The Trespassers (18 page)

“And he always wanted tea for breakfast, remember, and he was funny about his knife and fork.” Paul was amused all over again. “And in his bathrobe—oh, don’t you remember?—he used to wear a scarf around his neck with his bathrobe on.”

Christa remembered. When Mr. Hewlett Ramsey-Smithe stayed at their house, she was secretly uncomfortable most of the time. She strained to understand his German through the impossible accent that he seemed blissfully unaware of; she could never talk to him naturally. She worried about the meals she offered him, about the customs and habits of the house. In spite of all her will to be friendly and hospitable, that visit had brought her only uncertainty and strain. And in the end, she was relieved when the day of his departure arrived, and sighed in secret pleasure that the difficult guest was gone.

That’s how people felt about foreigners, always and inevitably. Now, for years, every time she spoke to an American, she would remember that difficult straining to understand in spite of the accent, and know that o it was she who had the accent. Now, it would be she and her family who would seem full of odd, curious little mannerisms and tastes. They would be the aliens, they would be the foreigners.

A sudden longing for home swept bitterly through her. Franz and the children were talking together, cheerful again and apparently untroubled. She must learn to feel that way, she must, she must.

But she could not help the way she felt.

Surely it would be easier, once this waiting was over, and they were actually in America. There would be many things to do, a new house to find, new things to buy, new schools to chose for the children. She would busy herself with all these dear, ordinary matters, and perhaps soon she would feel ordinary herself.

Until then, she must never let Franz guess the depth of her fear about everything that lay ahead. If there were any way out—but there was none. She probably was only homesick for Döbling, for the easy, lovable ways of Vienna …oh, God, Döbling…home…the slabbed path through the garden, the small chair she sat in by the bedroom window, her heart at rest and the very air so tranquil about her…

The steamer was docking. Christa sprang up eagerly, gathered together the children’s sweaters and the wicker basket that held their picnic supper. It was always better when there was some immediate and specific task to be done, some ordinary, everyday schedule to be followed. Then the thinking stopped, the mind turned gratefully to simple and practical matters and let thought alone.

“Can we swim before supper?” Paul asked.

“I can swim,” Ilse said to the world at large.

“You’ll be swimming very well in a little while,” Franz said, “and not even have to hold on with one hand under the water.”

“She just bluffs about swimming,” Paul declared. “Doesn’t she, Daddy?”

“Oh, no, that’s the way you learned, too.”

“But I didn’t say I could really swim when I had to hold on.”

Christa laughed. She remembered so well the sturdy little back, sunburned and square-looking, lurching jerkily through the shallow water.

“Yes, you did, Paul,” she said. “You told me once very positively that even Olympic swimmers held on with one hand or they sank right down in the mud.”

On the lake shore, they spread their picnic supper. The thinnest, silkiest crescent moon was already high above them in the afternoon sky. Peace filled Christa’s heart, mysteriously stealing in as she brought out the paper-wrapped sandwiches, the thermos of icy milk, the dark, ripe cherries. This was her world, really, these two beautiful children she had borne, this tall, dark-haired man she loved and trusted. Franz was right, he was wise and strong when he told her that as long as they were together no harm could befall them. Austria or America—what difference, after all, did it make in a woman’s heart as long as her husband and children were with her?

For the hundredth time, she resolved to be braver from now on. Suddenly she reached out and squeezed Franz’ hand. He looked at her, questioning.

“Nothing,” she only said. “I feel happy again. I don’t know why.”

“I’m so happy,” Ilse cried. “I
love
jelly sandwiches.”

They all laughed, the sudden burst of merriment that is the special property of a family that knows harmony and love, the private joke, the meaningful catchword that outsiders cannot understand.

Laughter under a summer sky, the spread picnic supper, the father and mother great with their inner knowledge that they have fine children, the children flushed with their own vital youth, secure in the knowledge they are wanted and loved .

These are the things. These are the eternal things, Franz thought.

Flight, change, difficulties, and delays, they do not make the fiber of life, no, not even when they seem, momently, to be the whole warp and woof of existence. They only seem so. The day will come when they are only remembered tribulations, only the stuff for reminiscing, and even enjoyable in the recalling.

