Klara

© Copyright 2005 Barbara Yates Rothwell.

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Klara

Part 1

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Part 2

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Part 3

17

18

19

20

21

22

Part 4

23

24

Part 5

25

26

27

28

Author’s Postscript

Acknowledgement

About the Author

Dedication

In this year of publication, 2005, the problem of refugees is still a major part of the life of a troubled world. We might have hoped, at the end of World War II, that this particular problem would be solved once and for all. It was not to be.

The story of Klara reminds us that refugees cannot be put into a single category. Each one is unique. ‘KLARA’ is my tribute to those who have lost almost everything, but who still have the courage to make something of their lives.

Thanks are due to……

Annabelle, for the cover picture of ‘England’s green and pleasant land’;

Rosemary, for sterling work on putting the cover picture together;

And a long-forgotten camera-happy acquaintance who gave us the picture of Klara.

Some comments……

…on books by Barbara Yates Rothwell.

The boy from the hulks (1994: Longman Cheshire - now out of print)

‘…a quality yarn ideally suited for the English and history curricula of junior secondary schools - potentially a very big market.’ The West Australian.

‘Author spins a bonzer yarn.’ The Wanneroo Times.

Dutch Point (1998: The Lagoon Press)

‘…DUTCH POINT runs to 471 pages, and every word is worth reading. A thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking tale.’ M.B.

‘…successfully transports the reader back in time to the dubious beginnings of the Australian colonies…’ The Wanneroo Times.

‘…what a wonderful book it is. I couldn’t put it down - so if they complain I’m sleepy at work it is your fault!’ C.F.

Coulter Valley (2004: Trafford Publishing in cooperation with The Lagoon Press)

‘What a fine book!…a great achievement…the novel amounts to a huge paradox: a celebration of art…the necessity of devoting oneself to art’s disciplines, and…a red light against obsession and oppression.’ D.C.

…..

Dutch Point is still available from The Lagoon Press: hardback: $35.00 (discount for senior schools and libraries)

Coulter Valley can be ordered (small numbers up to 20) from The Lagoon Press; or in any amount through Trafford Publishing.

The Lagoon Press, 6 Nautical Court, Yanchep

W Australia 6035. Email: morgand_h.byr@iinet.net.au

Phone: (08) 9561 1125.

Trafford Publishing, Suite 6E-2333 Government Street, Victoria, BC Canada V8T 4P4

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Klara

There was a point, half-way through the North Sea crossing, when she was suspended in time; the past was gone, with all its anguish; the future was still invisible over the horizon. Here, as a rising wind lashed the waters and pale faces greened with nausea, she was inviolate: no one could reach her. Whatever happened behind her, on the tormented continent of Europe, was not her concern for as long as the steamer cut into the deep swell and flung the spray back so that she felt salt on her lips. Whatever was to come… She stopped thinking about it, in the disciplined manner they had all had to learn or go mad with frustration and anger.

‘I am Janus,’ she thought, watching the seething race of water below the rail where she had found a corner in which to wedge herself. ‘I look back and I look forward. I stand in a gateway, and I wish that I might stand in it forever and not take that next step into the unknown. I am Janus, and the doors are open…’

For there would be war. Who could doubt it? The doors of Janus, she remembered dimly, were open in time of war and closed in time of peace. So the doors were well and truly wide now; and she, shivering in the cold March spray and a penetrating northerly wind, looked behind and before, Janus on the high seas, wishing she had the courage to end it all here; she could be gone, swallowed up in the grey, hostile waters, before anyone realised what was happening.

She stood up stiffly and took the three or four steps that brought her to the rail. Further back, she saw, there was a small space where no one sat, because the spray flew over with drenching regularity; she made her way there, leaving her few bits of baggage.

The sea was more turbulent here—something to do with the angle of the hull as it met the water. She would not even be missed. Her hand went out to the rail and she stared down, mesmerised by the turmoil below her. She could bear the agony of drowning for the few minutes it would take. Better that than remembering the sorrow in her father’s face, her mother’s long, silent endurance of too much suffering; the agonies of too many farewells. She gripped the rail with unconscious strength, and took a deluge of spray in her face without being aware of it.

