The Luck of the Weissensteiners (The Three Nations Trilogy) (5 page)

“Greta, the only thing I would dearly ask you to do now is to get married in a Catholic
Church service. It pains me to see you living in sin in the eyes of God. Everyone in the village assumed you were married in a different church in town, but now that I know you only went to the registry office, I don't feel this is right. Once you are both Catholic you should seek the right blessing for your union. I can do it secretly so you won't have the shame of being exposed. You know that in the eyes of your God it needs to be done.”

“You will need to speak to my husband and his family. If they are happy with it then so am I.” Greta said
, quietly accepting her fate.

“That is very good of you. What about your own family? Why did they never carry on with their faith?” the priest asked.

“My father converted to Catholicism for my mother. When she died of the Spanish flu he was very upset and neglected his duties,” she said, reciting her well-rehearsed lie. “He was very modern in his thinking.”

“What a shame,
” Father Haslinger responded. “Especially when in the midst of pain and sorrow one should look up to Him for guidance and find faith, not lose it.”

A few months later Greta went through the absurd charade of being confirmed one day and getting married the next, all in secret, and lacking all the formal foundations as well as all the ones of true faith. When she had her mandatory confession before both sacraments
, she had to omit so much of her lying and other sins that she thought she should have been struck down by lightning if this Catholic God really cared that much.

Father Haslinger congratulated her with tears of joy in his eyes and welcomed the whole Winkelmeier family into the Catholic community. The who
le affair had one big advantage, Father Haslinger gave Karl and Greta an official accreditation
as non-Jews, adding their names into the church’s lists of the faithful, something that was always handy in these days of potentially renewed pogroms.

However, Greta
soon had a rude awakening when she found herself continuously pressured into going to church. This happened more or less every Sunday - despite the sworn promises that she would still be able to regularly see her family during that time. In their longing to become integrated into the community, Johanna and Elizabeth both insisted that the whole family displayed the strength of their faith and their belonging to the church. Nothing would make that point stronger than if they could all show up together every Sunday without fail. Johanna especially argued further that the locals had to know about young Karl and start to see him as one of their local church community. If the stigma of being a half Jew could be put to rest at all then it could probably only be achieved by showing him at church time after time. In trade for this concession, Greta was granted the right to see her family on some Saturdays which her father often still managed to spend in the Jewish tradition of not working or travelling.

Wilma was always incredibly happy to see her and the two sisters spent the days exchanging gossip. Greta told her about the Winkelmeiers and how their new belonging to the Catholic
Church had probably made them more of a laughing stock amongst the local community than the respected citizens they had intended to become. Wilma laughed when she saw Greta impersonating her new family and their behaviour during mass, the over acted facial expressions, the loud singing of hymns and the passionate and exaggerated head nodding during the sermon. Admittedly, some of the other church members needed to express their faith with equal intensity and exhibitionism, but surely everyone else had to find this as ridiculous as Greta and her sister did.

Wilma told her about
the news at the weaver workshop where business had picked up again. A former Hungarian countess had taken up residency in a large manor house outside of Bratislava and had ordered two massive hand-woven wall carpets, including one depicting her family history and another that displayed a variety of Bible figures. Jewish people were not supposed to be involved in the manufacture of symbols of the Christian faith as far as the Church and local law were concerned, so there was a little bit of a risk involved, but it was too much of an opportunity to turn down. The project meant that all three remaining Weissensteiners would have to weave continuously on these two commissioned works and leave the hired help to oversee the looms all by themselves. For the next few months the family would earn a lot and Jonah was positive that the display of his work in such a reputable home would bring in more custom, which was why they had to work doubly hard to make sure they delivered immaculate carpets to the best of their ability.

The Countess fancied herself as the sponsor of traditional and modern art alike and frequently came to the workshop to instruct Jonah with her latest ideas and last minute changes to the agreed designs.
Despite being a tough business woman during negotiations, she also became a kind and a warm hearted friend, and she adored Greta and her little boy Karl. She took a strong personal interest in the entire family without ever letting anyone come too close. There was never a mentioning of a husband or a Count and the ageing woman exuded a strong air of in-approachability on the subject matter and so no one ever asked her about it. Her status and riches were intimidating and helped her to keep a distance whenever she wanted.

One of the young girls in Jonah's employ had asked for a raise during that period as the work would be so boring. Jonah was outraged at her cheek, but the girl was sure that it would not be possible for Jonah to find a sufficiently qualified or trained replacement for her on such short notice now that the big order had been placed
. Jonah had agreed to the raise but he had immediately written to some of his fellow tradesmen seeking to replace the cheeky and greedy woman. The Countess also supplied him with a few addresses of craftsmen she thought might be able to help him out.

The rich aristocrat loved to join
Greta and Wilma when they talked about the books they had read or wanted to read and she frequently made recommendations. Sadly, Wilhelm only brought books home for himself these days and only occasionally did he keep them at home long enough for Greta to have enough time to read them too. Wilma was, by nature often too restless to sit down and read a book but if she did read, it was always something her sister had chosen. Occasionally the Countess brought books from her own large library for the two sisters to read, emphasising how important it was for young ladies to have a sound knowledge of literature and the arts. When they were on their own, Greta and Wilma were often rather unladylike. They started a silly competition between them about who would grow the longest hair. Greta had a slight advantage as her hair was less thick and therefore easier to look after. Wilma’s hair curled slightly and never seemed as long as Greta's because of its structure. They even got their brother Egon to use a piece of knitting wool and measure each woman's hair; when pulled, Wilma's hair was longer than it seemed but she never caught quite up with Greta all the same.

