The Twins (16 page)

‘You all point with your accusing fingers,’ Anna snapped. ‘You’ve been doing that for forty-five years already, but that’s the easy way. Why did the German people let it happen, you cry. But I turn that round and ask: why did you in the West let it happen? You allowed us to rearm quietly – when you could already have intervened under the Treaty of Versailles. You allowed us to march into the Rhineland without let or hindrance, and Austria. And then you bargained away Czechoslovakia to us. The German emigrants in France, in England, in America warned. No one listened. Why didn’t they stop that idiot while it was still possible? Why did they leave us to our fate, turned over to a dictator?’

‘So
we
did it, finally!’

‘Why? That’s what I ask.’

Lotte’s eyes sparkled. ‘You twist things beautifully, Anna,’ she said with a hostile laugh, ‘this really is the prettiest argument I’ve ever heard to exonerate the Germans.’ She stood up angrily. ‘Allow me to pay,’ she said haughtily. She lifted her coat from the back of the chair and veered off towards the young woman at the cash till. Ow, the walk had severely affected her calves.

Anna stood up in a panic. Why was Lotte so piqued all of a
sudden
? She had set out her ideas in all sincerity. They had not been formed unthinkingly, just like that: you could not see past the piles of books she had read in order to fathom all those lurid patterns. It was doubtful whether Lotte had ever taken so much trouble to read up about it herself.

‘Lotte,’ she called, ‘wait a moment …’

‘I’m tired,’ said her sister over her shoulder. Suddenly she looked very old and fragile. ‘I think I really am very tired.’

As the door of the pâtisserie closed behind Lotte, Anna snatched her winter coat from the chair. She found it stuffy among all those women – it was smoky and her effortfully obtained insights had evoked nothing but the unwillingness and incomprehension of the only person in the world she wanted to convince. It was one big misunderstanding. She wormed between two chairs to the cash till. Lotte had paid for her too – was she wanting to justify her
overhasty
departure in that way? Anna went out into the snow; she tried to breathe deeply but it seemed as though her lungs had shrunk. Her heart was beating fast and unevenly. Here, now, it could happen, just like that, suddenly, the discord with Lotte would never be set aside. Walking slowly, she tried to get her breathing under control; perhaps it was the sudden feeling of futility that was making her short of breath.

Lotte was relieved. The sabotage that she had committed just now uplifted her, she felt liberated – she had allowed herself to be taken in far too much by Anna, the limits of her empathy had been reached. It was as though they had been involved in a mock battle. They tossed worn-out arguments that had been heard a thousand times at each other’s heads, ostensibly going right to the heart of their direct opposition to one another while, actually, something much larger was going on outside them. Something that withdrew as soon as you tried to bring it closer to you by observing it through a telescope.

They arrived at the Thermal Institute at the same time the next morning, except that Lotte was standing at the foot of the stairs while, for unknown reasons, Anna was on the opposite side of the road, waiting for a military procession to pass. Surely she
hadn’t been on the lookout? Lotte would not have noticed her if she hadn’t been waving and calling out, between the vehicles
driving
past at a sedate pace towards the west. Lotte waited. She had slept wonderfully well that night after she had made up her mind not to allow herself to become so upset by Anna any more. And now there she was, waving; then she disappeared for a moment behind a jeep, a tank, a military ambulance. There was no end to the procession, creeping past her according to its own logic. Helmeted heads, looking ahead with martial bearing, as though they had just taken Spa by force, purely to enable them to drive through it. Lotte began to laugh. She saw that Anna was laughing too on the other side. Were they both discovering at the same moment that it was nothing more than a mock performance
separating
them? When the last camouflage-painted tank had passed, Anna crossed the street shaking her head.

As though nothing special had occurred the day before, they ascended the steps of the Thermal Institute, supporting each other. It seemed that the previous day had cleared out something thorny – you could not tell what sort of twists the human spirit followed. Later in the day they met up again in one of the corridors. On a long white bench they discussed the effects of the different baths on their muscles and joints like seasoned visitors at a health resort. Now the highest peak was over, the curative results would
gradually
have to reveal themselves. They decided to have dinner that evening in a restaurant opposite the Pouhon Pierre-le-Grand. According to Anna, whose scrutiny did not miss much, it looked convivial and affordable.

