The Luck of the Weissensteiners (The Three Nations Trilogy) (8 page)

Greta worked very hard on the farm despi
te her pregnancy. Benedikt had taken on some immigrant workers for the harvest but he frequently kept firing them because he either did not trust them or thought they were not industrious enough. At peak times, everyone on the farm could feel the strain of how short staffed they were and consequently, depending on the weather conditions, how difficult it was to get things done. Some tasks could only be performed if there had been enough sunshine and then the entire workforce may have to hurry if rain was on its way.

On one of those mad days
when everyone was rushing to get the hay inside before an expected burst of rain, Greta lost her baby. It was Johanna's daughter Roswitha who detected blood running from Greta's legs and screamed; the pregnant woman had not even noticed herself that something was wrong. Concerned that he would lose all of the hay harvest, Benedikt made them finish the job before he put Greta and Roswitha on a cart and sent them off to the doctor. Everyone but him was upset about the incident and the atmosphere on the farm turned dark and depressive. Benedikt said coldly that these things happened and if the whole world stopped to grieve about a lost foetus then nothing would ever get done. Dying was just another thing in life. The baby would never have lived and to risk the harvest for that seemed a little extreme.

No one dared to co
ntradict him but even the normally harsh and cold hearted Johanna disagreed with him and his actions. She thought he had unnecessarily risked Greta’s life by delaying her trip to the doctor.

Johanna used thi
s unique opportunity to stop finally all family visits from the Weissensteiners. She took it upon herself to walk personally into town and meet with Jonah, explaining how Greta had recovered well and just needed complete and total rest right now; how she appreciated how desperately they would want to see their darling Greta but with one working pair of hands down, the farm was now simply not in any position to socialise or receive guests.  Besides, it already had been agreed that there should be as few visits to the farm as possible and the reasons for that should not be forgotten. Jonah knew better than to argue with the farmer's wife. For all his worries, he was sure that Greta was well looked after. Wilma offered to come and stay so she could look after her sister and help with the cooking, but Johanna said she would prefer to keep things as they were. The Weissensteiners surely must be very busy with their workshop too and needed her themselves.

Following the miscarriage Greta fell into a deep depression. She was allowed to lie down and physically recover for a week, but lying in bed and having the whole day to think about the
loss of her baby just made things worse. Johanna had ordered Roswitha to look after Karl and restricted the contact between the boy and his mother drastically. Roswitha was great with the child but was kept under close inspection by her mother. Greta missed her little boy and tried to persuade Johanna to let her play with him more, but Johanna insisted that the poor boy would only be traumatized if he could see his mother so upset. It was an obvious excuse to spend more time with the golden boy herself and she deliberately neglected the care for Greta in the hope that this would prolong the mother's incapacity and foster Johanna's own relationship with little Karl.

T
he farm was missing three women doing work and Benedikt had to bite the bullet and hire more external seasonal workers. In the absence of a better alternative, he employed Jewish peasants from the east who were stuck in Bratislava, where even the large Jewish community could not help all of them to find jobs. Benedikt was very concerned about their work ethic and worried he might waste too much of his own productive farming time by having to control and supervise these 'shlemiels', but against his expectations the workers proved very experienced and efficient. They had to be desperate for more work in the future if they could overcome their lazy nature, he thought, but he still did not trust them enough to leave them to their work without breathing down their necks.

As things seemed to be working out
, Benedikt did not put immediate pressure on Johanna to bring Greta or Roswitha back to do the farm work. Little Karl became the light of Johanna's life. Even on days when Greta felt physically strong, Johanna made her stay away from her own son until she had mentally recovered and was less miserable. The poor and isolated mother was too weak to successfully protest against the arguments and after hearing again and again how incapable she was to attend to her own son’s needs, she started to believe that she was too fragile and even agreed with the separation. Without contact to the people closest to her, it took her much longer to return to her feet, exactly as Johanna had planned.