While Jonah played with his
grandson and tried to teach him to talk, the women braided their hair and tried out different hair styles. Egon usually read a book by the window or in the winter on a bench by the oven. He didn’t make much fuss about his sister or his nephew. He loved his sisters in his own way but he wished he had a brother with whom he could share his more scientific interests or with whom he could have pursued more manly pastimes. His sisters were a disappointment in these areas and, in his opinion, they fussed too much about everything. They usually talked too much as well.

At school Egon had found it difficult to socialize. When the family moved to Bratislava
, all three children had been admitted to the German school. Greta had found it easiest to make new friends there because of her good looks. She also had only two years left at school when they moved and found the girls her age surprisingly mature and reasonable compared to some of the girls at her school in the countryside. Wilma, only a year younger than her sister, found friends through association with Greta. Her class mates knew that she had the protection of her older sister's friends and left her alone - even during her last year when Greta had already left the school. Egon on the other hand was the youngest and had to spend four long years at the school. He was not a great athlete and unfortunately in his age group, that had been the only way to earn the respect of his class mates. He was considered odd and had it not been for his excellent grasp of science and his willingness to let other boys copy his homework, he would have probably ended up having a much harder time. There was an unspoken truce between him and his class mates that allowed him to exist quietly without being picked on, but to strike up a proper friendship with anyone was not on the cards.

While they still live
d out in the province, Egon had developed a strong bond with a Jewish boy named Daniel and after his mother had died in 1918 of the Spanish flu, had spent a lot of time with Daniel’s family after. Egon had been impressed by the philosophical approach which Daniel and his family had to death. This was only the beginning of further spiritual inspiration Egon received from his friend and gradually Egon had developed a surprisingly strong sense of being Jewish. He felt he could never tell his grief stricken father or sisters about it, who seemed to be coping fine without religious guidance. On Jonah’s instructions, Egon attended the Protestant religious education classes at the German school - just like his sisters - and he was immediately intimidated by the obvious anti-Jewish teachings and sentiments in these classes. He was mortified that he should be found out and this further added to his difficulty in making friends.

When Jonah and his parents had lived in the shtetl in the Ukraine
, they always used to light the Sabbath candles, a habit that the weaver had carried on, more out of a sense of tradition rather than out of actual belief, when he had moved into the Trnava province. The Weissensteiner family had moved there before the big waves of Jewish immigration and were accepted as just another Ukrainian family. When the big mass exodus of Jews expelled from the Russians happened, many of those who arrived in Slovakia were orthodox and very noticeable; the anti-Semitic sentiment began to grow.

Wanting a better life for his family and not being discriminated against as he had seen happening to the new arrivals in Trnava, Jonah decided to hide his already only lukewarm faith completely when he arrived in
Bratislava. Since he and his family were coming from a Slovak province and not from Russia directly, they were never questioned when they called themselves Protestants and with their language being assimilated too, they found themselves easily separated from the Jewish community. As they were not living in a Jewish quarter, Jonah had to abandon some of the traditions like lightning the Sabbath candles - very much to Egon's regret. The Jewish community however did notice them all the same. Especially in the early days of the workshops on Gajova, Orthodox Jews would visit and try to persuade Jonah and his family to come to the synagogue regularly. Jonah always treated them kindly and with generous hospitality, but stood firm on his decision not to practice his faith. He knew how dangerous it was to offend the very faithful of any religion and so he offered donations to the Jewish community to maintain friendly relations, explaining that he just did not feel comfortable in any religious community. Of course, this did not buy him the respect of the Rabbis, but the donations lessened the frequency and intensity of their visits, which was important to Jonah and his plans to remain religiously anonymous. It was suspicious enough that they made the girls in their employ work most Saturdays on their own with only minimal supervision from the Weissensteiner family, but so far the plan had worked and their secret was safe.  

Jonah was particularly pleased about Greta
’s conversion to Catholicism and the prospects this would bring to his grandson Karl. If this was what society demanded from his child and grandson to treat them with the respect they deserved, then lying was a minor price to pay. To Jonah, the only thing that counted was your inner life and that, no one could control. He wished his other children would do the same. Wilma and Egon were very lethargic and seemed to have no interest in either a good or an exciting life. If only they would be interested in the other sex or at least go out from time to time and experience things. It seemed they would be staying at home with him for quite some time to come. Greta however was his pride and joy, and his hope. She could not come home often enough to satisfy Jonah’s longing for her.

Whenever Greta came back home from such visits to her family in Bratislava
, Johanna couldn't help herself and immediately found as many tasks for her to do as she could, just to show that the time away from the farm was like missed working hours that needed to be made up for. Johanna hoped this would discourage Greta from going away as often as she did, but the young mother possessed an abundance of patience and never showed any signs of rebellion against these orders. Elizabeth however, had more understanding and always managed secretly to save some food for Greta and Karl, knowing full well that there wouldn't have been much food to be had at the Weissensteiner house, especially ever since that mad and disorganised sister Wilma had become the one responsible for the domestic duties.

While Greta was being fed in the kitchen
, Roswitha was always keen to play with little Karl and to carry him around. She cherished these moments during which she could be in charge of the little child.