Lotte’s father did not emerge unscathed from his illness. The thrombosed leg limped a bit with every step. His heart sometimes began to beat faster for no reason. Then he would clutch his chest as though the moment he was going to die had actually arrived. The gesture immediately revived the old anxiety in everyone. Conversation stopped, music was turned off, a window was
opened – although they knew that he exploited his heartbeats and feigned them at times when other methods for attracting attention failed. He had been the focal point at all times during his long
period
of illness; his wife had been completely devoted to him as she had in the springtime of their marriage before she became
distracted
by the children. After his recovery the youngest returned home and he fell into the old habit, worse than ever, of provoking the children (her children) with unreasonable demands and
punishments
. It was the simplest way of getting into a row with her; during the reconciliations he regained exclusive rights to her for a while. Instead of being grateful for the fact that he had survived three different causes of death, he was embittered, as though the regained life in no way fulfilled his expectations. He also developed the habit of sniffing repeatedly, first through one nostril, then the other – even the smell of his second life did not please him.

The sniffing got on Lotte’s nerves; she could hear it everywhere. Behind closed doors, at the end of the passage, just round the
corner
, at night through the bedroom walls. She dreamed of escaping from this father and from the disharmony that he was constantly inducing in the family in different ways, on account of his
inexhaustible
inventiveness. She also wished to be released from his permanent grousing. About the impotence of Minister-President Colijn, who intended to combat the depression by cutting
payments
to the unemployed and loans to civil servants. Her father noticed it specially in the retarded growth of his record collection. Grumbling about the Communist Party, which had called on all political parties to sink their underlying differences in a collective fight against the National Socialist movement – now he could no longer draw his sword against the popes and Calvinists. Grousing about Hitler, who had merely been a half-wit at first, but had
gradually
come to enjoy the status of a dangerous lunatic. Grousing about the German people who marched behind the dangerous lunatic, whereby he conveniently overlooked that his own mother was German as well as his grandparents on her side – and also his
musical niece. Sniffing violently, he took possession of the
newspaper
as soon as it dropped through the letter box and would not surrender it to anyone, as a dog grips a bone between its teeth. The more Lotte heard him carrying on against the German people, the more that people filled her with affection. Each negative remark on his part aroused her longing for a reunion with Anna. If her father thought that the Germans were good for nothing, she wanted to be one of them.

Nevertheless, Theo de Zwaan, Marie’s fiancé, set out for Germany with two friends on the rumour that there was abundant work there. After two weeks he was back again. Instead of having earned something he had spent all his savings on a Leica that hung on his chest like a war trophy. ‘How will you get it into your head!’ said Lotte’s mother. ‘We don’t buy German goods on principle and you come home flaunting a pricey Leica.’ But he was not elated in the slightest about his purchase, rather it seemed like a sort of
plaster
over the wound. He was depressed and sparing with
information
. Yes there was work enough there, but he had no business being in that country. Half the people were in uniform, even
children
; there was a revolting general enthusiasm about the
Anschluss
with Austria; there were posters, banners everywhere, placards with ‘Ein Volk – Ein Reich – Ein Führer’. He had seen it with his own eyes and wanted nothing more to do with it. ‘I could have told you that already,’ said his future father-in-law, ‘then you could have saved yourself that whole trip.’ Lotte mistrusted the bearer of these bad tidings. Probably no one had wanted to take him on; you could see from afar that he was a drip. The way he had experienced Germany had been coloured by frustration of course; it spoke well for the country that it did not take anyone on just like that.

To compensate, Theo longed for the camera to provide him with glittering photographs. He asked Jet and Lotte to be guinea pigs. As neither of them could take him seriously, they put on men’s trousers and jackets and Homburg hats, for a joke. With their lips made up to excess, they permitted themselves to be
immortalized beside the water-tower in masculine poses, leaning on each other’s shoulders, cigars in their mouths; staring into the
camera
with sphinx’s eyes like Greta Garbo; in an imitation of Marlene Dietrich – ‘I’m ready for love from head to toe’. Eventually they burst out in hilarious uncontrollable laughter. Theo took his photos, phlegmatic as always, setting the diaphragm and deciding the angle of view. When the minuscule pictures with zigzag edges had been developed, the worldly, sultry, negligent, independent women they perceived aroused their curiosity. Was this them? Their mother passed the photos round with a proud laugh among visitors: just see what good-looking daughters I have!

