Heritage (48 page)

‘Goodnight,' she whispered.

‘Goodnight, Peggy,' he replied, and he remained gazing up at the ceiling. He knew she was puzzled, and possibly hurt, that he had made no physical overtures. But he couldn't make love to her – he no longer had the right. And what was he to say to her by way of explanation? I am married? My wife has come back from the dead?

Lucky's mind was in turmoil. His lives had collided – he was two men now. What was expected of him? What must he do?

In the morning he was still preoccupied and there was an awkwardness between them. Peggy cooked breakfast as a matter of course, but they didn't eat much. Peggy thought how they would normally have eaten Sunday breakfast in bed, rolling about and making love among the crumbs.

‘I have to go out for a while,' he said.

She started clearing the table. He never went out on a Sunday morning. She knew he was going to meet her.

‘Will you be coming back?' she asked. ‘For lunch, I mean? Will I get lunch?' She walked over to the sink so that he wouldn't see the tears that had sprung to her eyes. She hated the way she sounded so pathetic. She should have yelled ‘tell me what's going on', but she couldn't. She could only wait until he told her it was over.

Lucky registered the strain in her voice and crossed to her, seeing the tears that she tried to blink furiously away.

‘Yes, I'll be coming back.' He held her close. She was hurt, confused by his remoteness. He owed her an explanation, but he was confused himself. He didn't know what to say, or how to say it. So he told her the truth about his feelings instead. ‘I love you, Peggy Minchin,' he said. ‘You are the world to me.'

The words which had meant so much only the previous day now had a hollow ring to Peggy, and when he'd gone she busied herself with unnecessary household chores, filling in the morning until his return, all the while fearing the worst.

 

Maarten Vanpoucke popped into the newsagents and bought himself a paper to read over his coffee and pastry, as he did every Sunday morning. Then, browsing the headlines, he ambled down Sharp Street towards the little cafe which he regularly frequented just opposite the park.

Ruth walked briskly along Bombala Street. It was a few minutes to ten and she didn't want to keep Samuel waiting, but the park was only a block away now. She could see it up ahead, just the other side of Sharp Street.

She increased her pace but, as she reached the junction of the two streets, she was so intent upon crossing the main road that she collided with a man who hadn't seen her coming, his attention focussed on his newspaper. The man looked up, rescuing his spectacles which had threatened to fall off, and for an instant their eyes met.

‘I'm so sorry,' she said. Then she continued on her way.

Maarten didn't move. He stood and watched as Ruth crossed the road. Then he tucked his newspaper under his arm and followed.

 

‘I'm sorry, I'm not late, am I?'

Lucky was sitting on a bench and he stood as she approached. ‘Not at all,' he said, ‘ten o'clock on the dot. Do you want to walk or shall we sit?'

Ruth looked around. It was a fine day and the park was a popular place on a Sunday: young couples sat on the grass, children played, families gathered. She and Samuel weren't within earshot of others, and no-one was paying them the slightest attention.

‘Let's sit,' she said. She took a deep breath. They sat. ‘Who's going to start?'

‘You,' Lucky said. ‘Yours is a more important story than mine.'

She knew he meant Rachel, and calmly, succinctly, as she'd promised herself she would, Ruth recounted the facts exactly as they'd happened.

They shot the babies as soon as they arrived, and usually the mothers as well.

As he heard his daughter's fate, Lucky clearly recalled the brutal words of the Auschwitz inmate he'd met at Camp Foehrenwald.

She told him about Mannie too.

‘I tried to save him, Samuel. I had “connections” in the camp, a “benefactor” – that's how I survived.'

She said it with self-loathing, and Lucky was taken aback; it was the first time she'd shown any emotion as she'd talked.

‘But it was my “benefactor”, the very man whose help I sought, who ordered Mannie's execution.' She stared down at her hands, her fingers laced together, kneading her knuckles, her resolve to remain detached starting to crumble. ‘I realised later that I was responsible for Mannie's death.'

‘
You
were responsible?' The obvious burden of her guilt was more than Lucky could bear. ‘Ruth, he went in my place! It should have been me who faced that firing squad. I am responsible for Mannie's death, not you.'

She looked at him. Poor Samuel, she thought. He had carried his remorse all these years, just as she had. He was trying to spare her now, but he couldn't. He could no more save her from her guilt than she could save him from his.

‘My poor love,' she said. Then she smiled and raised a hand to his cheek, gently tracing the cruel course of the scar with her finger. ‘My poor, beautiful Samuel.'

A smile, Maarten thought. He had never seen her smile.

From his position beside the rotunda, as he leant against the railings with his open newspaper in front of him, Maarten Vanpoucke studied Ruth's every nuance. The fondness in her eyes, then the smile, and the tender gesture of the hand. Husband and wife reunited, he thought, how touching. He'd ached for her to show him such tenderness. He still did.

‘And after the war?' Lucky asked, when he'd told his story briefly and without embellishment; having heard hers, his was of little importance.

‘After the war I lived in Israel for a number of years.' She had no wish to talk about Israel and her purposeless existence on the orchard, or what had driven her to an empty life with a man she didn't love. She never spoke of Deir Yassin and the massacre. She never would.

‘It was in Jerusalem that I saw Efraim,' she said, changing the subject, ‘and when he told me you were in the Snowy Mountains of Australia, I'm not sure which I found more unbelievable: the fact that you were alive, or that there was snow in Australia.'

She asked him questions and he answered in detail. She wanted to know about his arrival in Australia, and about the Snowy and his life at the work camp. He told her that he loved the work, and he loved the country, and he talked about every aspect of his new life, with one exception. Peggy.

Finally, Ruth ran out of questions and Lucky ran out of steam, and they sat in silence, both conscious of the one question that still hung unasked in the air.

‘So what do we do?' It was Lucky who voiced it.

‘We?' To Ruth, the question had been answered long before she'd encouraged him to talk about his life on the Snowy. ‘
We
do nothing, there is no “we”, Samuel.' An edge of practicality, even hardness crept into her voice as she continued. ‘You have a new life and a woman you love. What we had is over. It was a love shared between two different people, surely you can see that? We've changed, you and I.'

They had, he thought. He hadn't been Samuel Lachmann for years, and Ruth, too, had changed, he could see it. Even her beauty had changed. She was more arresting than ever, the bloom of youth replaced by the sexual allure of a woman in her thirties, but her beauty had a remote quality now, a wariness. It was not difficult to guess why, he thought, recalling the self-loathing with which she'd talked of her ‘benefactor' in Auschwitz. Her beauty had been the source of her survival, and she'd been left with terrible scars. Gone was the gloriously vibrant, supremely confident young Ruth, and in her place, through no fault of her own, was a woman who didn't particularly like herself – or the world.

‘Yes, we've changed,' he said, ‘but we can start anew.' Even as he spoke the words, Lucky sensed their emptiness. ‘We must, Ruth. You're my wife.'

‘No, my dearest, I'm not, and I have no desire to be.' It was the truth, she realised. She'd intended to release him from any obligation the moment she'd seen him so obviously in love in the lounge room at Dodds. But relinquishing any claim was no longer a selfless act on her part. Being with Samuel had brought back the past with a pain too raw. And it would be like this always, she thought: they shared wounds too deep to heal.

‘We could never be together again, Samuel,' she said. ‘Rachel and Mannie would be with us every minute of every day. I couldn't bear that.'

Lucky had no answer; Rachel and Mannie were with them right now, he thought.

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and looked out over the park, his attention caught by a little boy of around three galloping an imaginary pony on the grass.

They'd both lapsed into silence. Ruth, too, had focussed upon the child who, aware that he was being looked at, galloped towards them. He fell flat on his face several paces away, then sat up, unhurt, but unsure whether or not he should cry.

Ruth rose and picked him up, slinging him on one hip, while the mother, who'd been watching, made her way towards them. The child laughed, accident forgotten.

Lucky noted the ease with which she handled the child. Was she thinking of Rachel? he wondered. If the little boy had been a girl, he might well have been Rachel, they were about the same age.

No, he reminded himself, the little boy could not have been Rachel. If Rachel had lived, she would be fourteen this year.