‘And after all,’ said a quiet voice behind her, ‘what will it solve, my dear?’ She stood still, frozen. ‘Do you know Shakespeare? But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come…? Perhaps you would find yourself in worse condition.’

She turned unwillingly. He was middle-aged, stout, with a round face that should have been merry and was at this moment calm and solemn. In his eyes, behind small spectacles, was concern—or perhaps compassion. He was dressed in a dark suit now well out of style, and his black hat was pulled down firmly against the wind’s insolence.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, her face wet.

‘On the other hand,’ he went on as if she had not spoken, ‘you have a perfect right to do as you wish. How can I tell what level of futility you have reached? It may be that you have truly nothing left to live for. Who am I to stop you jumping?’

She stared at him, unable to find words. For a moment she was furiously angry, for she knew that, having been interrupted, she would not now take that final step. The man nodded at her kindly, as if they had known each other for a long while; he touched her arm and pointed across the heaving seas to the darkening horizon, where there was as yet nothing more to see.

‘Over there,’ he said, peering through rain-spotted glasses, ‘is England. A new life! The English are civilised. The savage European blood has not affected them so strongly. It may be that we shall meet misfortune there, also, but perhaps, just perhaps, our fortunes have changed.’ He glanced at her. ‘Can you be certain that they have not?’

She shook her head once, slowly. But she had nothing to say.

Without actually touching her, he somehow led her back to her little corner. No one had disturbed the baggage, and she sat down and pulled her coat around her, shivering again, but this time with a kind of delayed shock. She knew that she had really meant to do it, but she wouldn’t try again. He had made it an impossibility. He had asked her to think instead of feel.

She closed her eyes; contained in her own darkness she waited, detaching herself from the present reality of the plunging ship, the past reality of her world plunging to destruction. At first she sensed the man’s nearness, and then it was gone; when she opened her eyes he was no longer there. The twilight now darkening the sky and creating a new isolation for this shipload of strangers united in despair seemed to her to emanate from her own soul.

But there was, after all, a flutter of hope for her. The stranger had revived it. That small human contact had made her lift up her eyes and see past the immediate torment. Not very far past, certainly; but hope is a sturdy plant, flourishing in barren soils. She was here because of hope; and because of hope she would conquer her fear and call up her courage. Else, all the sacrifices that had been made would be rendered futile, wasted.

There were tears as well as spray on her face. On the crowded deck were dozens of stories like hers, some no doubt much worse. She took out a handkerchief and mopped the moisture from face and hands, tucked her scarf in more firmly, took a deep breath like a sob.

Someone shouted, startling her. The silent misery on deck stirred; in the dusk pale faces turned to stare towards the dark horizon.

‘Lights!’ the voice cried. ‘Look. Lights! It’s England!’

Far away, like a necklace against the sky, was Harwich.

Part 1

1

1934

The journey from home to factory took half-an-hour, walking. Whenever possible, Klara Hoffmann did it on foot, because for these thirty minutes she was answerable to no one. This was her luxury.

Living at home—she would be thirty in a week’s time—imposed its own restrictions; but they were bearable. Recently, though, she had felt that spending her days running the factory office for her father was more of a burden than a satisfaction. Seeing him at breakfast and dinner and then for eight or nine hours during the day was sometimes more than flesh and blood should be asked to stand. The thirty minutes in the morning gave her time to adjust to the day ahead.

Then, of course, she felt guilty. He was her father, he loved her, he was entitled to make the rules and see that they were kept; if he took full and autocratic authority for his family, as he had always done—the true patriarch—he also gave credit where credit was due. A fair and just man, as any of his workers would confirm.

Only—a bit too much to be with him (as not even her brother Erik was) for most of the working day. Not with thirty just around the corner.

Klara crossed the road where early morning traffic was beginning to move; she left the residential part of the town behind her, turning into a street of smaller, meaner dwellings, which finally gave way to businesses and then to factories. A couple more turnings brought her to the factory gate; the gatekeeper saluted her with a respectful smile.

‘A beautiful morning, Fräulein Hoffmann.’

She nodded. ‘Indeed it is! How is Frau Leven?’

‘Better, I thank you, Fräulein. She thanks you for the violets. They cheered her.’

Klara smiled quickly at him and crossed the yard to the office. On the far sides of the open square were two massive buildings, joined to make an L-shape: the factory proper. Men and women were making their way through the doors towards their day’s work. For seventy years, Hoffmann’s fine wool fabrics had clothed the backs of nobility and the more discerning of the professional classes. Suits made of Hoffmann cloth lasted well enough to be passed from father to son; ladies, with a quicker turn-over of clothes, bought the Hoffmann range of dress wools and the heavier tweeds which were without parallel for holidays in the Tyrol or visits to Scotland or Scandinavia. Each year Hoffmann’s exported fabrics all over Europe and Britain; even, in recent years, to America.

Such success meant that the Hoffmann family lived in comfort, ate well, attended opera and symphony concerts, visited art galleries, entertained friends in intimate dinners or gave occasional parties. The house was well run; and it contained a fine collection of antique furniture and paintings amassed over a lifetime.

The house itself, standing on a quiet street, was a haven of peace and serenity—Klara’s mother saw to that, taking her home duties as seriously as her husband ran his factory. It had not always been so silent; five children had grown up in these spacious, high-ceilinged rooms. But even then, when the two sons and three daughters had been young and full of life, there was an aura of quietness, of comfortable tranquillity. The noise and rumpus of growing up took place on the third floor, well away from the formal rooms below.

Despite firm parental control and the meticulously planned days, it had been a good way to grow; Klara’s sense of security, her feeling of rightness with the world, paid tribute to that. Even the adolescent kicks at authority had almost seemed part of the routine, making allowance for the animal spirits of youth. Her sisters Gertrude and Bertha, brothers Erik and Jacob, had kicked in their turn; but it had worked out well. All had served in the factory, learning the trade, weaving and packing and comprehending all the minute detail of processes that had given them a comfortable home and a desirable way of life.

They had been expected to understand the workers, too; the dozens of men and handful of women who annually created and delivered to the world’s markets the kilometres of fabric bearing the proud trademark of the house of Hoffmann.

‘They will be your workers one day,’ Herr Ernst Hoffmann had said to each of his children as they started out on the factory floor. ‘Never forget that a good product comes from a contented workshop. Care about their lives! Ask about their problems. It will pay dividends, not only in produce, but in humanity.’

Only Erik and Klara had stayed in the factory. Erik was now workshop manager; at thirty-one he was the oldest, and had grown comfortably solemn, married, and father already to two small boys.

Gertrude and Bertha, too, were married, their new lives taking them away to other cities; and Jacob, the youngest, was studying accountancy in a well-respected firm in Bonn. It was understood that once he was qualified he would handle the Hoffmann finances.

Klara entered the office. Margarete was there already, opening the day’s mail and seeing that inkwells were filled and pencils sharpened. She turned as Klara closed the door.

‘Good morning, Fräulein Klara. What a lovely morning!’

The day moved forward slowly on the oiled bearings of routine. Letters, dictation, typing; answering the phone, taking orders from some of Germany’s finest costumiers; seeing that Father had his coffee and cakes at the right time, that nothing had been left to chance; Klara could have done most of it in her sleep.

Today, indeed, that was how she felt—not asleep, perhaps, but out of touch with reality. The news, which seemed not to concern the people she worked with, filled her with a vague uneasiness. She had tried, as long ago as last year, to speak to her mother about it.

‘But what if they come to power, Mutti? Legally—or apparently legally? Doesn’t it disturb you? In the newspapers…’

‘Oh, the newspapers!’ Frau Hoffmann threw her small, plump hands in the air, then went back to counting the laundered linen. ‘Who takes any notice of the newspapers?’

