A Kiss for the Enemy (64 page)

He talked for a little, without strain. Anthony discovered that they had never told Franzi much about Anna's death, insofar as details were known. The boy was anxious to learn. Hints and guesses can fester more than the most brutal facts. He listened with gratitude while Anthony, painfully, carefully, told him all he knew.

‘They told you that I saw a good deal of your mother at that time? That she hid me, an escaped enemy prisoner of war, at Langenbach, nursed me, saved my life?'

‘Yes, Cousin Lise told me the story. It's amazing. I can never understand it fully. I mean, it's a romantic story, Uncle Anton, but it must have seemed, even to my mother, an extraordinary thing to do. I know she hated the Nazis and so forth, but after all there was a war and you were, were –'

‘An enemy. Yes.'

‘I can see even Cousin Kaspar von Arzfeld finds it hard to understand. And he loved my mother. And nobody could hate the Nazis more than him. They killed his son.'

‘Certainly. But I'm sure he finds it hard to accept, as you say. It was – what your mother did was – the action of a very brave, remarkable woman, you see. A person whose moral sense was much higher than –'

Anthony could not find the right words. It would be misleading to say ‘than patriotism'. Anna's patriotism was profound.

‘Than that of other people,' Franzi supplied.

One could settle for that.

‘I suppose war turns everybody's moral ideas a bit upside down, Uncle.'

‘There's an English saying “All's fair in love and war”. It's not true. Cruelty and injustice remain cruelty and injustice whether or not you're fighting for your life, or however strong your passions. Decency and mercy are noble whatever flag you're fighting under.'

‘Human qualities more important than causes.'

‘Causes matter too, Franzi. Causes matter too.'

They started speaking of Frido. Franzi knew the story well.

‘Cousin Lise adored her brother.'

‘So did everybody, rightly so. I'm glad to have the chance
to tell you how he looked to me, a comparative stranger, an enemy as it turned out.'

He talked, finding himself remembering with greater vividness all the time. Franzi nodded, fascinated, his slender fingers moving as his hand rested on the steering wheel, as if he were fingering a clarinet.

‘The fact that I knew some of your people so – so well – helped me through what I think of as the first gateway to wisdom.'

‘Which is –?'

Anthony tried to speak casually, to avoid sententiousness.

‘To put oneself in another's place. To ask “How would I have behaved?” To avoid being self-righteous, sanctimonious,
scheinheilig.
To condemn evil, but to remember that the evildoers are themselves what I suppose religious people would call the wandering, alienated children of God.'

He said it as lightly as he could. He didn't know if Franzi believed in God.

‘Not easy, Uncle Anton.'

‘Not easy at all. The Nazi period was an aberration.'

Franzi said, ‘Germans could be found to do these things. I have read books, Uncle Anton, some people say they're exaggerated but I don't think so, books by survivors. Of the camps. The stories – not only the mass murders, but the obscenities, the humiliations, the things human beings were made to do so that their masters could laugh!' He paused, rather breathless, remembering.

‘Horrible, Franzi, horrible, I know. And everywhere, regrettably, people can be found to whom tasks of the utmost beastliness become matters of routine, reward, promotion. Sensibilities get dulled quickly, Franzi, and some people start with precious few. And don't forget that more camp guards than not were non-German – Poles, Russians, Latvians, and so forth. No race has a monopoly of brutality, Franzi.'

After a little Anthony said, ‘People are capable of all manner of disgusting behaviour when they are taught to regard other human beings as mere objects.'

‘And the Jews, for instance, were objects.'

‘Yes – threatening, malevolent objects for whom no humiliation could be too extreme, no policy too inhuman – because,
you see, they were less than human, outside the ordinary limits. Words didn't apply any more.'

He knew that he had to turn back from the relief afforded by history, world politics, back even from philosophy and morality, painfully back to themselves, to Anthony and Franzi. After a little he said,

‘Your mother's action in saving me led to her arrest and her death, Franzi. You would have the right to hate me for that.'

Franzi's slim hands were tighter on the wheel than they had been. He said,

‘Yes, I realize that. But I don't hate you, Uncle Anton. I don't quite understand it, but I'm sure my mother did what she felt she had to do. That she could do no other.'

‘What do you remember most about her? Describe it to me.'

‘Something gentle, very strong at the same time. Perhaps all mothers are like that.'

‘No, not all. Go on.'

‘When I was unhappy, upset about something, frightened, she only had to speak a word, touch me once, let me feel the skin of her hand against my cheek. Very soft, dry, cool –'

‘Yes,' said Anthony. ‘Soft. Dry. Cool. Yes.'

‘Then I was peaceful. It was like being blessed.'

‘Go on.'

Franzi seemed to have run out of recollections. Anthony said,

‘Her voice? What do you remember about her voice?' Franzi nodded, eyes on the Sussex road, absorbed.

‘Her voice. Always seeming about to smile. But that's wrong, isn't it? A voice laughs, it doesn't smile.'

‘No, your mother's voice smiled, you put it quite right.'

‘And everything – everything expressed very definitely. Strongly – kindly but strongly. I can't think of her voice saying anything boring, or stupid, or cruel.'

‘Never. Franzi, your memory is absolutely correct. Can you remember what she looked like?'

‘A pale face. Brown hair. Tall – but I suppose everyone seemed tall to me. She used to take my hands and I would climb up her with my feet, as if she were a tree. I loved looking at her face. Something was always happening to it. It was never still. Like the voice – never dull. Alive. Am I right?'

‘Entirely right. Franzi, did your cousin Lise tell you that I – I and my sister Marcia, whom you know so well – first met your mother before the war began? We visited Arzfeld, you see.'

‘And my mother was there?'

‘No – we broke down in a car, Marcia wasn't there. It was near Langenbach. Your mother rescued us. She always rescued people. And she drove us back to Arzfeld. Then I – I met her in London, when she used to visit her grandmother. As you know, you've got English blood, an English great-grandmother.'

Anthony tried to keep his voice conversational, as if at the level of social reminiscence. It was, he knew with self-contempt, an effort both absurd and unsuccessful. Franzi, however, seemed preoccupied with something else. He was frowning slightly. The afternoon was momentarily less brilliant. A small black cloud had drifted across from France to mask the sun. Still cowardly, Anthony felt the need to lighten the atmosphere, to remind them both of banality, weather, routes, traffic, people.

‘Next week these roads will be much more crowded. They have a big race meeting, horse racing – at a beautiful place near here, called Goodwood. At the end of July.'

They drove on in silence for a while. Franzi said ruminatively,

‘So you first met my mother before the war, at Langenbach, Uncle Anton! Then you met my father?'

‘No,' said Anthony. ‘He was away. In Spain. Your grandparents, the Langenbachs were there, of course.'

Suddenly he knew, with complete assurance, that he loved Franzi, loved him as he had only once felt love for anybody, loved him deeply, proudly, painfully. It was at the same time natural and profoundly disturbing. The realization made him catch his breath. ‘Something about love!' Marcia had said. Yes, indeed, a thousand times! It seemed as if the small cold lump in the heart which had been there so long, an irremovable part of him, was there no longer and he felt warm, transformed. He looked at Franzi. Yes, he thought, illuminated, astonished, I love him. He is my son, and I thank God for him and I love him with all my heart. It is right that he is with me now. It is right that he should hear me.

Franzi looked straight ahead, absorbed, still frowning a little. Then he turned his head, looked full into Anthony's eyes for a second, and smiled.

‘Uncle –'

‘For God's sake –
Get over to the left
!'

Franzi jerked the wheel and wrenched the car over to the left. Absence of traffic on the small country lane had led him momentarily to forget where he should be holding the car. It was, however, uncertain that he could have averted the accident, for the heavy, square, blue van belonging to an electrical components company was driving too fast down the crown of the narrow lane towards them, swinging too fast and too wide round the narrowing bend, bound for collision. As it was, the van caught the right-hand passenger side of the Mercedes like a sharp, merciless, slicing knife.

The ambulance took only twenty minutes to come. The spot was remote, no telephone near, the van driver and Franzi both shattered but without serious physical injury. A considerate householder, home three hundred yards away, heard the crash, drove to the scene, raced back, telephoned. By then, however, Anthony was dead.

