Gently Continental (14 page)

FRIEDA

Are you saying because of that she killed him? Went out and pushed him over the cliff?

GENTLY

Is that your theory?

FRIEDA

I – no!

GENTLY

Of course, we have to consider everything.

MRS BRESKE

I do not know – about my photographs – this is nonsense, all nonsense! So it is he comes here – all right! – still, I do not speak a lot to him.

GENTLY

Yet he must have had so much to tell you. So long it was since you'd met.

MRS BRESKE

But I tell you—!

GENTLY

All the war years, before, after: Vienna, Berlin, New York.

MRS BRESKE

(Makes her buzzing noise.)

GENTLY

And the Polish lady, did he mention her – what was her name . . . Lydia Brodetsky? Perhaps you had a laugh over that? Told this Stenke he hadn't changed?

TRUDI

(Jumping up.)

I've had enough! Can't you see he knows everything, mother? Oh my goodness, what's the use of sitting there and letting him humiliate you?

FRIEDA

(Jumping up too and coming to confront her.)

Keep your mouth shut, you by-blow!

TRUDI

I won't – it's too fantastic! There's just no point in keeping quiet.

FRIEDA

You'll shut up—

GENTLY

Stand back, Miss Frieda.

MRS BRESKE

Ach, mein Gott – I'm going mad!

TRUDI

You're all so blind, that's the trouble. And you think that other people are blind too.

FRIEDA

If you say a word—

TRUDI

But he
knows
! He's simply squeezing you to make you confess. And I know too – all, everything – so who do you think you're fooling?

FRIEDA

You know nothing!

TRUDI

Yes – he told me!

MRS BRESKE

Mein Kind—

TRUDI

Oh mother, what's the use? I've known for weeks now, and I don't care – it doesn't matter to me a bit.

MRS BRESKE

It . . . does not matter?

TRUDI

No. None of it. I think it has all worked out for the best. I wanted to tell you that, Mütterlein, I wanted you to know it was all right.

MRS BRESKE

Trudi, Trudi . . . ach, Trudi!

TRUDI

I don't want anything to change. