‘Our private life was so bad I was glad of any diversion that took Claus away from me. And I can’t blame him or his women for the failure of our marriage. He dazzled me when I was too young and naive to realize what being a wife meant. Later, I fell in love. Deeply in love. That affair gave me the happiest days of my life and left me with memories that, in my blackest moments, gave me my only reason for living. Because I thought, quite wrongly as it turned out, that if I ended my life, no one would remember my lover or mourn him. The only question – and it’s one that has tormented me most of my adult life – is whether or not he really loved me.’
‘What happened to him?’
Charlotte didn’t answer. Instead she picked up the diary and the book beneath it. ‘If I am going to finish reading my diary tonight, it’s only fair that I give you something to read.’
‘After we talked about
One Last Summer
the other day, I bought a copy in the hotel bookshop. And this time I promise I’ll finish it.’ Laura poured herself another glass of water, without the vodka.
‘If you do, think of me when you read it.’ Charlotte rose to her feet. ‘Thank you for being here with me, darling.’
Laura sensed her grandmother wouldn’t explain any more, even if she pressed her, but she remained seated.
‘You want to see me swallow the pills?’ Charlotte asked.
‘Yes,’ Laura replied frankly.
‘They’re quick-acting, so, if you don’t mind, I’ll have my bath first. But I promise that I will take them tonight if I can’t sleep. And, if you use the extra key the manager gave you to check up on me, steal in quietly in the morning. I really do intend to have that lie-in.’
MONDAY, 7 MAY 1947
I can’t believe that the trees I see through my window are in full leaf. The last thing I remember is pulling Erich through the snow on the little sledge Frau Leichner loaned us. Her brother, Albert, made it before the war for her son. Albert, like Peter, was killed in France in 1940.
I left my bed this morning for the first time in over three months.
The doctors tell me that I have suffered a complete mental and physical breakdown. I only know that suddenly, without warning, there was no reason for me to live. The last thing I remember is Erich’s face, white and fearful.
I wanted to comfort him but I couldn’t stop myself from closing my eyes and shutting him out. I was thinking of Sascha and I know now – although I can’t say why I know – that I will never see him again.
For the last two weeks the doctors and nurses have been injecting me with something to keep me awake. Julian visits. He brings flowers and chocolate and the drawings Erich makes for me. I feel guilty when I look at them because Erich draws himself with tears in his eyes. If only someone else had survived the war who could look after him, like Papa and Mama von Letteberg.
Julian keeps telling me that I must make an effort for Erich and his sake. I know that if I don’t, the doctors will keep me in hospital indefinitely. I am very grateful for everything that Julian has done for me and Erich. He has taken care of the hospital bills, and is paying Frau Leichner to look after Erich. If it wasn’t for him, Erich would be back in the orphanage because Frau Leichner could not afford to keep my son. It would never occur to Greta to look after him.
I have never felt as ill as I do now. Greta visited me yesterday with Julian. She spoke to the doctor outside my ward and I heard her say that I was never strong, even as a child. I told Julian she was lying, but I’m not sure he believes me. Greta also insists that I am too unstable to take care of Erich by myself.
Julian has offered to marry me and adopt Erich. Greta told me that I should consider myself fortunate that Julian asked, because no other man would consider a sick, penniless woman with a child a good marriage prospect. She said I would be mad to turn him down and, as we have no one else to turn to except one another and she is going to England, we should remain together.
Julian told me that I only have to say the word and he will get tickets for me and Erich on the first German bride boat, which leaves Hamburg for Tilbury next month. Greta already has her ticket. Should I leave Germany?
I can’t understand why Greta wants me to live close to her when she has never loved me the way a sister should, the way Irena did before she and Wilhelm were taken away in July 1944.
I cannot bear to write some of the things Irena said to me when she left for the south of Germany with Marianna, over a year ago. They were cruel. I will never forget the expression on her face when she said she wished she’d never set eyes on Wilhelm. From that moment on, she said, I would be as dead to her and Marianna as my brother.