‘I did not believe you would come. I did not dare hope you would come.'

He spoke the words softly. He had been sitting at the table for twenty minutes. He had posted the note in good time. She must have received it.

‘I shall be at “L'Alouette” restaurant in Walton St from a quarter to one next Thursday, 9th September. I shall live only in the hope that you will lunch with me there.'

He wished to give her no difficulty or embarrassment about reply. With a humility which he had never evinced in earlier days he had simply made himself available, left the invitation like a sigh, a whisper in her ears, resigned to being taken for granted, spurned, or simply ignored. It had not been difficult to find her address. ‘I shall live only in the hope that you will lunch with me there.' And for twenty minutes, feeling like a boy of eighteen, who waits nervous, sick at heart, thinking it impossible a woman can take him seriously, he sat in the restaurant called ‘L'Alouette'. One o'clock struck on the church tower in Pont St.

There was another movement at the swing doors. It was a small place. Every time the doors opened a slight draught, not unpleasant, brushed the tables. From his position at the far end of the narrow room he could see the street doors open, shut again. It happened every thirty seconds from the moment of his settling at this table. Every thirty seconds another sickening, deadening disappointment.

‘An aperitif, sir?'

‘I'll wait. My guest will be here soon.'

Badgered by the waiter again, needing distraction, he ordered a drink at one o'clock.

‘My guest seems to be a bit late. I'd like a whisky.'

‘A scotch, sir? With soda water?'

‘With nothing.

He waited what seemed an age but was in fact one minute for the whisky, sipped it without taste or pleasure. He saw his reflection in the clear, brown liquid as he put the glass down. ‘Since when has whisky been reflective, Narcissus?' – feeling an idiot, though nobody could have detected his thoughts, he had momentarily ignored the fact that the restaurant table mat was a circle of polished metal and had shown him his face through the whisky at the base of the glass. ‘Not much to lunch with!' He had been surprised to see how distraught he had looked in that twisted reflection. The swing doors again, an infuriating sound, the draught of air, the renewal of tension. He carefully refrained from looking up. He'd order a solitary lunch and eat it, nauseated by it; he'd order it at one-fifteen.

‘Sorry I'm a bit late.'

He could not look up at first, his heart was thumping so hard he needed a second for self-collection. There was no doubt of it. He rose stiffly to his feet. She was wearing a light grey dress, bare arms, a red belt, red handbag. Eyes as he remembered, mouth as he remembered. Voice a little deeper than he remembered, although it had always been deep, full-throated.

‘I did not believe you would come.'

‘Well, I don't suppose I should have, should I?' said Marcia. ‘But here I am.'

‘I was distressed to hear about your brother. Truly distressed.'

It had taken about ten minutes to cover the preliminaries, set up transmission posts, establish communication. Ten minutes, with the heart of each beating fast.

‘It's been ghastly. We were very close.'

‘I know that.'

‘Poor, darling old Ant,' she blinked back tears. ‘Of course, you know he was once in love with Anna Langenbach? With the woman you wanted to marry, Toni!'

Toni looked at his plate, unsmiling, and then looked up, looked Marcia full in the face.

‘Yes, I did want that. It was a piece of selfish foolishness. I thought you and I had no future.'

‘Well, I suppose we didn't really. And Anna had a pretty good future!'

‘Everything seemed possible. She was attractive, we got on. And yes, of course I was influenced by the fact that she was a woman – let's say a woman of property. Does one say that?'

‘It has a nice, old-fashioned ring. And you were a nice, old-fashioned boy, weren't you!'

Toni didn't smile.

‘For two reasons it was criminal folly. First, because I didn't in the least love her, delightful, lovely woman though she was. Second because I loved you.'

Marcia nibbled at a
Noisette d'agneau
with little appetite. Toni continued, almost inaudibly –

‘Yes, I loved you. But I didn't reckon, at the time, that I loved you so much that nothing else could ever be a substitute for it. I thought I might – how would you put it? – get you out of my system. By the means of an elegant, charming, desirable alternative.'