and where is it, this house? In the country but how far into the country? We are not in Arnsburg: where am I?) Gunther jovial, prosperous, glowing. Barbara adult and poised, happy and confident, delighted to show her former lover that the pretty little draggletail was now a real woman; a very good unassuming hostess as well as an exemplary housewife, and plainly an excellent mother to that nice little boy, who was open and well-mannered … the only shadow seemed to be that Barbara had had no further children.
And there was Sibylle, now grown up and a university student. Shy still, soft-spoken, not much to say for herself. Talk about falling like a sack-of-bricks. ‘Of course I remember you,’ blushing just a little. She was not really ‘pretty’; nothing like Barbara had been and indeed still was (no overblown peonies there, despite the healthy appetite for beer); but immensely, overwhelmingly attractive. And both of them—I mean both Gunther and Barbara—openly delighted with the tremendous unabashed attack upon this awkward girl (silent, one would almost call it withdrawn).
Not that it was anything to make a fuss about. Gunther, lighting a cigar—one of his few indulgences; how nice that ‘nowadays one can get good ones’—got confidential.
‘They’ve a good relationship. I worried a bit at first. Child very devoted to me, all she had y’know, and all that, and not much age difference between them really, might she get all jealous and possessive? Well, not a bit; they’ve always been comfortable together. With you, perhaps a bit of residual fear. A young child in the bad years, just at the most impressionable, old enough to register and understand some pretty horrible experiences—people trapped in cellars, people with their lungs exploded by blast. Remembers you in your uniform; Jesus-christus, that’s a Terror Flieger. But you and I always got on well enough, didn’t we, and she trusts me. Doesn’t care a damn what people would say now. Myself I’m all for it—heals old wounds. There’d be a few of the neighbours glowering and muttering; we’ll none of us pay any attention.”
Barbara when he went to help with the washing-up (a good moment for a nice chat) was equally without complex.
“Youh, my step-daughter, and she’s hardly younger than I am!” “S’allright dear, she’s gone out for a walk, commune with the forest and the wolves, no worry, she knows how to look after herself. As I did—ha ha ha. We’ve never had any problems. Think how it might have grated on us both, and it never did. Watch those glasses, duck, they’re horribly fragile and they cost the earth. When good-ol-sex rears its ugly head, yours wasn’t ugly, my pet, it was perfectly sweet, she might jam her legs together a bit, don’t worry my lips are sealed, but she’ll get to know pretty quick what it took me no time at all to find out and that is you’re a bit of a bastard upon occasion but you’re mostly a kind and considerate person, because if you weren’t then my good old Gunther wouldn’t have much time for you and you’d get these freezing looks, y’know, always beautifully polite but a hard frost and your dick drops off in the night. Bless you, lamb, we got through that in no time, let’s go and do some boozing.”
Well, yes, there had been a good deal of get-your-hand-off-my-bra-strap.
But Sibylle and he had more in common than they knew. Five years difference, that seems a lot when you’re young but they were both ‘pre-war children’. Both had been strictly brought up (Robert had been the kind of Englishman who carried little bits of string in his pockets and complained about excessive use of lavpaper). Both had known the depression—never forget, said Gunther, that the Führer appeared to have the answer to unemployment. The war years, and the rationing. Both of them detested waste and refused ever to throw away bread (the way the French waste bread!). Sibylle darned and patched long after they were comfortably off, not to say rich. She had never been able to abide ‘servants’ and to this day, he was quite sure, could be found on her knees, polishing. Very German? The same thing used to be said about Marlene, that she liked scrubbing floors? There is probably a grain of truth in it.
Memories—admit, unworthy, but one wasn’t about to feel ashamed. Barbara’s knickers coming down in a few hayfields—that had been a greengage-summer, and there were punts too on the little rivers of the Ruhr land, to be borrowed from men who found a pike or a perch a good answer, in those days when sausage was meagre. Sibylle’s knickers did not come down. But there were plenty of fibres in the cord that, already, bound them. He would say now that behind his absurd likes-and-dislikes there was a deep crack of insecurity. And this was a girl who possessed and who promised security.
That is, remains, a truth. But I have been rambling. About these putative grandchildren—yes, of course it is possible and perfectly likely. Simply, it never occurred to me. The little boy, Rainer—none of us, call it tact, call it the respect we felt for one another, ever mentioned, ever breathed a word. We knew that this was my child, whom Gunther had rescued, and nothing remained to be said. I was of course quite horribly egoist from beginning to end. There was much about that new Germany I did not greatly like; I never wished to make a home there. I put indeed a great deal of pressure upon Sibylle to forget it, never to go back. For years I didn’t, and out of loyalty—doubtless—neither did she: I think we both felt that this page should not be turned back, and it never was. I am sure that Gunther understood this. They sent occasional brief notes, Christmas card sort of things. Never photos nor ‘reminiscences’.