For the children, at any rate, the difficulties and delays are not serious, even the sense of change, of momentary insecurity and rootlessness, for them at least all this is not deeply harmful. The children are young enough so they will not be too deeply wounded, and as for us, the older …

In another fortnight, at the most, the new documents would come from Vera Stamford. He had calculated carefully, he was more experienced now, he knew it took time to prepare formal statements. But surely by the end of June they would be in his hands. They would be complete in every detail, for she had shown that she was like that. All the
a, b, c, d
demands on the mimeographed sheet he had been given at the Consulate would be meticulously answered, he would take them immediately into Zurich, and then surely the last of the delays would be done.

T
HE LAST DAY OF
June arrived. The morning mail came just after eight o‘clock, and there was the long, official-looking envelope with the American stamps. Vederle’s heart lifted as he saw it.

Everything there, nothing neglected, nothing ignored. A statement from her employers, a statement from her insurance company, a statement from some Wall Street firm about shares of stock, dividends—all of it was included.

He started at once for Bahnhofstrasse, 3. The very morning was gala, the distant skies blue and high over the perpendicular leap of the Griesetstock, and the ice-capped Bifertenstock, the lake a clear pale green, and the orchards and vineyards rich and fertile in the morning sunlight.

The city was busy with its task of beginning a new day. Along both sides of the sparkling Limmat, the quays were bright with the awnings of shops. Traffic streamed along the streets and over the frequent bridges. Men and women hurried along with the look of morning on their freshly shaved or freshly made-up faces.

Even his muscles seemed to be in a gala mood, as though they drew a direct stimulant from the new documents in his possession. Franz strode along, opened the door to the Consulate with an elated sweep, like a man returned triumphant from some arduous and risky mission.

Inside he did not have to wait long. In less than twenty minutes he was offering his documents to one of the Vice-Consuls. He had not seen this young man before, but he liked the welcoming smile on his face.

“These new papers arrived this morning from America,” he said. “I think you will find everything that was required of me to provide.”

“Yes. Thank you.” The Vice-Consul was a young man, somehow British in manner, as so many of the American Consulate officials seemed to Franz to be. He began to read the statements; his smile gave way to a mask of concentration. “One moment, please, I will send for the files.” He did so, and went on reading.

Franz did not mind the official manner. He watched the eyes traveling back and forth, back and forth over the successive lines of typing, and savored each of the passing minutes. This very hour might become historic to the Vederle family.

The file came, and the young man opened it. Still concentrated, still unspeaking, he went rapidly through the contents, as if he were checking off items.

“Hm, yes.” He finally looked up. His voice was friendly now. “This all seems to be in order.”

“I am so glad.”

“You put in your applications for visa numbers, I see, on…”

“The fourth of April, it was. Three months ago. Oh, yes, they are reserved.”

“Yes. And this Vera Marriner Stamford is what to you? I mean what is the relationship exactly?”

“Relationship?”

“Is she a cousin, aunt, any member of …”

“No, oh, no, Mrs. Stamford is not related to me or to my wife. She is a very good friend who…”

“Not a member of your family at all?”

“No. Does that matter? I was informed in Vienna that affidavits…”

“I did not say it mattered. I merely want to establish the precise relationship.”

There was an imperceptible change in his tone. Franz guarded himself from being oversensitive, the “refugee’s touchiness” he always dubbed it, and he smiled.

“I am so glad! There have been so many things unexpected already, I thought just now perhaps it gives some rule…”

“It isn’t simply rules,” the Vice-Consul said. “The matter of visas is not as simple as all that.”

“Of course.”

“That is all now; you will be notified in a few days.”

“Thank you; we may hope for visas in a few days? That would be so excellent.”

“You will be notified within a week.”

The young man nodded briskly and Franz rose. He made his way out into the glowing morning. He felt like making some gesture to mark the day; he thought of buying champagne to take home, but decided to wait until the moment the visas were actually in his hands. He found a toy store, and bought a chemistry set for Paul and a weaving loom for Ilse. The yarns were green, yellow, blue, and red; their bright tints pleased him inordinately.