A Mahler symphony was on the turntable. Lotte attached herself to the group that sat in a circle listening as though at a religious confession – a waterfall was gushing down at the foot of a rock in a clearing in a wood, threatening rumblings sounded from behind the mountain tops, deer were on the run. Sammy Goldschmidt was listening with pursed lips; mentally he was performing along with it. For Ernst Goudriaan, who was gazing ahead darkly, the music seemed to arouse more sombre visions. ‘Who was the
conductor
?’ he asked when the last note had died away and they seemed rather dejected because the spell had broken. ‘Wilhelm Furtwängler,’ said Lotte’s father, sniffing left and right. ‘Furtwängler!’ said Goudriaan. ‘He plays for the Nazis now!’ ‘Furtwängler?’ Lotte’s mother repeated shocked. ‘Oh well,’ her husband muttered, ‘that symphony was recorded years ago, we’ve already enjoyed it many times.’

Goudriaan looked round uneasily. He was just back from Germany, he explained. It sounded like an apology. He had been serving an apprenticeship with a famous violin-maker. During that time he had lodged with a Jewish family, and had more or less become a member of the household. A few days ago the
violin-maker
had come up to him. ‘I have heard that you are staying with Jewish people. If you want to complete your training here you must leave there as quickly as possible.’ ‘But I have nothing to do
with those regulations,’ Goudriaan retorted, ‘I am Dutch.’ ‘You are here in Germany, you have to go along with it. Either you leave that family or you do not remain here any longer.’ ‘Then I’ll leave here,’ said Goudriaan.

Disbelief and indignation filled the room. Goudriaan submitted to it with a dejected laugh. Hesitating between sympathy and
suspicion
, Lotte looked at the slender student. It was difficult for her to imagine him as a violin-maker – wood shavings on his
impeccable
suit, endlessly scraping with a plane – a craft that evoked associations with muscular arms and workmen’s overalls. Her father put Beethoven’s Ninth on, in a more kosher performance. Would they never again be able to listen to music open-mindedly from then on? The ‘Alle Menschen werden Brüder’ resounded magisterially; why wasn’t it ‘Alle Menschen werden Schwester’?

As the year progressed it became increasingly difficult to find excuses for her native country. Never before had the radio been listened to as much as it was in the September days, when Chamberlain flew to Germany three times to prevent war and,
finally
, with Daladier, sacrificed Czechoslovakia for peace. Everyone was relieved; only Lotte’s father was agitated that France as well as England had reneged on their treaty with the Czechs in such a cowardly way. ‘Out of pure fear of Bolshevism,’ he sniffed
contemptuously
. ‘In their hearts they admire the way Hitler has cleansed his country of Communists.’ ‘That fear isn’t so crazy,’ said his wife, with her predictable arguments again; ‘when the workers seize power on a large scale, those people who come to the top also terrorize the people.’ ‘Do you know who you’re talking about?’ He was offended. ‘You’re talking about Stalin, he has to keep a whole continent in harness.’ Then he became sentimental, everyone knew how the ancient discussion continued. Lotte ducked behind her music theory. The division of the roles had already been fixed in advance. Her mother appointed herself
defender
of democracy, made a plea for a natural equilibrium between the parties; her father jeered the democratic principle away: ‘Do
you by any chance want to claim that we have a democracy here? The poor are getting even poorer!’ He allowed himself to be swept along by his feelings, took a sip of gin; the war that had been averted at the last minute was pushed into the background. Another much older war was being fought out here under the
pretext
of a difference in political opinions – a battle that always remained unresolved. ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ her mother had the last word: ‘you know best of all that you yourself would be a
dictator
here in the house if you had the chance.’

Lotte had had the funds saved up for a trip to Germany for a long time – the more the threat of war grew, the harder it was to speak about her plan out loud. They all listened masochistically to the radio together, to a summary of a belligerent speech by Reichsminister Hess. They reassured each other: the Netherlands would never get involved, we have always been neutral. Anyway, half of the Netherlands is related to the Germans: our prince, the former Queen Emma, grandmother in Amsterdam, you name them. Louis Davids’ death was a greater tragedy than the
annexation
of Lithuania and the Italian invasion of Albania – Lotte’s mother walked about the house wailing and slapping her forehead with the flat of her hands as though she blamed herself; she sang his songs melancholically on the bench under the pear tree.