Dissonance (24 page)

Then came Christmas at the Hennigs. Madge dropped her defences for more than three hours. She supplied a leg of lamb, gave Luise an ivory-backed hairbrush and Sara a tin of shortbread biscuits. She didn't look at their children when they held hands; she didn't lift an eyebrow or shake her head. She even tried to think Christmas thoughts, leading Luise into her kitchen and teaching her how to make Barossa Valley eggnog.

Then there was pudding and lumpy brandy custard around a small coal fire – as much steam and smoke as there was heat. Silence as they ate, spoons clinking on china, Madge wiping custard from her chin.

Erwin noticed a framed photo hanging on the wall: a man in his late twenties or early thirties, dressed in a suit and tie, sitting in the same chair he was in. He was holding a baby wrapped in thick, white blankets – laughing, pulling a face. ‘Is that your dad?' Erwin asked Luise, indicating the photo.

‘Yes,' she replied.

Silence. So, he wanted to ask, let's hear about him. But she never talked about her father. Whenever he came up it was always, ‘He died when I was a baby, I can't even remember him.'

‘It looks like he doted on you,' Madge offered.

‘Apparently.'

‘And if you don't mind me asking,' Madge continued, ­finishing her pudding, looking at Sara, ‘how did he die?'

‘He had an accident,' Sara replied.

‘Oh.' Madge looked at her expectantly.

‘At work … involving some machinery.'

Madge wanted to know more, but dared not ask. Husbands died, that was life. ‘Jo died early,' she continued. ‘From cancer.' She nodded her head. ‘They were a terrible few months.'

Maybe it wasn't cancer, Luise wanted to say. Maybe he willed himself to die, to get away from you.

A log popped in the fire and Erwin started; he looked at Luise. ‘You can't remember him at all?' he asked.

‘I remember the smell of hair oil,' she said, looking at the photo. ‘Maybe that was him.'

Madge changed the subject. ‘People are saying there'll be a war.'

‘Why would there be a war?' Sara asked.

‘Your little man, with the moustache. The Rhineland, Austria, the Czechs … now he's talking about Danzig.'

‘All German areas,' Luise explained. ‘If you study the history, those places were stolen from us.'

‘Because of the last war?'

‘Yes.'

‘Exactly my point. Hitler will take more and more, and eventually people will stand up to him. France, England … and where will that leave us? A pair of Colonials in Hamburg?'

‘You are German,' Luise protested. ‘You have German blood.'

‘We're part of the Empire.'

‘Hitler isn't interested in England.'

‘When one goes they'll all go.'

‘So what are you saying?' Sara asked.

‘I was thinking perhaps, we should move to London. Find another teacher.'

‘But Ivan's my teacher,' said Erwin.

‘There are other teachers.'

‘I'm happy here,' Erwin said. ‘I don't care about Hitler, or Czechoslovakia. I just want to learn.' He looked at Luise, and then back at Madge. ‘Anyway, there are a lot of foreigners here: that French girl, the cellist, and the tenor from Spain.'

‘And a few string players,' Luise added.

Madge sat with a blank face, but inside she was smiling. She had no intention of leaving Germany. She cared even less about Hitler, the Austrian soccer team or second-rate countries full of salami and inbred farmers. She was just testing the water, curious to see where everyone stood.

‘You don't want to leave,' Luise said. ‘Remember, this is Paradise.'

Erwin looked at his mother. He knew she was acting. He knew she'd never let go of what they'd achieved. England would be a step backwards. And then what? Returning to the Valley? Walking down Murray Street as people whispered, Stupid cow, slipped on her arse that time.

‘And anyway,' Sara continued, ‘we want you to stay, don't we Luise?'

‘Yes,' her daughter replied, stage-smiling. ‘You're our … mates.'

Madge was happy. Everyone had professed his or her loyalty. The air had been cleared of the lingering smell of lemon. And now she had something else to hold over the children – England. Only three hours by boat.

What started as a niggle ended as a giant pain in the rump.

