The Luck of the Weissensteiners (The Three Nations Trilogy) (6 page)

In exchange for a smile and a little warmth
, Maria was also happy to help out and she would assist Greta with those tasks that Johanna had compiled for her on her return. Since the start of these arrangements, Johanna had unwittingly created a team of deceivers in the four women and instead of punishing Greta for leaving, she had given her an opportunity to grow closer to the women of the farm. A real circle of friends had developed from which Johanna herself was excluded.

Johanna however persisted in her campaign to keep Greta from leaving the farm so often and started to suggest that it should be the Weissensteiners who should make the journey from now on – if they wanted to see so much of their Greta. The Winkelmeiers could not afford to spare her for such long periods of time
anymore and, as far as Johanna was concerned, it just was not natural for a married woman to spend so much of her time with her old family. Elizabeth tried to intervene on Greta's behalf but Johanna was adamant, even though it was an obvious exaggeration. Benedikt could not care less and in order to be left alone he decided in favour of his wife's demands. From here on, the Weissensteiners would have to travel on the Sabbath to the farm or they would not get to see their beloved Greta.

Throughout the year of 1935, things started to change, both on the farm and in wider political life. The German Sudeten Party started a much more active propaganda campaign in the border territories for more autonomy. As a result, the relations between the Czechs and the Germans in the country became tense.

At its last elections, n
eighbouring Austria had become a fascist state and diplomatic moves from Germany were blatantly obvious in their aim for a Pan-Germanic dominance in Europe. As a result, Germans became much more prominent hate figures in all parts of Czechoslovakia.

The
Czechoslovak elections in June voted for a coalition that left both German and Slovak parties without representation and spokesmen within the government, which created further resentment towards the Czechs of the country.  

The economy in Germany itself had started to recover and the Winkelmeiers
, who were originally from Berlin, considered moving back home. They had received encouraging letters from their relatives who said that with the preparations for next year’s Olympic Summer Games in full swing, work in the construction sector was becoming widely available and both Oskar and Bernhard had been offered employment with such a company, owned by an old family friend.

G
ermans were not exposed to open hatred in the Slovak parts of the country; due to the political dominance of the Czechs all resentment was reserved for them. Oscar and Elizabeth both thought however that the time was right to take this opportunity to move back home. At least the idea was worth giving serious thought.

When she heard such plans
being discussed, Greta asked Wilhelm if he too wanted to return to Berlin but he reassured her that he had no such intentions. He said he knew how much she preferred to live in the countryside and close to her family in Bratislava. He was far too involved in the bookshop and his advancing career to take much notice of the outside world and to base his decision on political developments.

Jonah Weissensteiner
suggested they should stay since he had heard discouraging stories about the welfare of Jews and Germans in mixed marriages in the Reich. Admittedly it was hard to get an objective and representative picture of what life was really like across the border. Oskar on the other hand was of the opinion that these reports and rumours were all exaggerated and nobody should let such unreliable information dictate their decisions. He told his son that in almost every country of the world, the Jews had at one time or another been the object of temporary hatred and they had survived. He and his wife Elizabeth wanted their son and his new family to come home with them.

Wilhelm was however quite happy with his employment at the book shop. He knew that he would need a few more years of work experience in his current position before it would be possible for him to move on to a better
job in a different firm. He decided to remain in Bratislava until it would be advantageous for him to change. Especially because there were so many Germans and Jews in the city, he felt no threat for his safety from the locals and stuck with his decision, even when Oskar made up his mind to move back to Berlin.

First to leave was Wilhelm’
s oldest brother Ludwig. He desperately wanted to join the army in Germany, which was recruiting. Becoming a pilot had always been his dream and this was his chance to be trained for free. One of his former school friends had already been accepted by the Luftwaffe and offered to help him with his preparations for the entry exams. His departure happened so quickly, that Benedikt did not even have the time to prepare for a replacement or organise the workload accordingly. Autumn and the harvest season were just around the corner and Ludwig’s leaving could not have come at a worse time, the farmer complained. Johanna found the decision extremely selfish and before he left, scolded the young man for being so ungrateful. She and her husband had done so much for the almost unknown relatives and now they were being left high and dry.

