Strange Music (24 page)

‘I think you'll find all that is settled . . . taken care of—'

‘How can you possibly know that?' His eyes narrowed. ‘How long have they been here?'

‘Ten minutes – but he's got it all sewn up. I heard enough to know that. Marianne may inherit but it will all be tied up in trusts. I'm sure she'll be in charge of the trust that takes care of her mother but there are bound to be strict conditions. And—'

‘Trusts? Did you say trusts? But if her inheritance is administered by
trusts,
I want a seat among the trustees. She's
my
wife for God's sake! What sort of wimp would want a bunch of gray-faced Swedes having power over his wife's inheritance? No – you've got to help me – if only to interpret. I've forgotten most of what legalistic German I once knew. I'll go back to Welwyn North with you when he goes. OK? I'll fix something with him.'

As things turned out, it was not necessary.

Half an hour later, Siri and Jasmine came running up the drive in great excitement; seeing Willard standing outside the Tithe Barn with Felix, they veered off toward him and opened their clenched hands to show fists full of copper and silver. ‘Look what we earned! Where's Marianne? We must show Marianne, too.'

Willard made the mistake of telling them, and they were through the door before he finished saying, ‘But don't disturb . . . her . . . now . . . what's the point!' He turned to Felix. ‘This place is anarchy in spades.'

‘The world's best political system. In hearts.'

‘Yeah-yeah, OK.' He gazed over the Breits' new grass toward the big lawn, now fairly populated with Disraelis, Livingstones, Sarah Bernhardts, and Vesta Tillies. ‘I guess we'd better do our duty as hosts while we can.'

A few moments later the two girls came running out again, each now sporting a new fiver tucked into her bonnet ribbon. The two men pounced.

‘We'd better take care of these, honey,' Willard told Siri. ‘This one piece of paper is worth a hundred times more than all the rest of that money you've got. You could buy enough candy for a year . . . or ten dolls – think of that! So I'd better keep it safe, huh? What if the wind just blew it away!'

The girls stared at the bits of paper with awe.

Felix took Jasmine's fiver, saying, ‘I'll give this to Faith, OK? Did the old man in there give them to you?'

Siri nodded. ‘Marianne said he's my
morfar
. He looks very sad.'

Then, with all the empathy of four year olds, they went skipping back down the drive toward the party, chanting: ‘Sad . . . sad . . . sad . . .' in time with each footfall.

Marianne came out and joined them, looking somewhat crushed.

‘The old man?' Willard asked.

‘Using the facilities. What's all
that
about?' She nodded toward the girls.

‘They think your father looks sad.'

Marianne shut her eyes – tight. ‘He does.' A moment later she added, ‘Oh, God! I
can't
send him away, can I? I just can't. Sad? If he goes now, that'll be Siri's last memory of her
morfar
.' She turned to Willard. ‘Would you mind terribly?'

‘If he stayed? I'd like nothing better.'

She turned to Felix, who had spotted Angela near the house and was signalling to her to come over, which she seemed to have every intention of doing, anyway. ‘You're about the same build as my father, Felix. Could you rustle up some clothes for him? It doesn't need to be fancy dress, but what he's wearing is so out of place.'

‘Sure. But does he know I'm Jewish? Probably. I told him I was in a
KL
in the war.'

Angela was close enough to call: ‘How has it turned out? What's been happening? My God, Marianne, you look washed out. Come inside and have a brandy. I imagine we could all do with one.'

Nobody objected.

They gathered around a large, complex abstract still only half liberated from its marble prison. Chips of it crunched underfoot. Von Ritter joined them just as Felix was pouring the last glass, which Marianne handed to him. She stayed his arm before he could raise it for a toast. ‘
Pappa får vila sig här hos oss inatt
,' she said, even managing to smile at last. ‘
Vi måsste ju diskutera lite vidare
.
Skål!
'

He bowed a few degrees and said, ‘
Jag har ingen möglighet att avböja en sån älskvärd inbjudan!
' [I see no possibility of turning down such an amiable invitation.]

Skål . . . Prosit . . . Cheers! The glasses clinked, the brandy burned the throat and mellowed the hour . . . and Marianne just wished that young Siri could see her
morfar
now.

Taking the bottle with them they drifted between the aluminium scaffolding poles into the sitting-dining area beneath the cedar-box bedrooms. Von Ritter complimented Felix and Angela on their conversion of the Tithe Barn but they, of course, waved the praise onward to Marianne.

‘So!' he murmured, looking at it – and her – in a new light. ‘It's clear that from Speer you have learned nothing. I was wrong.' He glanced at Felix for approval.

Felix held his breath and waited for Marianne to explode.

But all she said was, ‘Pappa can speak English!'

Felix laughed, amazed he had not noticed.

‘I can English,' von Ritter admitted. ‘A little. All the Europe must now English.' He glanced at Willard and added, ‘Americanish.' Then, having broken the linguistic ice, he poked his glass toward the unfinished sculpture and said, ‘Men buy that
Kvatsch
with money – good money?'

The laughter was a little nervous. ‘Very good money,' Angela assured him.

‘Did you hear Alfred Munnings –
Sir
Alfred Munnings – slagging off Matisse's
La forêt
at the Royal Academy banquet?' Felix asked the group in general (while Marianne translated for her father). ‘He called it
Le
forêt
throughout. The man's a barbarian.'

‘Like I,' von Ritter said emphatically. Marianne translated the rest from his Swedish. ‘To get anywhere in life you must study hard when you're young, form your opinions early, and then be loyal to them – which is really no more than being loyal to yourself – for the rest of your life. You must be a rock in a wish-washy sea of changing opinions, flickering loyalties . . . that way, everyone will know where you stand. They will know they can count on you through good times and bad.'

Willard smiled and nodded throughout this manifesto for the Good Life. Watching him, Felix could not help wondering whether Marianne had not jumped from frying pan to fire – by not realizing that Willard's easy manner, his smile, his bonhomie was all shaped around an inner man who could nod and smile with approval at her father's self-advertisement. Did she understand it even now?

Angela, knowing whither several glasses of brandy might lead, crossed into the kitchen to find some biscuits, or cake if any was left after yesterday's invasion by The Tribe. Marianne came with her. ‘I'm not going to translate any more of that
Kvatsch
,' she said.

Back at the table, von Ritter produced the documents for Felix to witness. Willard glanced at a couple but, of course, they were all in Swedish – and legal Swedish at that.

In the kitchen Angela said, ‘I think I'll brew some coffee, too. Actually, I was wondering if you might give him my transcription of the Wannsee meeting to read – the original German, of course?'

Marianne's eyes gleamed but almost immediately dulled again. ‘No . . . it won't do.'

‘Why not? Especially after what he's just said!'

‘Because it would involve explaining you . . . me . . . the communist connection . . . with Willard there.'

Angela had tried to persuade her to enlighten her husband too often to try again now. ‘We can just say
I
did it, on Heydrich's orders, and after he was killed they blamed me for not telling them at once, and so they sent me to Ravensbrück . . . no need to bring you into it at all.'

Marianne saw the logic of it. ‘And yet . . .' she said. ‘And yet.'

‘You want him to know . . . that you were also . . .'

Marianne nodded.

‘Well, there were
other
anti-Nazi groups. The White Rose . . . We could stick to the facts – just not all the facts . . . the documentary in Speer's office . . . making friends with you . . . knowing you were Swedish . . . asking you to get the transcript to the Swedish embassy . . . in fact, it doesn't need to involve
any
anti-Nazi group. Just me and you and the embassy.'

Still Marianne hesitated.

‘After what he's just said?' Angela pressed her. ‘He was practically asking for it.'

‘OK,' she said at last. ‘Let's do it.'

They returned with both cake and biscuits. ‘Coffee's coming along in a minute,' Angela promised.

The cake induced a gentler mood. ‘You say I know not my own daughter, Herr Breit,' von Ritter challenged. ‘Tell me now any more.'

Felix turned to Marianne. ‘There may never be a better time.'

‘Oddly enough,' she said deliberately, ‘Angela and I were discussing that same idea out there.' She glanced at Angela.

The atmosphere was suddenly tense; von Ritter felt it at once and sat up ramrod-straight. ‘
Also?
'

Angela said quietly, ‘I don't know how much my husband has explained of our history . . . my past . . .'

‘He says it was in a
KL
you were in the war.' He broke back into German to repeat what he had said to Felix – that in the heat of battle . . .