‘Well, I do for one,’ Klara said, folding a bedspread carefully. ‘When there are so many strange reports. And these people…’

‘Which people?’

‘These National Socialists. This man Hitler! Haven’t you read what he is supposed to be saying? This man who has spent time in prison…’

‘Your father would tell me if there was something wrong. He has said nothing about this Herr Hitler.’

‘Then you should ask him, Mutti!’

Her mother glanced at her, quite clearly shocked. ‘My dear Klara, your father is the head of this house, and he knows what is best. I trust him implicitly, and he has never let us down.’

Klara regarded her sombrely. It seemed too much of an imposition for one imperfect man to have such expectations laid upon him. Though, she acknowledged silently, ‘imperfect’ was not a word her mother would ever use in that context.

‘I still think you should ask,’ she said quietly. ‘People are beginning to talk about him…’

‘About your father?’

Klara laughed briefly. ‘About Herr Hitler.’

‘I do know one thing,’ her mother said, unexpectedly sitting down on the edge of an upright chair. ‘The war was a terrible thing, and we all suffered. And afterwards—well, you remember the horror of those days, with Germany not only beaten but humiliated—insulted at every turn. The frightful unemployment, the economy running out of control. You remember how we almost lost everything in those days—those dreadful days when the factory stood silent and I thought your father would kill himself with the worry of it!’

Klara was surprised; no one but his wife could have seen beneath the controlled exterior to an inward turmoil of distress. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Nobody knew! Your father is a proud man, a strong man. But now…’ She made a wide, dramatic gesture with her hands, then bent to lift the carefully ironed bed-linen. ‘Now, life is much better. The factory is at full production. Your father is at peace in his mind. We live well…’

‘But not everybody does. Many cannot find work.’

Her mother sniffed. ‘Then they should try a little harder! No one in our family has ever lacked for work.’ Klara made no comment on this oft-repeated opinion. ‘And if this man Hitler can draw Germany together to become a great nation once more, then what is there to fear?’

‘Then you do know what’s going on!’ Klara said softly, trying to catch her mother’s eye. Frau Hoffmann shrugged.

‘One cannot help hearing.’

‘These National Socialists—they have used violence to make their presence felt. They are ruthless…’

‘Strong, dear. Germany needs strong men.’ She put out a hand and patted Klara’s shoulder. ‘Your father will tell us if there is something we should worry about.’

Klara went downstairs and out into the paved yard behind the house. ‘But he wouldn’t tell her,’ she whispered, shivering a little against a chill wind. ‘He wouldn’t tell her unless it was unavoidable. He is her rock, her safe place.’

So there was no one to talk to about this change which she felt powerfully was coming to this beautiful country she loved. Erik, like his father, believed that the role of man was to protect woman, and the role of woman to serve man. It was a simple philosophy, and it worked admirably as long as one chose a wife who felt the same. Klara was not that kind of woman. She had inherited her father’s resilience rather than her mother’s subservience; his strong face and searching intellect rather than her mother’s meek acceptance.

As for the others—Jacob was too taken up with studies and socialising to have time to spare for such a discussion, and they really did not have that sort of relationship. And Gertrude and Bertha—well, marriage had isolated her from them; their conversations had little for her, and hers none for them.

For the hundredth time she pondered the thought that this strange microcosm called ‘the family’ could only exist through mutual love, for it certainly was not maintained through shared interests—at least, not when the children had suddenly turned into young men and women. And what, she thought further, was her father’s role as patriarch in this newly adult family? With only herself and Jacob unmarried (and the others having by implication evaded the net) would all of that paternal searchlight beam on them alone, leaving them no privacy, no freedom of decision?

And when, as must happen, Jacob too flew from the nest, would she find herself illuminated centre stage, her every move, every thought even, mercilessly picked out for this audience of one?

‘But your father loves you,’ her mother had said, often, when Klara was younger and more overtly rebellious. ‘He wants only the best for you.’