Oskar and Elizabeth we
re extremely apologetic about their son’s decision to leave and tried to play the incident down but Johanna would hear none of it. She hammered her point home several times a day and made the most of her role as a martyr.

Just as the atmosphere seemed to have re
ached its worst - and not two weeks after Ludwig had left - his brother Bernhard accepted a position he had been offered in the expanding construction company owned by the father of one of his former school friends outside Berlin. Additionally, he had been told, there was an offer for Oskar to join the workforce. Bernhard’s friends wanted to hire only people who they already knew, who they could trust to help keeping the business crisis proof and keep its uncontested reputation for quality and efficiency. Even before the offer, Oskar had always been optimistic that he could find lucrative employment back in Berlin, but the thought of being able to go home and work with one of his sons was just too tempting. Ludwig had already written to them during his first week in Berlin saying that he had found an apartment that was, incidentally, big enough for the entire family.

Johanna and Benedikt were speechle
ss when they heard about these upcoming desertions as they were calling the announced departures. Oskar offered to stay and work for as long as it would take to find a replacement, but Benedikt was far too proud to accept 'charity' from such selfish and unchristian people like the Winkelmeiers were turning out to be. He wanted them all off the farm as soon as they could pack their belongings. After a fruitless attempt to make him see their reasoning, they left only a couple of hours later. Benedikt in his rage was visibly on the verge of using force to get them out of his property. Elizabeth had just enough time to write a short goodbye letter to her son Wilhelm and to kiss her grandson Karl goodbye.

Wilhelm was shocked when he came back from the bookshop and found that his family had gone. Benedikt and Johanna were not speaking to him that evening either, a
lmost as if it were his fault; he was guilty by association. Greta explained to her husband what had happened and gave him the letter from his mother, which was uncharacteristically abrupt and bore no sentiment or regret. His mother must have been too excited about the prospect of going back to Berlin to think about her son and the situation in which she was leaving him. Wilhelm felt betrayed and it was his own anger that secured his existence on the farm. When Johanna finally spoke to him later that night to provoke some guilt in him, she was pleasantly surprised at his disapproval of their actions. She had always had a soft spot for this handsome young man but his current attitude brought him even closer to her heart. Wilhelm spoke disloyally of his own parents and shared Benedikt and Johanna’s point of view that this departure resembled a very selfish abandonment of their benefactors. Of course he could stay, even with his secretly Jewish wife.

Johanna
’s feelings about the loss were actually more ambiguous than she let on. Elizabeth had been a great help in the house and, as such, would be missed but she had also always been the better cook, the better housewife and a better mother than Johanna ever was. Now the mighty Saint Elizabeth had fallen and in comparison Johanna could glow as the ever reliable and ever present woman on the farm and she loved Wilhelm for seeing it this way and saying so frequently.

Ben
edikt was very disgruntled by the sudden departures. He had banked on the possibility that Ludwig or Bernhard was going to stay at the farm and take over the business in later years. Ludwig especially was a good lad and would have made an outstanding farmer. He had a natural talent for planning and foresight, had known how to prioritise and had never once forgotten the daily routine tasks in the heat of other more pressing projects. That this capable young lad should be the first to jump ship was particularly painful.

Benedikt had at first tried to bully the aspiring pilot into staying and had threatened that should things not work out in Berlin he wou
ld no longer be welcome back on the farm; a threat the old man had considered rather grave so soon after the big economic crisis in Germany. Yet the effect of his speech had been disappointing and Ludwig left regardless.

When Bernhard mentioned his own plans of moving
, Benedikt had had enough. Everyone knew how he felt about Ludwig leaving but that did not seem to matter to the Berlin strand of the Winkelmeier family; these town folk from the German metropolis. They seemed to have their heads and noses too high up to think of anyone but themselves, to feel grateful to their benefactors or to consider their relatives as equals. He suspected that this was also the reason why none of the boys had taken to his lovely daughters, a fact that had always been beyond him, especially as they would come with a great dowry.

Apparently
, the otherwise so reliable Ludwig, had a lot of fancy ideas in his head about flying and seeing the world, and Bernhard missed Berlin and what he called real city life. What a bunch of weaklings.

“The young
er generation is nothing like they were in our days.” he lamented.

“At least the
re are fewer mouths to feed now,” Johanna consoled him. “And at least one of the Winkelmeier family has shown staying power. Wilhelm has no intention of leaving. In fact, he told me that he is quite cross with them.”

“Be that as it may, he has got to go too,” Benedict said. “He is no use to us on the farm. The little he brings in from the bookshop is not worth our trouble. That should teach the family a lesson on how you treat the hand that feeds you.”

“Oh Benedikt, don't take your anger out on the boy. He is a young father. It is not his fault what his family has done. We are still relatives of his,” Johanna insisted.

“He is only staying because his wife is a bloody Jew,” Benedikt barked at her.  “If she
wasn't, don't you think they would have been on the very same train up north?”

“No
, I think he would still have stayed here,” she replied confidently. “He likes it here and he appreciates what you have done for him. If you don't want to let him stay for his own sake, then please let him stay for mine. Greta would be very useful to have as a help now that Elizabeth has left.”

“I suppose you are
right, there is not much harm in letting them stay. You just make sure that she pulls her weight and make it clear that they were very lucky we did not throw them out after what their family did to us.”

“Don't you worry, I certainly will,” she promised.

From the day of her arrival at the farm Greta had quickly got used to the hard work in the kitchen and on the fields. Once they had recognised her willingness and endurance, Benedikt and Johanna had started to become a bit friendlier towards her and later on to her son Karl. But it was only since her conversion to Catholicism that the Winkelmeiers had really taken to Greta and had started to treat her with genuine respect. They were also pleased with her moderate and obedient nature that never strained any one's patience. If encouraged, Greta could talk but she was mostly quiet and spoke usually only when spoken to, respectfully accepting her low place in the family hierarchy.

Since the departure of Elizabeth to Berlin
, Johanna did not have to encourage Greta to work harder; the young mother felt the urge to prove her commitment and more importantly, lend her support to the farm quite naturally and made every conceivable effort to help wherever she could. Johanna had expected nothing less and started to invite Greta more frequently to accompany her to the markets in Bratislava. These outings were mainly functional to Johanna and showed more trust in Greta’s abilities than personal favouritism as such but they still represented a step forward in their relationship. The two women never took the opportunity to go and see Greta’s family because time was always scarce. Greta knew her companion well enough to not tempt fate by suggesting a detour to the workshop on Gajova and Johanna noticed and appreciated her restraint on that account.

On one of the colder evenings that autumn she finally allowed the young mother and child to jo
in the rest of the Winkelmeier family in the big living room where, on such occasions, a big fire would be lit. This was a massive gesture. When Karl had been born, Johanna had argued that it would be too hot in there for the little boy and the room would be too crowded. All that time she had made the young family stay in their own room where there was no fire. When in a really generous mood she had sometimes offered them to stay in the kitchen where there still might be some heat left from the cooking. Through her hard work and her humble and quiet attitude, Greta had proven herself worthy to be included and to fill the gap that the recent departures had created. The old concerns about heat and space were no longer an issue and Johanna started to spoil her little Karl. The boy had grown quickly and now looked the spitting image of the handsome Wilhelm, a prime specimen of the adorable Winkelmeiers.

Johanna
's own family had brought her up in a very strict way and her mother, in particular, had never failed to point out any mistakes the young Johanna made, resulting in the poor girl feeling very inferior and having little self-worth, a feeling that remained into her later life; she was never even aware of how attractive she was until Benedikt came along and courted her.

Whenever a boy had shown interest in her
daughter before, she had laughed it off as a fluke or a prank. That was until she herself almost fell in love with the dashing Benedikt. She could not believe that her daughter could end up with such a strong and masculine handsome suitor. She was full of praise for Benedikt and in no uncertain terms told Johanna that she would be lucky if she could keep such a fine man. When Benedikt asked for Johanna's hand in marriage the young girl was overwhelmed and happy.