He wanted, too, to buy some small thing for Christa, and he went along under the awnings of the shops, gazing into the windows, hoping for an idea of what it should be to please her. Christa cared little for fashion. It was not that she was careless about her dress, nor dowdy either, but simply that she never seemed to have the yearning for the latest, the most chic, that other women often had to excess. It was always easy to find things that pleased her, but hard to find something that really delighted her.

He bought a scarf, woven of the finest linen threads, in an effective geometric design of light blue and dark blue. It would be pretty on Christa’s blonde head; she might wear it over her hair on the steamer. He had a vision of her wearing it as she walked at his side around the deck, with the great wind of the Atlantic blowing in their faces.

Once they were on the liner, whichever one it was to be, many of her apprehensions would vanish, or at least lighten so much that he could once again feel sure and serene about her. That would be good; it was hard to see her as she was now, torn by anxieties and ridden by fears. Once they were all actually on board the transatlantic liner—He stopped short. Why not? Or was it tempting the fates to obey the impulse now, today, before the visas were actually theirs? He brushed the question aside and asked directions to the nearest Cook’s or American Express.

“I should like to arrange passage to New York, please.”

“Passage to New York.” The words were enormous with the future; their very syllables excited his ears and his mind. The clerk was alert and pleasant.

“Yes, sir, for yourself?”

“And my wife and two children.”

“On which boat, have you decided?”

“Oh, no, either French or British, it doesn’t matter. From a French port; though, that is easiest.”

“Well, let’s see, now.” He already was consulting a chart, bending over it, so that his voice came sliding along the counter and up over his bent head. “When would you like to sail? Next week the
Normandie—
”

“The week after would be more certain,” Vederle said. “Our visas should be—”

The bent head came up.

“You are waiting for visas? You haven’t got them yet?”

“The Consulate this morning said we should be notified next week.”

“Notified? Or did he say they would be issued?” The clerk sounded apologetic for the impertinent insistence on details like these.

But his very insistence sent a jagged tremor from Franz’ mind along every nerve path.

“Let me recall exactly.” He thought intently, his eyes half closed, his ears, listening again to the brisk syllables from the brisk young man at the Consulate. “The word he used was ‘notified.’ He said, ‘You will be notified next week.’ That meant notified the visas are ready, does it not?”

The clerk put his pencil down, made the smallest gesture of impatience with the charts and lists on the counter.

“You never can tell what they mean. You’d better buy passage with an open date.”

“Oh, no, not with an open date. I’m sure that by week after next—you see, there have already been all the possible delays, now everything is at last in order, the Vice-Consul himself said so, nothing else could—”

The clerk remained silent. The smallest shadow of sympathy fell across his eyes, at the eager certainty in Vederle’s eyes. But he prohibited it from warming his voice.

“If you don’t want open dates,” he said, “there’s nothing to do today. When you actually
have
the visas, there’ll be time to arrange your passage.”

“Yes, of course. But I want at least to get reservations today.”

The clerk shook his head. Another customer came up to the counter, and the clerk smiled an affable greeting to him. Busily his hands arranged his charts and lists into a neat pile, his eyes not bothering to check the habitual routine. “It’s the regulations. We are not permitted to accept definite reservations before the visas are in hand.”

“I see.”

“I’m sorry. Unless you want the open tickets…”

“No, thank you. There’s no reason to do that way.”

“Yes, sir? What can I do for you?” The clerk turned from him to the waiting customer.

No reason. There would have been reason enough to go home, gather his family together—and then, with a grand gesture, to pull out from his pocket the actual steamship tickets they would so soon be using. There would have been reason to unfold one of the large, gala-looking floor plans of the actual ship they would so soon be taking, to point to one specific stateroom, B 24,o r C 305, or any one at all, to be able to say the words, “There, see that? We have reserved this very cabin; we sail on the
Ile de France
or the
Normandie;
we leave Le Havre two weeks from today at such and such a time. The Vice-Consul said today that everything seems to be in order, we will be notified about our visas next week.”