And there, Klara thought, is the rub. If his love is all-embracing and autocratic, still it is love, and so cannot be resented by a fair-minded daughter; so she allowed herself to work for him, and found the discipline both wearing and fulfilling. But she knew she would never accept, not in the manner of her mother; if she were to marry, it would have to be to someone with a more modern outlook; someone who knew that a woman, too, needs freedom.

Since Heinrich, of course, the hopes of marriage had seemed to dwindle and fade like a summer mirage; while in one way she felt deprived of the natural development to marriage and children, in another she was thankful for the time to think. If they thought her an old maid, already on the shelf, she could hardly be held responsible for that. She seriously doubted whether marriage and motherhood would give her all she wanted out of life, anyway.

Heinrich had come into her life about the time Gertrude married, just a month or so before Bertha’s wedding; perhaps Klara was feeling unduly sentimental; perhaps there is something in the theory that one wedding brings another in its wake.

He was tall, well-built; not overly handsome, but good to look at in a comfortable sort of way. He was thirty-five, and he was the chief buyer for a tailoring firm in Munich. Three times a year he came to Hoffmann’s factory to order fabrics. Three times a year Klara poured coffee for him, escorted him around the warehouse, took notes of his comments and made out the order forms.

It took her by surprise, therefore, when their meeting developed a strangely electric quality; he had even been entertained by her father at home without this sparkling sensitivity for each other. It was mutual, and it seemed that it met with her parents’ approval, for Heinrich was invited not only to dinner, but to stay over the weekend before returning to Munich.

It was rather more a meeting of minds than of bodies. Two strong-minded people with powerful opinions found that they enjoyed discovering shared ideas; they even took pleasure in discussing those things they did not share.

‘There is need for strength in government,’ he assured her. ‘Germany respects strong leadership.’

‘Strong, yes.’ She had no quarrel with that. ‘But not to the point of persecution. Not to the point of unexplained killings.’

He laughed. ‘You are making fantasies! These people are not savages. No one is in danger who has nothing to hide.’

‘That is not quite true,’ she said mildly. ‘My sister in Berlin knows of a Jewish family where the father has been arrested and badly treated. And he is only one of several.’

‘Oh, these Jewish stories!’ he said with smiling exasperation. ‘Perhaps the man had done something wrong. Had you thought of that?’

‘He is a man like my father. Honest and forthright and full of dignity. Such men are not criminals.’

He took her hand and looked at her, his head a little on one side. ‘You worry too much, Klara. You are too intelligent!’ He laughed again at the expression on her face. ‘Too much for your own comfort.’

‘I have never heard intelligence described as a fault! But I can read, Heinrich, and I know what Herr Hitler wrote in his book, and I believe…’

‘Mein Kampf!’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘It is deeds that matter, not words written in prison. You will see! Strong actions now so that Germany can find her place in world society again. The weaknesses must go, Klara, I’m sure you can see that. The country is riddled with weakness, like a disease. People have to learn to stand up again and be proud of being German. We must have unity.’ He shrugged slightly, spreading his hands. ‘No doubt this will cause pain to some, but not to those whose hearts are with Germany. The Communists, for instance—they must be eradicated…’

‘What does eradicate mean in a case like this?’ She watched his face.

He thought for a moment. ‘They will have the chance of rejecting communism. If they don’t take it, they must pay the price.’

‘Which is?’

‘Prison, I suppose. That would be reasonable. After all, they pay allegiance to a foreign power. That’s treason! And in some cases—the death penalty, presumably.’

Klara gave an involuntary shudder. There were a couple of young fellows in the factory who called themselves ‘Communists’—nice youngsters, perhaps a little wild in their thinking, but harmless. Communism had been one of the options at the time when all they had loved about Germany had seemed crushed and sullied by defeat; those boys meant no harm. They did not deserve prison—or death.

But now, in the newness of her relationship with Heinrich, such things were only academic. He came to see her when he could from Munich—for his own pleasure and certainly not on business.

