The Porcelain Maker, page 5
Clara realized it was years since she had really stopped to look at him properly: he was a young man in the prime of life, muscular arms, torso and legs all flexed. His expression was inscrutable; he stared out to sea, as if preparing to face a coming storm. His profile was both classically handsome and yet absolutely of its time. Clara did not upend the figure to check the maker’s mark beneath. She neither needed nor wanted confirmation of the dual strikes of lightning, that taint of Nazism which had long coloured her response to it.
Though she could not recall ever being told directly, Clara had always understood that certain subjects were off limits with her mother. Uppermost of these, any discussion of her father and the war. Both were somehow related and equally verboten.
Throughout Clara’s childhood and adolescence Bettina suffered from depression, a sadness so profound it exerted a gravitational pull on both of them. When it threatened to overwhelm her, Bettina would retreat from the world almost entirely and their German housekeeper Heida would act as surrogate. Heida had travelled with them to England and was fiercely loyal to Bettina, but still she sometimes let things slip.
During one bout when Bettina couldn’t find the strength to rise from her bed for days on end, Heida told Clara her mother had once been married to a very bad man; a Nazi named Karl Holz. A dim recollection had surfaced of a man in a uniform, swinging her up to the sky. Heida had whispered to the wide-eyed child that he’d been unspeakably cruel to her mother and it was his fault she still suffered to this day.
Appalled and intrigued, Clara took to listening at closed doors. She overheard her mother telling Heida how hard it was, that her daughter looked so like her father and how at times she could not bear to set eyes on her for fear of seeing him. Clara had tiptoed away then, ashamed and consumed by a secret terror that the bad man must be her father and that was why her mother never spoke of him.
That night she’d awoken crying from a nightmare. Heida came to comfort her and Clara sobbed and hiccupped for almost an hour before reluctantly revealing the cause of her terror through heavy, heaving breaths.
‘Hush now, Liebchen, don’t fret. I promise you, that coward Holz was not your father.’ A brief grimace twisted Heida’s mouth.
‘I only thought, because no one ever tells me anything…’
‘Well, we don’t want to cause your mother any pain. She has had more than her share.’
Heida turned away as she spoke, her voice was somehow thicker.
‘She just wants to protect you, Clara. I cannot say more, but know that and rest assured.’
Heida seemed so sorrowful that Clara had resolved there and then not to wound her mother, or her beloved surrogate, by pressing them for answers.
Decades later, in the weeks following Bettina’s death, Clara had come across a letter from Karl Holz amongst her mother’s effects. Clara wished she could turn to Heida for help deciphering the unfamiliar handwriting, but she had passed away by then.
With dictionary in hand, Clara finally managed to extract some meaning from the letter. While not quite a suicide note, it was clearly a farewell from Holz, alternately beseeching Bettina to forgive him and trying to justify his actions. To Clara’s eye it seemed full of maudlin self-pity. He did nothing to disavow his poisonous beliefs, and the presence of the SS sigil on both his letterhead and the collection of porcelain somehow tied them all together, along with the question of her father’s identity. She fervently hoped that Heida had been telling her the truth.
In her hotel bed, lulled by the constant drone of planes overhead, Clara placed the figure of the Viking on the bedside table and finally turned out the lamp. She glanced again at the figurine, which seemed to gleam a ghostly blue. She reached out to touch it like a talisman before sinking into grateful sleep.
For hours her consciousness remained deep and dreamless, but eventually the clock inside began to reassert itself, forcing her to start the long swim to the surface. Little fever dreams floated by; she found herself in her mother’s apartment in Putney, surrounded by her porcelain collection, a reliquary of secular saints. Her mother was lying there in state, scarcely breathing. Then her bed became a Viking burial ship, waiting for Clara to set it alight and push it out to sea, floating on fire, until it sank them both beneath the waves.