As winter turned to spring politics became increasingly difficult to ignore: Edelweiss plaited into blonde locks, Alfred's boys on long hikes and columns of soldiers marching with no apparent destination. To Erwin it looked, sounded and smelt like opera. It was all Romberg, a pastiche of borrowed song, old costumes and predictable choreography. But what had started as a forest of painted prop trees was becoming real. Sets were solidifying into actual places. Fake-moustached villains were learning to shoot real guns. Words had become deeds; songs had become slogans; impatience had turned to conviction.

When the curtain came up it all seemed so real. On 21 August 1939, Madge stood in her kitchen with the local paper spread out across the bench as her few remaining English students sat in her bedroom, at the dresser and on the bed, trying to construct a sentence containing the words power, elephant and indecisive.

She read that Hitler and Stalin had signed a non-aggression pact. Just as she'd expected: the Fascists were lining up together. Over the next ten days she noticed trucks towing artillery through the streets, convoys of biscuits and bedding, troops marching over sun-warmed cobblestones, Goebbels forever on the radio explaining how the Polish government was a spent force and how no one in Warsaw knew how to fix things. Madge sat and listened, and worried. She could tell a ham actor a mile off.

That afternoon she went and knocked on Sara's door. She showed her the newspaper (which she already had). ‘How is this going to affect us?' she asked.

And this time Sara said, ‘You're German now … aren't you?'

‘They'll arrest us.'

‘Who?'

‘The police.'

As Sara laughed. ‘They're not worried about you.'

But Madge could feel a vortex forming. A few days later she was back at her neighbour's door, brandishing another newspaper. ‘The Poles have attacked,' she said, almost crying.

‘Where?' Sara asked.

‘Gleiwitz. A radio station.'

‘A radio station? Calm down, we're not going to war over a radio station.'

Madge read from the newspaper. It described the attack at the border town – how Polish commandos had burst into a German radio station, shot innocent workers and broadcast an anti-German speech before fleeing.

‘Why would they do that?' Sara asked.

‘A provocation.'

‘It's a funny way to go about it.'

The next day it began for real.

Madge was cooking scones. Her hands were covered in flour and dough and she was fighting to keep hair from her eyes. There was a knock at the door and she answered it.

‘Have you heard?' Sara asked.

‘What?'

Her neighbour entered, and switched on her radio, and they both sat on the shabby, cotton-covered lounge.

‘“I can no longer find any willingness on the part of the Polish government to conduct serious negotiations with us”,' Hitler was explaining to the Reichstag. ‘“This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our territory. Since 5.45 am we have been returning the fire”.'

Madge looked at her neighbour. ‘See,' she said, ‘it didn't matter that it was a radio station.'

Sara shook her head. ‘He says he still wants peace,' she attempted.

‘I'm worried,' Madge whispered, sitting with her hands between her knees.

Sara moved closer to her. She put her arm around Madge's shoulder and squeezed. ‘It'll work itself out.'

It was a Sunday when she heard newsboys on the street. She sent Erwin down with money but they were giving the papers away.

British Note Demands Withdrawal of our Troops in the East

England Declares a State of War

They sat together on the lounge with the paper across their laps. When she'd read enough Madge said, ‘Well, that's it.'

‘It won't affect us, will it?'

She took a moment to respond. ‘It depends if we're German enough.'

He moved his knees together and moved his hands on them as though he was about to be photographed. Then he tapped his left foot on the floorboards. ‘We could still go to England,' he said.

The phone rang. Madge, who was sitting beside it, let it ring for a full thirty seconds before answering it. ‘Hello?'

‘Madge?'

‘Dad?'

‘How are you?'

‘Good.'

‘And Erwin?'

‘Good, good.'

After a few minutes of small talk Sam said, ‘The government reckons you can still get out.'

‘Why?'

‘What do you think?'

‘But things won't change …'

She could hear her father covering the phone and mumbl­ing something to Grace. Then her mother came on. ‘Madge, how are you, dear?'

‘Fine. We're missing you.'

‘Likewise. Listen, I haven't got long. They reckon you've gotta get out of there.'

‘Mum.'

After the call, Sam cursed his daughter. ‘This has always been her problem. She doesn't listen. She always knows best.'

‘Like you.'

‘Maybe, but I'm not gonna end up in a prison camp drinkin' potato soup.'