They went for long walks, driving the miles to the Rhine in the car which, astonishingly, her father was prepared to lend to Heinrich, if not to her! Then they would sit or wander by that glorious river, finding magical places she had never noticed when alone; and eat in small taverns or buy fresh bread and cheese and eat it on the river bank.

It was a slow-moving romance, a careful searching-out of mutual interests and needs; and a new softness came into Klara’s strong, decisive face, a new gentleness into her manner.

The courtship continued for a year. She was flattered that he came so far to see her; and gradually, in the solitary moments when he was not there, she began to adjust her thinking to a time when she would live in Munich, have her own home to run, begin to create a life together just as her parents had done more than thirty years ago. But this marriage would be based on equality of thinking, on honesty and openness; she was not, she thought, a woman to need protection from the harsh blows of life, as her mother was.

He came again, in the spring; and she was delighted to see him, and enjoyed the warm sensation of being briefly enclosed in his arms. He seemed to relish it as much as she did, and for half a day they sat and talked under the chestnut tree behind the house, with an unexpectedly warm sun shining through new-leafing branches.

At lunch he was impeccably courteous to her parents, jolly and older-brotherly with Jacob, who admired him enormously. He met Klara’s eyes now and then with a secret crinkle at the corners of his own for her alone, and she felt the flow of love run through her.

The men talked—about cloth-making, about clothes design, about labour relations; and the women and Jacob, having grown in the trade, did not object to the shop talk. Klara regarded with pleasure the way Heinrich’s hair grew slightly curly above his ears, though the rest of it, thick and fair, lay as smooth and controlled as when he had brushed it that morning. He was, she thought, letting herself dream a little, a properly controlled person. Life might not have the perpetual sparkle of adventure with him, but it would not descend into acrimony, either. That suited her; she had no time for the emotional hurly-burly of a mismatched marriage.

Later in the afternoon they walked to the park, where there was a small lake with ducks and children creating a lively bustle. Heinrich drew her hand through his arm and held it close against his side, smiling at her.

‘How you men talk!’ she said, smiling back. ‘And they say women are the gossips.’

‘I admire your father. I always enjoy talking with him. He is a man full of wisdom and good ideas. There should be more like him.’

‘And he likes you,’ she said lightly, suddenly shy. ‘So does my mother.’

‘And that is as it should be,’ he said comfortably. ‘Within a family there should be pleasure in each other’s company.’ He stopped and turned towards her. ‘Klara—my mother has sent an invitation for you to come to Munich and meet my family. Will you come?’

There was a formality about the request that made it more than it seemed to be. The invitation, she told herself, then the proposal—after he has spoken to Father, of course—then the acceptance and, at last, the marriage! It seemed good and right. ‘I would love to come,’ she said.

They walked round the lake, then found a bench and sat down. All at once he was silent, as if their future had suddenly laid a weight on him. She touched him with her gloved hand. ‘Are you regretting it already?’

He gave her a swift smile. ‘No. Not that! But there is something on my mind. Something I want to tell you.’ He paused and she waited, intrigued. ‘I have come to a decision,’ he said, leaning forward a little, hands on knees. ‘I want you to know about it, and think about it before you make any comment.’ He stopped again.

‘What is it?’

‘Something which may make quite a difference to my life—and so to yours.’ He faced her squarely. ‘I have decided to join the National Socialists.’

For a moment she could not think what he meant. Then, in a rush of emotion, she understood. ‘But…’

‘Don’t say anything until you’ve thought about it. I have given the matter a great deal of thought, and I know I’m doing the right thing.’ She sat with her teeth biting into her lip, holding back the words she wanted to pour out. ‘I know you have all kinds of things against them, but you must believe that I wouldn’t do anything I would have to be ashamed of. I believe this is the way for Germany. All I have heard recently, all I have been able to discover, tells me that it is the way. A new Germany—it’s exciting, Klara! A new Germany to take the place of the old. A new spirit to dissolve all the shame of the past. A leader who can talk to any statesman in Europe and give us back the status we need if we are to achieve our full potential!’