Clara slept on, but the dream of her dying mother refused to fade. She felt caught by the starchy bedsheets, which bound her heels like seaweed and left her floating in an inky darkness, listening, remembering…
* * *
The key turned in the lock, the tumblers fell, and Clara stepped inside. The air in her mother’s apartment was heavy, filled with the warmth of a late spring day.
Outside, the plane trees filtered the sunlight. Within, the smell of rich beeswax polish mixed with Bettina’s sea-saltscent. And… something else? The faint sting of ammonia. Clara wrinkled her nose and walked over to the window. She pushed it open, letting the sounds of the Heath and the street below wash in.
A grand piano sat beneath the window; a vintage Viennese tapestry thrown across its lacquered back to deaden the sound. Clara straightened it reflexively as she glanced around, taking stock. She hadn’t visited in some weeks, but nothing here seemed to have changed.
‘Mama?’
She said it quietly. There was no reply. Clara slipped offher shoes and walked down the corridor towards her mother’s bedroom. The fabric of this building felt like part of her DNA, but as soon as she crossed the threshold her sense of self began to erode. Unwittingly she reverted to teenage Clara; turbulent, brash, tempestuous.
She stood at the bedroom door and listened for a moment. Hearing nothing, she pushed it open and peered in; Bettina was asleep, her slight body barely visible under heavy blankets. Clara could hear her laboured breathing, proof that she was still alive at least. For years her mother had seemed to be retreating from the outside world. Now, near the end, she was content to be contained within her bedroom walls and further still, to the confines of her solid oak sleigh bed.
Clara stepped back into the hall and gently pulled the door to. She tiptoed to the kitchen, where the changes since her lastvisit were far more obvious. A small platoon of nursing staffhad been employed to keep her mother at home and in some comfort. Evidence of their existence littered every surface: by the sink, a lacquered Venetian tray was loaded with pill bottles, medicines and tissues. On the kitchen table, a pile of boxes contained silicone gloves and plastic aprons a bright turquoise blue. Flesh-tonedrubber tubes spoke of more invasive procedures and all the small indignities which lay in wait at the close of life. Clara skirted round them and filled the heavy-bottomedkettle, placing it on the stove. She lit the flame and waited for it to boil, crossing to the telephone on the wall, lifting the receiver and dialling her own number. It rang and rang. She pictured her house, oddly empty, until eventually the answerphone kicked in. She waited for the tone and spoke quietly.
‘Darling, I’m at my mother’s. I should be home for supper, but don’t wait. There’s a steak in the fridge. I’m… not sure where you are?’ She let the question hang there. ‘But don’t call back; Mama is sleeping and I don’t want to wake her. I’ll see you tonight. Love you…’
She hung up frowning; why hadn’t he answered? Her brain provided her with several increasingly alarming scenarios until the whistle of the kettle punctured her self-absorption. She rushed to liftit from the stove and muffle its shriek. She took a teacup from the drainer and poured scalding water over dried peppermint, inhaling its grassy scent. She carried it carefully, pushing open the door to her mother’s bedroom, then padded back inside.
The room was sunk in shadow, the windows hung with heavy curtains of a shell-pinkdamask silk. They dropped and pooled on the parquet floor, submerging the room in dappled shade. It was, as it had always been, elegant and subdued, though peppered with her mother’s more eccentric touches; a chartreuse velvet chair, a mercury glass vase of ostrich feathers, a vintage kimono hanging on the wall, patterned with teal peonies againsttomato red. There were a few signs of the ephemera of ill health: a wheelchair, ugly, grey and functional and a stainless-steelbedpan, discreetly tucked away.
Clara sat down lightly on the bed and observed her mother, who slept on, seemingly oblivious. Bettina had always maintained rigid control over her slender body. Her attention to her appearance remained intact long after other mothers seemed to stop caring, but now she looked thin to the point of emaciation.