Very Brit I was then: still am. As I got older it got worse. I have been these forty years a European but have never lost my accent, nor the irritating mannerisms, which both amused and infuriated Sibylle.
They had lived in England awhile. In Italy too and in Paris.
The boy brought him his lunch. Boys?—both were in their later twenties but this the younger of the two and somehow the more sympathetic. A more open look; the other had a sour, sullen expression. One could see they were brothers—he could be no judge of a ‘family’ look! The elder was the taller, darker hair, a heavy, shaved jaw; this one fair-haired—something of Barbara in the look? But one must make a start.
“I owe you an apology. I hear you are my grandchild, I hope you know I had no realisation of that.
“I should wish at least that we can learn to understand each other better. This silence—it doesn’t serve much purpose. I am quite an old man now, and I dislike losing time; as much I suppose as I dislike false positions.” At least he didn’t just storm out of the door and slam the bolts.
“I spoke for a moment with my wife. I didn’t know about that, either. She’s of course your aunt. In one sense too your granny; it’s a complicated sort of relationship.”
The boy did say something then, if as though sucking on a lemon. “Yes. My Tante Sibylle. She’s like our mother.”
This was news! “You can’t object to telling your name?”
“My name is Christian. My brother is Joachim. All right? Eat your dinner,” absurdly like Sibylle, “before it gets cold. There’s a piece of cheese if you want it. French cheese,” sarcastically, going out. But wasn’t it a start? He didn’t mind eating cheese; he could take it or leave it; ate it wishing only there were a glass of wine to go with it. A ‘liking for stale bread and German mineral water’, he had built fictional characters upon less. But this was not fiction! Even if he were reminded of the marvellous episode in Dumas—the Fiend Lady de Winter captured and imprisoned by her brother!
The ‘Second Day of Imprisonment’! He could remember five, after that the drama accelerates. An omen? John liked to tell himself that he was not in the least superstitious: the lady is, though. Aware—one has to be—of the dangers in a withdrawal from reality he knew that he had been becoming increasingly withdrawn for some time now. Perhaps from the moment of that original shock, running down the road to ask old Poirier for reassurance … something odd is happening; is this real? Real people; Brigitta was real enough and so are my children. But could one call Daffodil real, by any definition? I have got into a fantasy world here, in which my imagination plays me tricks. Sibylle, and she is real enough, spoke of bringing me back, of making me real. Funny ways she chooses of going about it.
I was captivated in childhood, sure enough. D’Artagnan is like Aladdin or Sinbad, one of the enduring ones. I read this aloud to the children, and they too were mesmerised. Surely any child would be, even today?—although I first read it at perhaps ten years old, in a ridiculous slovenly English translation, depriving it of oxygen—and bowdlerised into the bargain! Which I never realised; some Victorian worthy thought it unsuitable for healthy little boys that d’Artagnan should have got into bed with Milady (not to speak of her maid).
This episode is admirably well made. The frightful woman lands at Portsmouth with the instruction at all costs to prevent the Duke of Buckingham from coming to the rescue of La Rochelle, besieged by Cardinal Richelieu. She is neatly captured, and imprisoned in a fortress, under the guard of an incorruptible young man. The talented actress—and seductive young woman—sets at once to work to corrupt him! It suggests a parallel to John’s imagination.
John used to laugh: both with—and with due humility at his old friend—Monsieur Simenon, being by twenty-five years his elder, as well as so far beyond him in fame and distinction! One of the old boy’s more endearing traits had been his generosity to young writers.
Over the years a tremendously elaborate machinery had been built up, mightily impressive to visiting journalists—and marvellous copy. The preparations for ‘withdrawal from reality’ were in themselves a magnificent myth—Dumas, whom the old man loved, could have done no better. They became legendary. Invitations were refused, the doctor summoned, the blood pressure taken, before the enclosure into purdah. All the day-by-day details were then lovingly constructed: the filling of the pipes and the sharpening of the pencils; the envelopes for the framework and the Paris phone directory for the names …
All true, he said (playing with the golden ball, itself the perfect totem), perhaps (laughing heartily) just a little exaggerated, but the press, you know, loves it. And you know, cher confrère, it isn’t stupid.
Very much not so. Like other mannerisms; the ‘never reading anybody else’s books’. (Perfectly untrue, but this saves ever having to say how bad they are, which upsets les braves gens.) Or the utter refusal to allow alterations, even of a comma, by printers or copy-editors. ‘Give them half a chance they think they wrote the book themselves.’ (Publishers are much inclined to this delusion.) But in this instance, the frontier between fiction, which is truth, and reality, which is not, needs these careful barriers.
Goethe’s Dichtung und Wahrheit was one of the old boy’s favourite sayings. Fiction is truer than reality.
Am I losing sight of my apprehensions of truth? Sibylle says … “This will not do.” No. Talking to oneself out loud won’t do either.
How do these realities fit with Sibylle’s truths? She does not wish for violence, which is contrary to all her principles. This kidnapping, sequestration, is the work of these young men.
My grandchildren! The family relationship is a complicated one. Through Gunther’s adoption of Barbara’s son, my son, their father, Sibylle is their aunt. Since she is still my wife she is also a sort of step-grandmother to them. That sounds unreal, but it is the truth. Between herself and them is a tight, close-knotted bond.
Towards myself their behaviour has been very violent indeed. Short of knocking me down, tying me up, holding my feet to the fire, difficult to imagine worse. Why? What is their motivation?
One can only guess. Their attachment, devotion to her is real enough and understandable. Their father—who has certainly abandoned them and is perhaps no longer alive—that could be a source of bitterness and anger, which they project. Their mother; it is possible that she is unknown to them. Theorising ahead of my data, ain’t I, but it makes for some coherence. Sibylle has of course good reason for showing bitterness, and her grief …
Speculating, John, and that is foolish.
This damned cell, I cannot even pace it up and down, it is too small. My feet are glued to the floor, as my mind is glued to this senseless, squirrelling gallop around and around, getting nowhere. The exercise bicycle is only another manner; the running feet pursue the running mind.
To say that Sibylle—to suggest that any woman—has no propensity towards extreme violence is absurd and plain untrue. Mr Pepys (John’s companion ever since returning from England) is proof to the contrary. He got an awful fright, the good man. Several days after the fearful showdown with Elizabeth, just as he is thinking that at the price of much and salutary humiliation he has made his peace with her, he is perturbed by her refusal to come to bed and staying up instead with much brooding and muttering in another room. Not much he can do but go to bed himself—when suddenly the curtains are flung aside and dear God, there she is coming at him with a homely household implement, the tongs, and she has made the ends, the claws, red-hot, and nobody ever got out of bed quicker. Yes, an episode in high comedy. Not, though, for Elizabeth, and yes, also, yes, one can perfectly well imagine Sibylle … She is, perhaps, a little less spontaneous. John doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. I don’t know. There are things here that nobody knows.
No, I don’t think it unheard-of. Nothing inherently unlikely. Even the tongs—in today’s country cottage no feature more prized than the open fireplace and the père Poirier’s pride and joy, his birch and apple logs autumn-cut and three years in stock. Given a squabble at the domestic hearth, the woman-scorned, blood on fire, behaves exactly like the Elizabeth three hundred years before … John, are you trying to be funny?
The preparation, the deliberation, the delay; can one accept that these young men are only the instruments of some long-matured vengeance? Preposterous. Even the language is a parody of Byronic melodrama.
It is still possible that something long-dormant in Sibylle, has met and quickened a stifled, smouldering terror within these boys. Oh yes, such things happen. But what is the use of speculating? Perhaps, John, there might be a means of escape.
One of my fragments of military lore not yet quite obliterated is that a soldier’s first duty is to escape. This is not the same as ‘Bandit, Bandit!’ jargon. ‘My Cock is Strangled’, ‘Flash your Weapon’ and such like amusements: I remember it being told me that whatever I forgot in later life ‘you never forget your last three’—the digits of course of one’s Army number.
So fuck Lady de Winter (pious sentiment); she has nothing to do with this. But perhaps with the means. I’m not about to dig any tunnels. Her technique of corrupting the guardian takes time. I can feel my life getting smaller, and this four-walled space which encloses me is also within me. This door is bolted; that door which was mine, leading to the world outside, which I could pass whenever I chose, closes upon me. It pinches me now, so that I have ado to breathe. When it shuts I shall hear it; the last thing I shall hear.
So push back, John, while you still can.
The boy Christian also brought my supper, and this seemed a good omen since there’s no doubt at all that he’s much more amenable than his shovel-jawed brother—about whom there’s something odd and I haven’t worked out what it is; there’s more in that face than determination and a sort of sullenness. In those deepset eyes … Whereas about the younger of my grown-up grandsons (too ridiculous) there is something open and spontaneous; can it be humour? Could I once get him to admit the absurdity, the farcical comedy, of this—this sequestration. The human being, any human being, is capable of every madness. The writer imagines many; a great many more are unimaginable, until they happen. Across the years of living with Sibylle, and loving her, make no mistake, I learned and painfully never to be surprised. A man will stop at something. A woman will not.
So, as the old joke has it, of the pedantic husband and the adulterous wife, ‘You, my dear, are surprised. I am merely astonished.’ And not even that, now, that I’ve got used to the idea. I am going to act ‘astonished’.
“Is this your grandfather’s house? He lived in the town when I knew him.”
“Yes, you were friendly, weren’t you. His brother’s.” There was no harm in telling me, now.
“Christian, I’m sorry, but this soup is stone cold, you know.”
“Give it me, I’ll warm it up. It’s no trouble.”
A pointer? He is thinking that a peaceful—a reasonable—solution will be found? He made sure the bolts were drawn, though.
“That’s better, I hope.” And staying to see that it was. And curious too, to know how I’m taking the situation.