Wilhelm buried his grief about the miscarriage in a sudden burst of religious practice. He started to go to morning mass in Bratislava every day and left the house in the hours of darkness. When he came home he hardly spoke to anyone and just fell into bed. With both of his parents being unavailable
, Johanna became the main adult figure in Karl’s life and because her infatuation with him was so strong, he soon learned how to manipulate her to get his way. Johanna’s happiest moments were when she had succeeded in making him smile or laugh and he carefully used this tool to his advantage.

Greta found the situation increasingly difficult to bear. Her sadness and isolation dro
ve her into a downward spiral and when she finally built up the courage to confide her feelings to Wilhelm, he was cold and unwilling to deal with her misery as well as his own. To get her out of his way, he suggested that she should go and stay at her father’s place until she had recovered mentally. That should cure her isolation.

Johanna loved this idea and imme
diately suggested it to Benedikt who was happy to go along with it and ordered her to go and join her family in Bratislava. He felt that all the crying over spilt milk could become disruptive to his life and might demand too much of his attention which he exclusively had reserved for the running of the farm.

During his supervision of the new labourers
, in two of the Jews he had recognised surprising talent and commitment to the farm. He now felt comfortable enough to entrust them with supervising the others. This had worked out very well and he calculated that it was worth the expense of giving them the little he had to pay them instead of returning the tasks to the cheaper yet more inefficient family members.

He chose Maria to work with them, knowing that her quiet and
hardworking nature would be enough to keep them on their guard. The men were married and too desperate for work to get fresh with his daughter, but he often also showed up unannounced to impress on them that he was still watching them. Maria was pleased that she was permitted to keep working outdoors. She had expected and feared to be put back into the kitchen under the scolding hand of her mother. Since Elizabeth had left, the atmosphere in the house had lost its warmth and cosiness. The evenings were much quieter and the only thing that seemed to matter to her mother was the well-being of little Karl.

It was Roswitha who had to work in the kitchen
now and do the housework more or less by herself, but she seemed to enjoy it. She had learned many tricks from Elizabeth and her efforts were now usually praised or at least not criticised any more, which already helped her with her feelings of self-worth. She drew a lot of satisfaction from this and against character, Johanna made sure to show her appreciation - even though that was purely part of her plot to keep the daughters busy so that Johanna would have more time with Karl.

Her obsession with the b
aby upset her own children. They could not believe that the cold woman who brought them up without love could turn into such a caring mother figure and even neglect her own farm duties to spoil the little child. Benedikt was too much of a farmer to notice any of these things. He was certainly not a house-proud man who did not notice anything apart from the size of his nightly food portions. Housekeeping was for women and he did not waste his time keeping an eye on it. If Johanna said that things were under control, he was happy to believe it and any distraction, like the sick Greta, needed to be dealt with as painlessly and quickly as possible.

When Greta was finally considered strong enough to make the journey into Bratislava
, she was allowed to say a brief goodbye to her son whom Johanna firmly held on her arm for the whole time. Karl was already so used to his 'new mother' that on the morning she was supposed to leave he seemed to take little notice of Greta. She felt a painful stab in her heart seeing him so happy on someone else’s arm - as if he did not need her at all. She knew it was the best for her son, but it brought on another wave of grief, hurting as if she had lost now
both children in such a short period of time. She managed to keep a straight face in front of Karl but when she was outside the house she could not control her tears. Wilhelm, who accompanied her to Bratislava on his way to work, did not console her. He handed her a handkerchief but said they would have to leave right away. They had a long journey ahead of them and, in her state, she was likely to slow him down. He carried the suitcase for her until near her father’s workshop where their paths separated. Neither of them said anything for the entire journey and their half-hearted goodbyes were swallowed by the wind.