His eyes were shining. Klara stared at him, seeing him gripped by an excitement she knew she could never share; and a sense of acute disappointment flooded through her. She listened as he went on at length, building for her the promised land in which she knew she could not have a part; and the words which had burnt in her mouth slowly turned to ashes and left her with dry, cold lips.

‘You do see, don’t you?’ he said at last, turning to her and taking her hands in his. ‘You do understand?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, I see that it means a great deal to you. And I will think about it before I make any decisions. But my first impulse…’ She lifted her eyes to look directly at him. ‘My first impulse, Heinrich, is that you will be heading for disaster.’

A flicker of annoyance crossed his face. ‘Nonsense!’ he said, laughing too heartily. ‘You have quite the wrong idea.’

‘But what about their—their policies, of race and such? Their antipathy towards the Jews? How will you stand with them on such matters?’

He was serious again, staring down at his hands. ‘Too much has been made of a few unimportant incidents,’ he said finally. ‘As my wife you would be totally acceptable anywhere.’

Klara kept her eyes on his face. ‘Am I to be your wife, then? You haven’t asked me.’

‘I shall ask you when I have spoken to your father. Naturally!’

‘I see.’ She looked across the grass to where a pair of ducks chased each other around the lake, and sighed. How infinitely desirable it would be at this moment to be a duck! ‘And you think your protection will be enough?’

‘Undoubtedly.’

‘Let us suppose,’ she said slowly, ‘that I were to say no.’ He shot a sudden look at her. ‘Only suppose! And found myself without your protection. What might happen to me then? Under your National Socialists, I mean.’

‘Well—nothing. Why should it?’

‘Doesn’t Herr Hitler have a policy of racial purity?’

‘Yes, he does. But why should you fear, Klara? Your family is respected. It’s only the ones who are enemies to the state who will be penalised. The ones who batten on the country and suck it dry. Everyone knows what a fine man your father is, how good a master to his workers. Nothing will happen to people like him.’ He met her eyes. ‘Believe me!’

‘But if I were to marry you it would create a double certainty, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes! Yes, that’s it. Exactly.’

She stood suddenly. ‘Let’s walk. I’m getting cold.’ They strolled together, but this time there was a separation between them, hardly defined, but both were aware of it. ‘Can you tell me,’ she said slowly, ‘why I should feel apprehensive, here in my own country that I love, here in the park I have walked in since I was a baby, here with the man I hope to marry? What is happening in Germany? Am I afraid of shadows?’

‘Shadows!’ he said, grasping at the word. ‘That’s what it is. Not reality! Shadows.’ He smiled at her tentatively, as if he had momentarily lost confidence.

‘I shall be in Munich if I marry you.’ She took a deep breath to steady herself. ‘Munich, where it all started. Where riots and savagery first took place. Where Hitler was arrested. That beautiful city! It would be Munich, not here, which would be my home.’

‘But with me!’ he said urgently. ‘With me.’

She regarded him almost with detachment. The control she had always so admired had shredded before her eyes. Whatever it was, this Nazism, had grabbed him by the throat and shaken him out of his tolerance, his easy charm. This man she had not seen before; and she was not sure if this was a man, with or without Nazism, whom she could marry. If there were shadows, it seemed that one had just fallen across their intellectual rapport and blighted it.

‘As you say,’ she said finally as they turned for home, ‘I must think before I come to any decision. Thank you for telling me—you could easily have kept this to yourself. Perhaps I may find something about it that pleases me.’ But she knew, and he sensed, that their relationship had changed as a landscape does when the sun that bathes it goes behind a cloud.

Only this cloud, she mourned silently, will not blow away in a puff of wind.

She would not be seeing him again before summer; but the invitation from his mother came in due course on thick, stylish paper, and she answered it in the affirmative with great care. Meanwhile she read the letters that came from him, busy, active letters saying, and not saying, much about his new passion. The old passion, his love for her, was there, too; she would have been put off by expressions of romantic devotion, and was pleased that he did not try them on her.