She, too, cut him short. ‘No mistake was made in my case, Freiherr. On the orders of Reinhard Heydrich, I, a recording specialist in the
Schutzstaffel
, made a secret recording of a conference over which he presided in January, nineteen forty-two. Six other senior members of the
SS
were present but not even they knew they were being recorded. That was Heydrich's wish – his command. Within a few months – as you know – he was assassinated. And shortly after that Eichmann – Adolf Eichmann, who may still be alive somewhere, discovered what I had done. I was lucky to escape with my life because, in fact, I went beyond Heydrich's orders and actually made a transcript of my recordings. Two transcripts, in fact. If they had known that, they would have hanged me. Instead, they sent me to die more slowly in the Ravensbrück
KL
.'

He gave a baffled shrug and, speaking now in voluble German, said, ‘Madame, I cannot continue this conversation under your roof.' He made a gesture out of putting down his half-drained brandy balloon and pushing his cake plate away. ‘You have confessed to actions that would lead me to brand you by a name I cannot utter in these surroundings. And so—'

Marianne butted in: ‘Pappa should read that transcript before he says another word.'

‘What has this to do with you?' he asked.

‘Everything. The copy Pappa will read was the copy Frau Breit – then Fräulein Wirth – handed to me – yes, to
me
! – to pass on to the Swedish ambassador in Berlin. In nineteen forty-two.'

‘You?' He looked from one to the other. ‘And you? You both did such a—'

‘Yes!' Marianne insisted. ‘And I can tell Pappa this: if he does not read what was said at that meeting and if he lives another
hundred
years, he will still go to his grave in complete ignorance of this entire century . . . the war . . . his own life . . . his very self! He will understand
nothing
.'

Unable to speak, he turned to the two men. Felix nodded; Willard said, ‘Honey? Maybe another time, huh? We're forgetting what day it is and where our duty—'

‘No!' Von Ritter was suddenly galvanized. ‘I will read.' He reached again for his brandy and patted his daughter's hand. ‘
Pappa skall läsa det
.'

He smiled.

She smiled and said, ‘Good.'

Angela said, ‘But Willard is right. Today is our midsummer party. I'll bring my transcript over this evening.'

In the kitchen the coffee grounds fell slowly, of their own volition, to the bottom of the cafetière.

Sunday, 24 June 1951

Whenever Eric let a deadline slip – which happened with almost every one of them, whether imposed by a publisher or by himself – he was experienced enough to avoid the trap of an early rise, a cup of double-strength coffee, and a blank sheet in the typewriter while he was still unshaven and in his pyjamas. Instead, he would rise at his normal hour of seven, shave, eat a substantial and unhurried breakfast while exchanging pleasantries with Isabella (if she happened to be conscious by then), followed by a bracing walk in the woods. The morning after the midsummer party was no different. He set out as the communion bell began ringing from Dormer Green Church.

He was rather surprised to see Nicole who, to his certain knowledge, had not gone to bed before three that morning, standing with a laundry basket on her hip, staring into the pheasant run. ‘Didn't expect to see
you
up and about,' he said.

‘Bloody kids!' She replied. ‘I'll bet it's Tommy and Andrew.' She raised her voice to a shout. ‘Tommeee! Andreeewww!' To Eric she added, ‘I'll kill them.'

‘What is the capital crime this time?' Eric asked.

‘They must have liberated my washing line. They know enough to leave everyone else's alone. Can I hang these up on yours? Is Isabella doing any washing today? I wouldn't think so.'

‘If she manages to push the flannel as far as her own eyebrows, that will be heroic enough. In Isabella-land champagne is more common that water. Be our guest!' And with a
heigh-ho
he was off into the woods.

There was a flash of movement away to his right – a flash that was distinctly reddish. His eyes focused and he was surprised to see . . . a red squirrel. It was his first sighting of the year; of course, the creature would have hibernated in the winter but it would still have been out and about since April, if not earlier. He had been thinking of writing to
The Times,
adding Gideon's Coppice to the list of woodlands where the American gray squirrel had ousted the native English red. Now he would have to find out if this solitary red had found a mate. But not this morning. This morning he would do the strict circuit, have a quick look at Bob Ambrose's snares and gin traps (and dispatch any animals they had caught) and then . . . the magic with the typewriter: a piece for the
The Studio
about Chris Riley-Potter's designs for the new children's wing at Enfield hospital – the intention being to follow them over the months from conception to completion.