Wilma
already stood on the street outside the workshop waiting for her sister when Greta turned into the dead-end road. She rushed towards her, took the suitcase, grabbed Greta by the arm and hurried her through the door. They fell into each other’s arms and both simultaneously burst into uncontrollable fits of crying. The two had missed each other and the relief that surged through them was overwhelming. With Wilma by her side, Greta knew that she would learn to live with the loss of her unborn baby and would be happy again. She was sad that her own husband had not been able to support her at all in this dilemma but she appreciated that he had his own demons to fight over the tragedy. They had been very close and a real couple when they first started dating but now it felt as if they had drifted far apart. She blamed the hollow organising and the sober running of their life. The joint experience of their loss, which they dealt with so separately, showed how disjointed they had become in such a short time. With Greta back in her life, Wilma knew that nothing bad could ever happen to her either. While in many ways she had a strong bond with her father, the relationship with him was not a close one. Jonah was a cheerful man for a widower but it was obvious that the loss of his wife had taken its toll on his psyche. He lived more for his own company and his role as the family provider rather than for the pure joy of life.

In his younger years he had been as enthusiastic fo
r life as Greta had always been but since his wife’s death, Jonah had turned into an old version of his lifeless and ever so introverted son Egon. Jonah was asking the right questions and took an active interest in the life of his children, but he seemed not to be taking it in, and appeared mentally not really to be present when he spoke to them. It left his children feeling distant and disconnected. Wilma was also living in her own little world and usually too busy with whatever she was doing to take a look at the big picture. She did not have the skills necessary to reach out to him and bridge the gap between them. Greta was the only one who could sometimes bring him out of his shell and back into the family life. With her back in the house, the Weissensteiners had the opportunity to become a close unit again.

Th
e task ahead of healing her hurt almost gave Jonah a new lease of life. He hated to admit it but of his three children, he favoured Greta more than he should; Egon was a good natured boy but very secretive and closed. The connection with Wilma was weak because she was an odd character that not many people could understand and sadly he was not one of those few. She was the middle child and had always hidden behind the bigger sister, a scatter brain who could not concentrate long enough to hear a story till the end and who could certainly not remember much of it an hour later, the impulsive breaker of things, the harsh and rude girl that upset people easily without even meaning to do so, and a young woman who did not really hold for any kind of tradition – it was hard for her father to form a close bond with her. She wore her heart on her sleeve and spoke before thinking things through. Too often she saw everything in black and white and could only see the surface of things. She was willing and eager to help but when she did, she did things so hurriedly and so carelessly, often making more of a mess than being a help. In comparison, Greta was so wise and he had to admit to himself that he did prefer her company to that of his other children.

Greta stayed for a few
weeks during which she would sit reading by the upstairs kitchen window. Jonah and the Countess had gone to Wilhelm’s bookshop and bought two brand new books for Greta, embarrassing her husband who had not thought of it himself. When asked he could not for the life of him think of which books to recommend for his grief stricken wife. He doubted that the romantic and passionate literature that she usually preferred was a good pastime in her current state.

Jonah settled for a collection of fairy tales and the Countess chose a collection of works by Eichendorff, who according to Greta
, could always be relied upon for a very cheerful tone and a splendidly happy ending. Wilhelm was awfully quiet and uncomfortable. The Countess was appalled by the husband's lack of care and interest and threw him scolding looks. Her aristocratic authority intimidated the poor sales assistant and left him lost for words. Jonah had to make most of the conversation by himself, telling his son-in-law how sad Greta still was and how she missed her son. Jonah found it hard to hide his growing resentment to Wilhelm’s self-indulgent grief and the neglectful behaviour towards Greta. That man had turned into a young spoilt child and hardly resembled the serious and mature man that had married his daughter. It was a sad development and Jonah could only hope that this phase would end soon and that once the couple was reunited they would work things out. After all, the doctors were hopeful that Greta should be able to have plenty more children. It was disappointing to lose a child but it had not even been born yet, not opened his eyes or said its first words. How could a young couple, with so much life and prospects ahead of them, be taken down by one minor setback like this? In his opinion, the young lovers should be together and comfort each other, like he would have done with his late Barbara. Maybe that was the price Greta had to pay for having a serious thinker as a husband prone to melancholy and depression?