Eloquent Silence (41 page)

Annie could feel her cheek muscles tightening as she clenched her teeth, prepared for the worst. She thought how no two people every see or experience things in the same way and when Conrad had been taunting her all during the marriage, the aspersions had gone straight over Sarah’s head. She hadn’t understood what her father was referring to or doing or was capable of, while Annie had been mentally brought to her knees on so many occasions that had gone over the children’s heads. Thank God for that much, Annie sighed, knowing that they had taken much that was damaging on board.

‘What a shemozzle, Mum!’ Sarah exclaimed.

‘But that’s not the worst of it, Sarah,’ Annie sighed, mentally girding her loins for the rest of the story. ‘Remember that at the time of the event Ruth was two and a half and you were one and a half. I’m so tired of repeating these figures that I could scream.’

Annie stood up and began pacing the floor, tired unto death of having to divulge her ancient secrets and live out the cruel past again while her daughter watched as though mesmerized. How many times would she have to bear her soul before all this was through?

‘Go on, Mum,’ Sarah murmured, her face frozen with bewilderment.

‘Your father knows all these facts as well as I do. Unfortunately, I think that now his brain is so pickled with alcohol that he possibly doesn’t know what he knows or he believes he can convince me of events I know are false.

‘But the fact of the matter is that he’s told Ruth and David that he doesn’t think you are his child. He’s told them that you are Jacob Blumberg’s child but there was never any possibility of that. That all happened when you were up and walking. He’s either forgotten the dates or he’s used this to try to separate me from my children. He’s held on to this information all these years and he’s used it to try to take you all away from me. That’s how cruel he is. He knew you were both mobile when I told him I wanted out of the marriage. He knew I didn’t want him on again at any price.’

Annie finished in a rush and burst into deep, sighing sobs. There they were, the walking wounded, all victims of Conrad Himmlar’s warped and twisted attitude to life. Herself forced to go to several different lengths over the years to finally get free of him and her children, especially Sarah, agitated to their very souls.

‘Surely even he couldn’t be so rotten, Mum,’ Sarah murmured incredulously, as the realization drained the color from her face, leaving her white as a sheet. Her face quivered as she stared at her mother, hoping against hope that her father’s cruelty could be swept away, yet knowing that he never let go of anything if he could twist it into something that would hurt a person he was bound and determined to hurt.

‘Sarah dear, I could never understand the workings of his mind,’ Annie told her daughter when she was finally able to speak coherently again. ‘He had the filthiest, most vile mind I ever came in contact with, I found once I’d married him. He used to say things like that I had affairs with all my male cousins, my mother, too, even long before I did step out of line. Vile accusations that made me sick to my stomach. He has the most incredibly horrible mind,’ Annie finished with a shudder.

While speaking, Annie watched her daughter’s features, noted how the rosy, healthy glow had left Sarah’s cheeks to be replaced by an ashy white color, devoid of any trace of the previous radiance given to her by motherhood. She cringed inwardly and felt an enormous sense of responsibility that they should have to suffer after all these years. Annie paused and closed her eyes, praying for a little more strength to help her get through the morning.

Sarah opened her eyes again as Annie commenced to gaze in troubled silence, and Sarah’s face flushed with anger. Indignant tears sprung unheeded from her blue eyes.

‘Why did he choose me out of all of us? Why not David, who came after the affair? Wouldn’t it have been more logical to alter the dates to fit with David’s birth? But oh, no, he’s the son! Or why not the baby who was aborted?’ she asked furiously. ‘He’s done it to get his own back on you, Mum, but why has it always been me he’s resented so strongly? Why did he have to do this to me?’

Sarah dropped her head against her son’s fuzzy fair head and cried bitterly.

‘Darling, darling, please don’t,’ Annie pleaded, rushing to take her daughter into her arms. ‘I’m sure he never gave it a thought as to what this would do to you when he first started it up with Ruth and David. He was lashing out at me, trying to use his last trump card against me to take all of you away from me. He wouldn’t have given a moment’s thought to your feelings, only to how he could cause me to suffer. You know he’s never been strong on logic. I think everything possible has been said in my absence to bring me down—behind my back. To chew me up and spit me out. I don’t know if he ever stopped to consider what all this would do to you, or if he did, to care.’ Years of accumulated sadness and weariness dragged at Annie’s heart.

‘Sarah, try not to let this hurt you if you can,’ said Granny Abraham gently. There in the house were four generations sorely afflicted by Conrad Himmlar’s spite. He would have found it hard to do more emotional damage to a family if he tried. ‘All his life he’s struck out in anger against those who are unfortunate enough to be close to him. He can’t seem to help himself. You must be strong, dear, and try to rise above it.’

‘Sweetheart, none of us wanted to tell you what was going on but he wouldn’t let go of it, so we decided you would have to be told,’ Annie said. She cradled Sarah and her baby close against her pounding heart.

‘I hate him,’ Sarah sobbed, unable to stop. Nor could she take any consolation from the fact that Sarah’s father had been hurting them both for as long as they had known him and this was simply another ‘effisode’. This was not an unusual posture for Conrad to assume but certainly the most cruel onslaught he had made so far. ‘I should have known he would hit out at me. He never forgave me for not being a boy.’

‘He never forgave anyone for anything, Sarah,’ Annie told her. ‘Real or imagined. He is a most unfortunate man to be cursed with the abominable nature he has been cursed with. Unspeakable things were done to the females in his household during those years. Try as I might, I can’t forget.

‘But the term ‘Domestic Violence’ had not been coined then. It was simply a case of shut up and suffer. There was no counseling, no outside help, only what came from ‘interfering’ relatives. The thing the police feared most was being called to these household flare ups. They felt their lives were most in danger then.’

‘From what I’ve seen, there are two distinct kinds of men,’ Sarah said tearfully.

‘Yes, I’ll agree with that,’ Annie conceded.

‘There’s the sort who are normal, civilized and sane. Then there’s the other sort and from what I can see, those all follow the same pattern. Bullying, rude, crude and overbearing.’

‘True, darling,’ Annie said with a sad smile. ‘They sulk, they’re violent, they think it’s okay to brutalize their families. When crossed, they go crazy with temper and fury.’

‘Yes, exactly the same pattern. They’re the kind who kill,’ Sarah finished with a tremor in her voice as she hugged her baby son to her.

Annie, exhausted and demoralized, buried her face in her hands and wept.

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A
nd so matters went from bad to worse. Annie struggled daily to get well enough to return to work. Sarah, always an emotional, highly-strung young woman, found herself slipping down, down, tearfully, despondently as she thought about the blow to her sense of identity that her father had tried to give her. Ruth, in furious defense of her sister, refused to have anything further to do with their father.

‘If my sister has been rejected by him, then I’m rejected, too,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I’ll never forgive him.’

David, confounded and annoyed as he was with their father, continued contact with him with the stipulation there would be no more mention of Annie in any way.

And so they all went along for a time, with Annie and Sarah battling very hard not to slip over the edge into the abyss of despair, the tone set for future relations within the splintered family.

Gradually, with the passing of a couple of years the desperation that Annie had at first felt began to subside. For herself she had not cared a great deal, being only too used to Conrad’s disgusting verbal meanderings, but for Sarah’s sake the outcome had been a blow of gigantic proportions.

Sarah could not seem to rise above the blow inflicted upon her, the sorrow from which she suffered at the thought that not only she, but her little son had this slur cast upon them and their sense of identity through no fault of their own.

Annie knew that if there had there been no Jacob Blumberg, Conrad would still have found a way to blame Annie for adultery as he had been doing from the first day of their marriage. She didn’t know what to do about the whole thing, but knew that the present condition could not be allowed to continue, mostly for Sarah’s sake.

Finally, she took her courage into her hands and rang Conrad one day when she thought that Girda would be at work.

‘Conrad, it’s been a cruel blow to Sarah, your denying being her father the way you did. You must know she is your child the same as the other two are,’ she said, trying to be unemotional about the event that had caused so much disruption.