Clara sipped her tea; relishing the silence as she surveyed the room. She found herself gazing at the wall above the bed, where three recessed alcoves housed her mother’s collection of glossy, white porcelain artefacts. Angled spotlights suffused them in a subtle glow; two dozen different objects on display, each one hyper-realisticand highly detailed. They had always seemed so incongruous to Clara, at odds with the restof her mother’s simple tastes and the few pieces of her own work which she chose to display. Bettina hadn’t kept any of her ‘later work’, as she described it. Her most famous paintings had all been sold offor donated to various museums across Europe. Clara understood that they had, for a time, given her a certain cachet in the German art world, but that fame had been short-lived. Little wonder – from the reproductions Clara had seen, the work was beautifully executed, but too romantic. That kind of realism had rather had its day.
Before that had come Bettina’s expressionistperiod. Though brief, the zestof the work reminded Clara of the greats: Kirchner, Kandinsky, Klee, all of whom had been her mother’s inspiration. The vibrant colours, the energy of the brushstrokes, the hollow-faced features, often a sickly sort of radiance in neon and limelight – these were the works that Bettina had chosen to hang in her own home. And it was these that Clara loved.
She stood up, quietly crossing to the wall where the white gloss figurines watched over her sleeping mother. There were greyhound dogs and song thrushes, milkmaids and athletes, each one faithfully reproduced, yet strangely bloodless. Clara lifted down the central figure cautiously, a male with tousled locks and a naked torso, muscular legs braced againsta rocky outcrop, a sword at his side, a tiny rabbit crouched at his feet and a thick fur cape thrown over his shoulders. She ran a fingertip across his face; noble but impassive.
‘Do becareful.’
Clara jumped and instinctively gripped the figure to her chest, afraid of dropping it. Bettina, seemingly still half-asleep, was looking up at her, silhouetted in the dim light.
‘Sorry,’ she croaked. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’
Clara put the figurine down on the night table and Bettina slowly turned towards it, wincing with the effort.
‘My Viking.’
She reached out a delicately boned and birdlike hand to stroke the porcelain. She chuckled, ‘You remember who made it, of course?’ Her voice was as dry as seeds in a husk.
‘No, I don’t think I do,’ Clara replied.
‘Silly girl, you must– the porcelain maker of Dachau, of course! Meine wahre Liebe. He made it just for me.’
In recent months her mother’s mind had started to drift, the flow of memories floating back downstream, more real to her than anything in the here and now.
‘Do you mean Karl?’ asked Clara as gently as possible. ‘I thought he was an art dealer, not an artist.’
‘Not Karl!’ Bettina gave a snort of derision. ‘God knows, the only artistry he possessed was good taste and a thick wallet. No, Karl gave it to me, but he didn’t make it for me.’
‘Thenwho did?’
‘Clara’s father, of course.’
In her chestthe tide pulled back, like water rushing across shingle. The tick of the grandmother clock on the mantelpiece seemed suddenly, terribly loud; blood beating time, a metronome inher ears.
‘Who do you mean?’
‘You know very well, Heida. Don’t be so obtuse!’
Heida. Her mother’s housekeeper, companion and confidante, who had died the year before. Both women still felt her loss keenly.
Bettina shivered. ‘It’s chilly. Are you cold?’
Clara reached down to pull the sheet up. Her mother’s cool fingers circled her own and pressed them tight.
‘Thank you, dear. You have always been such a solace. I don’t know what I would have done without you.’
‘Mama, it’s not Heida, it’s me… Clara.’
Bettina let go ofher hand.
‘Clara?’
‘Yes.’
She peered up, her eyes darting and anxious.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘The day nurse couldn’t come; she phoned in sick. Mama, what did you mean, about my father?’
Bettina kept very still.
‘Mama, did youhear me?’
‘I’m sorry, Liebchen. I have a terrible headache.’
There was an edge to her mother’s voice, a profound melancholy she could read all too well. Still, Clara pressed on.
‘Who was the porcelain maker of Dachau? You said he was my father.’
Bettina tried to sit up; Clara could see her arms were shaking with the effort.