The next morning there was more bad news for the Hergerts. Overnight a British passenger liner, the
Athenia
, had been torpedoed west of the Hebrides. One hundred and twelve people (including twenty-eight Americans) had been killed. Goebbels got on the radio to say that the British had sunk their own ship to try and bring America into the war.

Later that morning Luise came to visit them. She brought a chocolate and walnut cake she'd made them. ‘What's the occasion?' Madge asked.

She smiled. ‘You becoming Germans, at last.'

Poland, too, became German in a matter of days. Then things settled down and the news was once more about operas and autobahns, a world-record sheep-shearing attempt in Posen and toy factories working overtime to keep up with the Christmas demand.

Then came snow, and more carols and eggnog, holly and tinsel and lumpy yellow custard trailing down Madge's chin.

Lessons continued with Schaedel, sometimes at the Con but mostly at the teacher's apartment. Most days there was a scribbled sign on the door of his office: ‘My place today, sick' or ‘My apartment – catch tram 186'.

It was a warm, spring day when Erwin climbed the stairs for his lesson. His arms were full of music, as usual, and he had shaved, and there was blood on his face where he'd sliced off a pimple. The stairs were dark, except for dusk light coming from a deserted apartment with its door removed. He knocked on Schaedel's door and listened to the sliding of bolts and rattling of chains. Then the door opened and the Herr Professor squinted out at him. ‘Erwin, quick.' He shepherded him inside and bolted the door.

Schaedel was the same: wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown, constantly stroking his half-beard, running his fingers through hair so greasy it stayed in a sort of abstract perm. He picked up the phone and continued a conversation he'd been having. ‘All I ask is an hour or two,' he said, and waited. ‘Or else, should I just come and take him?'

And then he held the phone in the air, looking at Erwin. ‘How are you?' he asked.

‘Fine.'

‘She hung up on me.'

‘Who?'

‘It's my son's birthday … my younger son's. But she won't let me see him.'

‘Can she stop you?'

And then Schaedel hung up the phone. ‘What can I do? Go over and put on a performance?'

Erwin didn't answer. He could hear his father at the back door at God's Hill Road, whispering, but then raising his voice in anger. ‘It's not a question of what you want, it's the law.'

But it was Madge's law, always.

‘It makes it difficult,' Erwin managed.

Schaedel looked at him for a moment. ‘Still, it's not your problem. You've come to learn piano.'

‘Just the same.'

‘I don't want to turn you off women.'

There were scales and studies, and eventually Erwin said, ‘I've composed something else.'

Schaedel smiled. ‘Let's hear it.'

Erwin searched through his satchel and found a few scraps of manuscript. He lined them up on the piano like shards of broken pottery and studied them. Then he ­rearranged their order and studied them again. The notes were scrawled, circled, joined with lines and arrows, crossed out and rewritten on hand-drawn staves crammed onto the edge of the page. There didn't seem to be an order – no markings, speeds, and sometimes not even both hands, just a melody and a chord.

‘It's George Gershwin,' Erwin said, proudly, looking up at his teacher.

Schaedel tried to look pleased. ‘Good … only, can you play it quietly?'

‘It's a variation on
I Got Rhythm
.'

Schaedel looked through the walls, wondering, seeing his neighbour standing with a glass against the masonry, nodding his head and then making notes in a small book: ‘I Got Rhythm. A Negro Jazz piece by the Jew Gershwin'.

But Erwin was already off, improvising upon his scribble, hammering out syncopated octaves with his left hand and thick, heavy jazz chords with his right. He played the melody and then three or four variations until the music he was playing seemed to have nothing to do with Gershwin any more.

When he was finished, Schaedel said, ‘Good, good … but you must be careful.'

‘Why?' Erwin asked.

‘Gershwin is banned.'

‘But it's such a great melody, and rhythm.' He started to improvise again. This time Schaedel placed his hands over Erwin's. ‘I know,' he said, sitting down on a stool beside him, taking his hands from the keyboard and holding them tightly in his. ‘The problem is, next door.' He nodded his head to show which apartment. ‘He's related to someone who knows someone who's with the SD. The other day he said to me, I've met Heydrich, just like that,
I've
met Heydrich, and he winked.' Schaedel demonstrated, smiling.