‘Yes, I know,’ he admitted grudgingly.

‘Then would you please apologize to her about the hurt you’ve caused her and try to make amends?’ she asked quite pleasantly, biting her tongue to try to stay civil. ‘The matter’s having a bad affect on Sarah. She’s being eaten up by it. I’m afraid it will destroy her, Conrad. It’s up to you to try to patch up the problem with her and Ruth.’

‘I haven’t done anything to apologize to anyone about,’ Conrad snorted and hung up loudly in her ear.

No-one else has the lethal power of the ex-spouse to stir up memories, resentments and long-forgotten pain.

My God, Annie thought, you’ve only got the thinnest veneer of civilization, haven’t you? You simply cannot bear not to have the last word, come what may.

But Annie’s plea must have made some impression on his hard-bitten attitude. At Ruth’s second marriage to Levi Adamson, Annie’s mother collared Conrad and gave him a severe talking-to, advising him to accept the truth and to cease victimizing Annie and Sarah.

Finally, he admitted to her that he knew Sarah was his child. How much damage had been done in the interim over the several years that he had held out against facing the reality of his lies would never be known, but at last he had ceased to flaunt the deception and treachery. That could only be seen as a step in the right direction, Annie assumed.

Matters simmered along in truce mode for sometime. Eventually, for reasons best known to himself and after much persuasion from David, Conrad telephoned his daughters and son and invited them to his home for a meal. They went on the condition there would be no mention of Jacob Blumberg or of Conrad’s resentment regarding their mother. And that he would never again stoop to such a level of trouble-making.

He did not apologize for the hurt he caused Sarah. It never occurred to him that she should be affected in any way, that she may be distraught, and crushed at being tried and found wanting for no better reason than Conrad’s hitting out at Annie in spite. As far as he was concerned, what went on had been between himself and Annie and he had been the conqueror while Annie had been the conquered. Other harm done to Sarah and Annie had been merely collateral damage and nothing to do with him, he knew.

But in trying to alienate their adult children from their mother he had overlooked the untold injury he had done to Sarah, the unspeakable result the upheaval had on the child he had claimed was not his. Perhaps he did not care that he had dealt her another crippling blow on top of all the hurts he had heaped freely and knowingly upon her during her childhood.

The devastating aftermath would stay with Sarah for the rest of her life, later bringing her again to the brink of despair as she recalled some of the horrible incidents that had taken place in her formative years.

Sarah and Annie tried hard to forgive him but they would never forget, recalling also that dreadful things had happened to the child he claimed was not his. But no beating is final while life endures and he had not heard the last of Annie’s determination to overcome the prejudices he had spread abroad about her and hers.

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C
onrad’s children and their partners, all looking strained and uneasy, ate a hasty meal and as soon as politeness would allow, left for their respective homes.

Conrad, as usual totally unaware of abnormalities and undercurrents, said to Girda as they prepared for bed,

‘Wasn’t it nice to have them here for the evening? Great to have them all here again.’ He belched loudly as he collected his pajamas from under  his pillow.

‘Yes,’ replied Girda tersely and went on reading her magazine.

‘Pleased to be back with their father again, I think, don’t you?’ he asked, seeking her confirmation on what an excellent father he was.

‘Yes.’ Again brief and terse. She looked at him as if she had never seen him before, then returned to her magazine.

Conrad walked into the ensuite to have a shower, whistling, ‘Hey Jude,’ through his teeth. Then he burst into song,

‘Hey Judas, don’t bring me down....’ The only words he knew, or
thought
he knew.

He rumbled on tunelessly for a while, then the shower was switched off and his wife could hear him toweling himself vigorously.

He strolled out and crawled into bed beside his silent wife, a small, satisfied smile playing around his lips. He lay there in the dark thinking about himself and his success as a business tycoon, (in a small way, of course), and a family man (in a large way, of course). Can’t help good luck, he reminded himself. Man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.

He grinned widely to himself, carried away on a wave of pure happiness, liking the image while simply enjoying being Conrad, just savoring the victory and glory of it.