A Kiss for the Enemy (7 page)

‘
So much one man can do

That does both act and know.
'

He stuttered slightly, as always when quoting.

Kaspar smiled at him gratefully. ‘Ode to the Lord Protector,' he said. ‘To your Cromwell, eh?'

Werner von Arzfeld spoke English well, though less practised than his brother, ‘Ach! What was that again? So much –'

‘
So much one man can do

That does both act and know
!'

‘It is good that,' said Werner, ‘and true, I think. Those that act, that perform deeds are often without wisdom. And those that know and are wise, too often think and talk and do nothing. Is that not so?'

Marcia had been sitting on a sofa exchanging in a soft voice desultory, smiling remarks with Lise. Lise had acknowledged them with answering smiles, but briefly and with an anxious eye for her father and brothers. It did not seem entirely appropriate to conduct a feminine
tête-à-tête
in the presence of so much masculine, worldly understanding from which, surely, one should learn. Marcia had, at the same time, been particularly conscious of Werner. She thought it about time that her voice, too, should be heard by the men and she now responded to Werner's general question.

‘Perhaps people that know do nothing
because
they're wise. What's so clever about action?'

Frido looked disconcerted. Werner smiled.

‘You are a soldier,' said Marcia directly to Werner. ‘I suppose you're brought up, trained to think that doing is the important thing. Not meditating!'

‘I was also brought up to think that action, unless directed by a well-trained, objective mind is likely to be disastrous!'

‘We're some way from Cromwell,' said Anthony. He felt liberated from excessive constraint by the delightful wine and he was determined to use the evening, the presence of a German officer, for contemporary probing rather than philosophic word-play. Germans, he said to himself a little hazily, go in for heavy generalizations, so I've heard. Real issues have to be measured by particular examples.

‘C-Cromwell,' said Anthony, as they listened attentively, ‘had Marvell writing an ode in his praise. He may have tamed the Irish in a year, as the poet put it, but it didn't last and they hate his name to this day. He treated the Irish, when he caught or beat them, as being outside the pale of ordinary humanity. Men, women and children.'

There was a silence. Kaspar von Arzfeld said,

‘Religious questions bring great savagery. That happened in the seventeenth century. You had your Cromwell. In Germany, we had war for thirty years. Men come to believe that their enemies are less than human, accursed by God. Then every cruel action becomes – permitted.'

Anthony felt a bond of sympathy with this old countryman with one arm, so unpretentious, so grave and so sincere. He experienced a sense of barriers coming down. It must be a time for frankness. Friendly frankness.

‘Indeed, that was so in the seventeenth century, as you say, Herr von Arzfeld. And what about now?'

‘Now? I do not think Catholics and Protestants wish to kill each other now! Here in this valley,' said Kaspar with a smile, ‘it is true that Catholics tend to live on one bank of the river and we Protestants on the other! We do not, perhaps, make our friends very much among people of the other Church. But we do not think them accursed! We live happy together now, we are all Germans, these things are long past.'

‘I was with Marcia in Herzenburg this morning,' said Anthony, ‘in Franconia.'

His host nodded.

‘Herzenburg. A pretty place,' said Werner.

‘A beautiful place. Marcia and I were very – very surprised, to see the number of placards violently hostile to Jews: “Jews not welcome.” Is that the policy of your Government? Are Jews regarded as Germans with the rights of Germans – officially?'

There was a long silence.

‘It is a complicated matter,' said Kaspar steadily. None of his children looked at their father. ‘Yes, it is complicated,' he continued. ‘There has been much feeling against the Jews in some places. Generally for economic reasons, I think. Of course, there are also historic prejudices – in most parts of Europe, I believe. Perhaps less in Germany than elsewhere,
like Poland, Russia. Herzenburg is an ancient, mediaeval town, your guidebook will have told you. Perhaps it has, also, some ancient mediaeval habits of mind.'

‘Surely what we saw wasn't just the expression of individuals' dislike? And there was some sort of official celebration. Nazis in uniform everywhere.'