We were both desperately unhappy because we hadn’t found Karoline. Everyone in authority told us that as her name had been changed it would be impossible to find her. Irena kept insisting that, like Marianna, Karoline had been old enough to remember her real name when they took her away. Now, I think Irena knew otherwise all along, but simply wouldn’t admit it.
If only Karoline had been kept with Marianna … But she wasn’t, and, as a result, is undoubtedly lost to us for ever. And neither Irena nor I can come to terms with the deaths of our babies. While we remained together, we constantly reminded one another of our pain, incapable of comforting or helping one another, but that doesn’t stop me from missing her dreadfully – my sister of the heart, who loved me once. So unlike Greta, who has always made it plain that she doesn’t even like me.
I feel weak and tired. It would be so easy to allow Julian to make all my decisions for me.
Much as I dislike Greta, I think she is right. I have no choice but to ask the doctors to discharge me into Julian’s care and try to make a new life for Erich and myself in England with him.
FRIDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 1948
It has been a long time since I opened this diary. I had hoped that I could build a life for Erich and myself in England with Julian but, after almost a year and a half of trying, I realize now that life without love is a life not worth living. And England is so very, very dark and dismal. Unlike East Prussia, it rains her all the time; spring, summer, autumn, winter – it makes no difference. The sky is always grey and the air wet.
Erich and I suffer from endless cold and chills; we are miserable the whole time and afraid to try and make friends or talk to anyone lest they call us terrible names like ‘Jew murderers’.
The women, children and men who didn’t fight in the war are the worst. I have only been shopping once since I arrived. The assistant refused to serve me. Since then, Julian has dropped off the lists of groceries we need. The delivery is always full of dented and damaged tins and rotten vegetables, but I dare not complain again. When I tried, the following week’s delivery was even worse.
Erich was badly beaten when we sent him to the local school so, after only a week, Julian arranged for him to be transferred to his old boarding school. As he promised, he formally adopted Erich and changed his name to Eric Templeton, but Julian can’t make Eric Templeton learn English any faster than Erich von Letteberg, or soften his accent.
Poor Erich was only seven when Julian sent him away. I dread opening the weekly letter he sends me. They never change. He writes that he hates England, hates his school and misses being with me. I have succeeded in making Erich’s life as miserable as my own, and it is no one’s fault but mine. Julian tries to be kind to both of us. I think he even believes that he loves me, but all I can offer him is respect. I cannot stop thinking about you, Sascha. My first thoughts when I wake in the morning and my last at night are of you. I even dream we are together.
In the evenings when Julian is out, or if he’s home, listening to the radio and completing his Times crossword, I practise my drawing. Sketching the way you taught me. The first two pictures I completed were of you and Grunwaldsee. They are not very good but I have only to look at them to hear the sound of your voice and see your lips curving into a smile as you swing down through the trap-door in the tack room.
Poor Erich was only seven when Julian sent him away. I dread opening the weekly letter he sends me. They never change. He writes that he hates England, hates his school and misses being with me.
It is hard to block out the horrible events of the last two days that I saw you but I try to concentrate on the happy times. The winter evenings we spent together in the tack room. That summer evening we risked our lives to go swimming in the lake. We were insane but it was a madness I am grateful for now, when all I have of you are memories and the thought that even if you used me to ensure your own and your men’s survival, you had to love me a little to save my life at the cost of yours.
And then, inevitably, my thoughts turn to the last word I screamed at you: ‘Murderer!’ That look you gave me when you shouted to me to run from that clearing. Sascha, I cannot forgive myself for misunderstanding you. For not realizing that you had no choice but to kill the guards. I must have been mad when I gave you the guns to think that you would only use them to protect yourselves.