But the new love disturbed her greatly. It was not even so much the political implications; it was the change in him as a man, from calm reliability to a sort of boyish enthusiasm. It was, she thought once, as if he had been too mature too soon, and was making up for it.

But the antics of the Nazis constituted no game. Gertrude on a visit home told her things in hushed confidence that haunted Klara in the night. In the clear light of day she knew she must keep them to herself. The signal allowing them to start worrying had not yet come from her father!

Berlin, even in the outer suburbs where Gertrude lived, was in a state of nervous tension in that early summer. ‘I don’t know much about it,’ Gertrude said as they fed the ducks on the lake. ‘But Fritz says it’s bad. There’s this man called Roehm—you know, the Brownshirt—who seems to have too much power. Then there are the others, Hindenburg’s followers. They’re afraid of what’s happening. So Fritz says. They want the awful things to be stopped.’

‘What awful things?’ Klara asked, turning to watch her young sister.

‘Well, you know! The fighting and the—the arrests, and the…’

‘The persecutions!’ Klara smiled without humour. ‘As long as they have the Jews to persecute they feel strong. Perhaps that has been our role in history—to make our enemies feel strong!’

‘There’s nothing strong in making people suffer!’ Gertrude said irately. ‘But Klara—I’m afraid. In Berlin you feel it so keenly. The marching and the riots and the arrests, a sense of danger that you can’t quite even place. You only know it’s there.’ She threw a last crust into the water and watched the wild turmoil as the ducks tore and spluttered after it. ‘What is it about being a Jew, Klara? We haven’t even been brought up to be orthodox. I wouldn’t know what to do if I visited a synagogue! I feel German. I am German! I don’t even look particularly Jewish.’

Klara agreed silently; the oval face was attractive, though the olive complexion was clearly not Aryan, in the Nazi sense. Gertrude could easily have been Greek or Italian, with that dark, lustrous hair coiled into a roll at the nape of the neck. ‘I’m the Jewish one,’ Klara thought. ‘I have the heavy features, the dominating nose, the dark, deep-set eyes. I could have come straight out of the Scriptures. But not Gertrude—or Bertha.’

2

The visit to Munich was fixed for early July. Her father had willingly given her time off for this important social engagement. She looked ahead to her meeting with Heinrich’s family with very mixed feelings.

Gertrude went back to Berlin late in June. Rumours and counter-rumours mingled with scandals to keep the population on its toes; but the truth was far from them. However black might have been the prognostications of disaster, no one had foreseen the truly horrific times that were about to befall this new Germany.

Too late, Papen tried to call back the dogs he had helped to unleash on Europe; his speech at the University of Marburg, leaked to foreign editors, was suppressed at home.

The denunciations that followed should have brought a shiver to every decent heart. For a brief moment in time, old Hindenburg stared down the new Chancellor; but perhaps it was already too late for that, as well. Hitler had too much to lose by submitting, and everything to gain by forging ahead on his chosen path.

What happened by the water on that fateful morning? It may be that Hitler believed the tales brought to him by Himmler, among others; did Roehm intend to bring him down and establish a Brownshirt dictatorship? Was it just opportunism? For Roehm it was all the same thing. In the early hours of June 30, in a hotel on the shores of the Tegernsee, he came face to face with the man who called himself Führer, and died violently at the hands of Hitler’s henchmen. With him perished scores of his followers, and with their deaths Germany itself died a little.

The news seeped through, garbled and twisted, no doubt; but what was beyond doubt was that something dire and dreadful had taken place in this country which had also bred some of the finest Europeans of the past two centuries.

Klara woke up the next morning with her mind made up. Whether he liked it or not, her father must speak to her. She must have guidance; she needed to ask questions, to evaluate, to ponder. It was time to break the seal her mother had put upon them

At mid-morning, when she carried in his coffee, she paused instead of leaving him; he glanced up. ‘Yes, Klara?’

‘I want to speak to you, Father.’

‘Will it do tonight?’

She shook her head. Already she was half wishing she had not spoken. ‘No. I don’t want Mother to know…’

He regarded her steadily, and she kept her eyes