‘Talk to me, Mama.’
She slumped back down and shut her eyes againsther daughter’s insistent gaze. She turned her head away, lips pressedtogether in pain.
‘Clara, please… I can’t. I haven’t got the strength.’
Tears spilled from her, silently dropping on the counterpane. Clara held her breath. After a moment, she patted the paper-thinskin of her mother’s hand which trembled as it gripped the sheet.
‘I didn’t mean to upset you, Mama. It’s all right, restnow. I’ll make you some tea.’
Clara walked back to the kitchen in a daze. She put the kettle on to boil again and held tight to the marble worktop, clenching her jaw, working it so hard it ached. Eventually the kettle started to whistle, but she found she could not loosen her grip and so the whistle built into a screech and then a scream which filledthe room.
* * *
Clara was jolted awake by the metallic shriek of a 747 flying low overhead. Sweating and tangled in her sheets, she turned her head and her eyes sought out the dim red digits of the radio alarm clock. It was 2.30 a.m. She lay still for a moment, bathed in a sheen of perspiration, before accepting that real sleep would elude her now; she was too tired to read, too wired to rest. Unwilling to risk a return journey to the mausoleum waiting in her memories, she threw back the covers and went into the bathroom to drink a glass of water.
Now wide awake, Clara walked back to the bed, the light from the bathroom illuminating the ceramic warrior on the nightstand. She picked up the phone and dialled an outside line, long distance, and waited as it rang and then finally connected.
‘Lotte, darling?’
‘Mum?’
‘Liebchen, how are you?’ The line crackled, phasing in and out.
‘I’m fine. It’s pretty early.’
‘Earlier still here.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in Cincinnati.’
‘Is everything OK? This must be costing you a fortune.’
‘It’s fine. Listen, I’m flying back tomorrow. Can you come and stay this weekend? I could do with your advice.’
CHAPTER SIX
Berlin
Summer 1937
Berlin was baking, the air heavy with a shimmering heat which rose from the pavements and pressed in on every side. Buildings were choked with the stale aroma of breath and bodies, of food quick to rot and milk already curdled in the glass.
In the street, tensions simmered and strangers passed too close for comfort. Pedestrians, woozy from the heat, would suddenly veer into the road, like wasps half drunk on rotten fruit. Max rode his bike home along Wilhelmstraße, dodging the tramlines which threatened to throw him off. The riding was hard enough already; his bike was unbalanced as he’d tied a dozen rolls of sketches and blueprints to it, to work on back at home. The weight of them altered his centre of gravity, but he had reserved the basket in front for a very special cargo. It was an offering so delightful, so exotic, that it must surely guarantee the recipient would be filled with joy.
When he first spotted the banana cart at the side of the road, he had been stunned to see the jaunty, citrine-yellow jewels hanging, swinging in the sun. They were so startling he’d stopped his bike and laughed out loud. He was hesitant to spend his precious Pfennigs on something so frivolous, but found himself digging deep to dredge them up. He’d placed the smiling treasure in the basket for safekeeping and began to cycle home, checking on it, grinning back.
Max had spent the morning drafting designs for Herr Neumann, the senior partner at his new architectural practice. The elderly man was approaching his retirement and had been struggling to keep up with the times. He’d hired Max in desperation but soon came to rely on him. Real innovation and ingenuity were seldom required, but he added a veneer of modernity to their otherwise old-fashioned propositions.
Max still endeavoured to look forward, not to waste time on regrets and recriminations, but even he found it hard not to mourn some losses. For a while, he and Bettina had felt like they might conquer the world. Now, just getting by was challenging enough. At the start, the two of them had seemed destined to rise together. Their future held promise, even if their present was sometimes compromised. It was against the law for them to marry, but really, who cared about convention? But gradually, imperceptibly, they’d felt Berlin begin to change. The strictures which governed their lives tightening week on week. Inconvenience turned into impediment, then legal penalties with ever-growing consequences.