In the evenings when Julian is out, or if he’s home, listening to the radio and completing his Times crossword, I practise my drawing. Sketching the way you taught me. The first two pictures I completed were of you and Grunwaldsee. They are not very good but I have only to look at them to hear the sound of your voice and see your lips curving into a smile as you swing down through the trap-door in the tack room.
But I have nothing to complain about. Julian never comes home drunk, nor behaves badly, unlike some of our neighbours, who wake everyone in the street when they return singing and shouting from the pub late at night. I know, from what little he says, that he spends more time talking in his clubs than drinking. I asked him what he talks about, but all he ever says is ‘men’s things’. He thinks he can’t talk to me – or any woman – about important things because we aren’t intelligent enough to understand anything that happens outside of the house.
When I was a child I didn’t mind Papa patting me on the head and saying, ‘It’s nothing for you to bother your pretty little head about,’ because I adored Papa and never questioned anything he did. But after everything that I have been through I resent Julian treating me that way.
Before I met you, Sascha, I accepted the pet-dog life of a rich, pampered married woman that Claus offered because I thought that was what married life was like. I didn’t realize, not even after seeing Wilhelm’s relationship with Irena, that there could be so much more between a man and a woman.
I have made a mess of my life as well as Julian’s and Erich’s, and, before I married Julian, Claus’s. Hundreds of girls would have regarded marriage to a von Letteberg an honour, and made a far better job of it than me. And many women would be content with Julian, and make him happier than I can. I should never have married him. I had hoped to give Erich a father, but Erich has one he does not want and I suspect, does not even respect.
On the surface I have everything a woman could want. We live in a nice, fairly modern house. Julian travels to London every day on the train to work while I do the housework with the help of a charwoman. Erich is benefiting from an expensive education, and we both live more comfortably than we would have done if we’d stayed in Germany, but I have discovered that it is not enough just to live well.
Erich is working hard to make his English as perfect as possible, but the other boys in his school still bully him because he is German by birth. They haven’t attacked him as savagely as the children in the local school did, but every time we visit him, his face and arms are black and blue where he has been beaten by his house- and classmates.
Julian says they will accept him in time – how much time he never says – but that is no consolation when I know Erich cries alone in his bed at night. When I suggested sending him to the local school again, Julian reminded me of the nervous breakdown I had after we met, and said that, even now, I am not strong enough to make decisions on my son’s behalf.
If only I could find the courage to ask Julian for a divorce, but I have no money other than what he gives me. Where would I go? What would I do? How could I take care of and educate Erich?
I know that Julian has talked to Greta and her husband about me. She warned me that if I don’t pull myself together, Julian would have every right to put me away. Presumably in an asylum for the insane.
Perhaps things would be better if we didn’t live so close to Greta. Because her husband and Julian are friends, they insist on us having dinner together at least once a week. I hate it, but Julian simply refuses to see how much Greta upsets me.
Just like Claus, Julian was very much an army man. He didn’t want to resign his commission, but he maintained he had no choice, because an officer with a German wife could expect no promotion or advancement. I suspect that he blames me for the loss of his career and for having to work in that dark, dingy accountant’s office. Probably rightly so.
Greta has enough money to buy all the clothes, cosmetics and perfumes she wants. She has also thrown herself into charity work in the hope of making friends, but from what she says about the women she meets at the organizations set up to help refugees and war orphans, they are more interested in gossip and showing off their clothes and jewellery than in the people they are supposed to be raising money for.
Greta wanted me to join the groups but Julian wouldn’t allow it. He said I wasn’t strong enough to organize coffee mornings, bring and buy sales, and bazaars, but the real reason is he wants me to have a child.
I am already pregnant. The baby will be born next May, but I haven’t told Julian yet, because I am afraid he will treat Erich differently once he finds out that I am about to have his son or daughter.
Greta keeps telling me that I should make more of an effort. That marriage out of Germany was the only option open to us and I should be grateful to Julian for asking me to be his wife. She constantly reminds me that I couldn’t care for my son the way I was, and without Julian, Erich would have been returned to the orphanage.