Ruth was right, he thought, as the women exchanged pleasantries and Ruth handed over the child. Their lives would be haunted by the past. But although he agreed with her, he felt ill-prepared and indecisive. The speed of events left him stunned.

She returned to the bench and sat by his side.

‘What shall we do?' he asked, after a moment or so. The decision had to be hers. He took her hand. ‘What is it that you want, Ruth?'

‘I want what you have.' She looked down at their fingers entwined together. ‘I want a new life.' Then she met his eyes with candour. ‘I believe I could find it here in Australia, but it doesn't have to be Cooma, if you would rather I left.'

‘Of course it has to be Cooma. You have a new job, and you have friends here.'

‘Friends?'

‘Me.'

She laughed – a flash of the old Ruth which surprised them both – and he delighted in the sound.

‘I think that, given the fact you're about to commit bigamy, it might be best if I kept my distance,' she said.

She laughed, Maarten marvelled as he watched from behind his newspaper. She'd actually laughed. He would have given anything to have heard the sound of her laughter.

Lucky's smile faded. He wasn't sure if he'd heard correctly.

‘You must say and do nothing, Samuel,' she said. ‘You must live your life as you have planned it – there is no necessity for others to know of our past. I am legally Ruth Stein – my passport and my papers are all in my maiden name. I left you behind a long time ago, my darling.'

She was so incredibly strong, he thought, but then she always had been.

‘I love you,' he said. ‘I will always love you, Ruth.'

‘Of course. As I will you. And that's what you must tell Peggy.'

He was dumbfounded.

‘Peggy knows, Samuel. She knows there's something between us.'

‘But how? How could she know?'

‘A woman's intuition,' Ruth smiled at his naiveté. ‘We always know.'

‘So what do I tell her?' Lucky was stumped. He'd never understand women – but then, what man did?

‘Tell her that we're old friends from the past who once loved each other. Tell her as much of the truth as she needs to know: that we met at university, that we were each other's first love. Don't try to hide it – she'll know if you do.'

‘Right.' Lucky's nod was dubious.

‘You'll manage, Samuel,' she assured him. ‘Just be yourself, she'll love you for that. I did.' She rose from the bench. ‘I must remember to call you Lucky,' she said. ‘It's growing on me; I think it suits you.'

Maarten folded his newspaper. They were leaving the park, heading straight towards him. He stepped behind the rotunda.

‘I'll walk you back to Dodds,' Lucky said.

‘There's no need.'

‘I'd like to.'

As they passed the rotunda he took her arm, but then stopped as a familiar figure appeared before him.

‘Lucky.'

It was Maarten Vanpoucke.

‘Hello, Maarten.'

‘How nice to see you. What a perfect day, isn't it?'

Maarten's manner was effusive: he seemed in the mood for a chat, and Lucky had no option but to introduce Ruth.

‘Ruth, this is Maarten Vanpoucke,' he said.

‘How do you do,' she responded.

‘Maarten, this is Ruth Stein, an old friend of mine from university days in Berlin.'

‘Delighted.' He had not introduced her as his wife, Maarten noted, and she wore no wedding ring. So they did not intend to acknowledge their relationship. How extraordinary, he thought, and how opportune. If Lucky was still planning to marry his little schoolteacher, then Ruth would be available.

As the two shook hands, Lucky remembered the night Maarten had seen the photograph.
She's very beautiful, your wife,
the Dutchman had said. It was ironic, he thought, that of all people it should be Maarten Vanpoucke they'd bumped into – no-one else in the whole of Cooma had seen the photograph, not even Peggy; he'd returned it to the drawer of his lowboy. Lucky studied the man keenly for any sign that he might find Ruth vaguely familiar.

‘You're the young lady who nearly bowled me over,' Maarten said.

‘Oh, was it you? I'm so sorry.'

‘No, no, my dear,' he laughed amiably, ‘it was my fault entirely; I wasn't watching where I was going.'

Lucky breathed a sigh of relief: there was not a flicker of recognition. But then it was not surprising: Ruth was no longer the carefree young student in the photograph.