Von Arzfeld nodded, expressionless. Werner looked at Anthony with the same silent smile in his eyes. ‘You've not got far, have you!' he thought. The men puffed at their cigars. Anthony frowned.

‘How long leave have you, Werner?' asked his father.

‘One whole week of peace. Arzfeld in the spring. And I hardly saw it last year.'

‘I hope,' said Kaspar seriously to Anthony, ‘that your sister and you will stay here as long as you wish. Frido does not return to Marburg at all. He will start his military service in June. You have heard that my son, Werner here, has a holiday. It will be good for Lise that you are with us.'

‘You're very kind, sir.'

‘This is a beautiful part of Germany, especially in the spring. Our beech woods are famous. And you have a fine car. So does Frido. You can visit, if you wish, some of our Lower Saxon villages and towns. There is much to see.'

‘We must not stay too long. You're too kind –'

‘It is a pleasure for us. Frido and Lise see few people when they are in their old home. It is a pleasure for us.'

Lise smiled at Marcia and nodded as her father spoke. She took Marcia's hand.

‘It is as my father says. There is much to see. Here it is always quiet. Not dull, but quiet. Here there is always peace.'

‘You like to ride horses, Marcia?'

‘Yes, Werner, I love it. I'm not very brave but I love it.'

‘I know that already. I could see how it was when we were in the stables with the horses on Tuesday. I watched you and Lise. You love them. This morning we will ride. I will show you some parts of the countryside you have not seen.'

‘How lovely. Anthony's never been as keen as me, but I expect he'll –'

‘Anthony is taking Frido and Lise on a long expedition. They are going to Celle. It is a town north of Hanover. It was where the “Kurfürsten” had their palace. Later, they were your kings.'

‘Oh, is it pretty?'

‘Very beautiful. But the woods here are more beautiful still. And the day is warm, extraordinarily warm. The sky is blue. It is better to ride on a horse and smell the smells of outside than the petrol from Anthony's car, is it not? We will take something to eat in a bag with us.'

‘Your father –'

‘My father has business.'

‘I've not got anything to ride in –'

‘Lise will lend to you. You and she are the same size, I think. I have spoken to her.'

Marcia thought she had never experienced such a degree of tranquillity. The silence in the woods was like a piece of music. They had climbed some way. Now they rode between huge beeches, planted regularly but without oppressive symmetry. They trotted along broad, grassy rides, the spring sun striking through the trees to produce alternate patches of shadow and light. The woods hung from a steep hill whose contour their
horses followed, a hill crowned to the east by the broken rolling country in which Arzfeld lay. West, and now far below them, the river Weser flowed quietly northward in the valley, silver and serpentine.

Marcia felt very happy. All about her pleased the eye. Arzfeld, in the five days she and Anthony had spent there, had enfolded her in a friendly yet disciplined calm. She had, to her surprise, found herself enjoying the emphasis on regularity and simplicity – the sense of harmony between her host's family, their employees and their possessions. She felt witness to an unbroken rustic process. The link that bound these people to their home was primitive and potent. Marcia was seeing all things through a joyful haze. She was well aware why. Werner kicked his horse to a canter and she followed.

The evening before had been fine and promised the perfect April day which they now enjoyed. After supper Lise had sat at the piano with a shy, secret smile. After a little – the notes falling on the air, gentle, unassertive, she said something to Frido who had been humming softly.

‘Aha,' said Kaspar – ‘Ja, Frido – the second verse –'

Frido, without self-consciousness, put back his head without rising from his chair –

‘
Der Mond, der ist ihr Buhle
–'

He had a gentle, true voice.

‘Bravo, Frido,' said his father.

‘Go on, Frido,' said Werner, ‘you can't stop before the final verse. No happy endings please!'

‘
Sie blüht und glüht und leuchtet

Und starret stumm in die Höh:

Sie duftet und weinet und zittert

Vor liebe und liebesweh

Vor liebe und liebesweh
!'

Frido sang, very softly. He enunciated clearly and Marcia thought she had caught most of the words. The song was half-familiar.

She said, ‘
Lotosblume
, isn't it?'

‘Yes. The poor
Lotosblume
– and the poor moon, her lover.'

‘What's “
Zittert
”,' Frido?'

‘Trembles. She weeps and trembles.'

‘From love and its pain,' said Werner with his usual half-smile – ‘“
Chagrin d'amour
” and so forth.'

‘Is it Schumann?' asked Marcia, breaking a quiet that had a touch of tenseness in it.

‘It is. A song by Heinrich Heine.'

‘Ah,' said Anthony. ‘
Ein Jüde
,' he added with a smile to Kaspar.

‘A charming lyric poet,' said von Arzfeld, unsmiling, and they were quiet again as Lise touched the keys.

After that first evening, neither Anthony nor she had directly raised with any of the von Arzfelds the questions which were so profoundly disturbing the mind of Europe – the character, the obsessions, the brutality of Germany's young régime. Marcia would have described herself as not particularly interested in politics, but these things were frequently headlined in the British press and the sort of vindictiveness which she and Anthony had witnessed in Herzenburg had little to do with politics and everything, surely, to do with common humanity. It erected a barrier, created a gulf filled by unspoken, distressing ideas, between, she thought, them and us.

But this shadow in the background, which she would have liked some open discussion to acknowledge and perhaps to lift – this had certainly not darkened her increasingly radiant perception of Werner von Arzfeld. She found that she had never experienced so disturbing a personality. ‘He is so different to his brother,' she thought. ‘Frido is charming, gentle, articulate.' Werner said little. He appeared, at times, almost surly in his silences; his quick, decisive movements, made as if impatient with the delay which consideration of others might impose. Yet Werner's smile was enchanting, and his eyes caressing and hypnotic. As Marcia rode from sunlight to shade and on again, she felt Werner's presence all about her, both exciting and alarming.

Werner checked his horse to a walk and Marcia drew level. She looked into his face. Her cheeks were flushed from the exercise. She wore a borrowed riding cap and a pair of Lise's jodhpurs and was warm enough with only her cardigan over a short-sleeved yellow shirt.

‘Werner, you know that question we were talking about on our first evening – the way Jews are being treated –'

Werner appeared not to hear. He did not turn his head. They were riding stirrup to stirrup.

‘We've not talked about it since, but –'

Werner suddenly reined in. He said,

‘This way,' and cantered fifty yards to his left down a small crossing ride, leading to a circle of grass surrounded by young evergreens. Plantations of the latter were interspersed with the great beech colonies in a pattern of contrasting colour and texture. Marcia followed. Werner dismounted and took her horse's bridle.

‘We will eat here. It is warm and dry. And through the trees, there, one looks west across the valley. It is beautiful is it not?' He smiled into her eyes as she slipped from the saddle, took off her cap and shook her hair from her face.

It was indeeed a beautiful place. The dark shapes of hills rose sharply west of the Weser, etched against the sky. Small, red-roofed villages were perceptible in their folds. Werner looped the reins of both horses over the stump of a dead tree and produced a blanket from in front of his saddle. Unfolding it on the grass he took bread, smoked sausage and apples from a saddle bag.

‘The grass is already dry but this will be better.' He gestured to Marcia to sit down. She took off her cardigan and felt the spring sun hot on her bare arms. Really, it was remarkable weather! Werner, sitting beside her, started cutting the sausage with a pocket knife.

As he did so, he said softly, in his exact, slightly pedantic-sounding way, not looking at her,

‘You and your brother always want to talk about Jews. There are many other things to talk about. Many other things I would like to talk to you about, Marcia.'

‘Werner, you can't say we “always” want to talk about the Jews! We – Anthony – mentioned them once, our first evening. Not since. And isn't it important? If one lot of people are being bullied, hounded –'

‘Hounded?'

‘Yes. Hunted.
Gehetzt
, isn't that it? And if that's happening,
isn't it both wrong and important? And it's getting you all a very bad name.'

Werner had finished preparing the sausage. He folded the knife, put it away and seemed to be considering. He said,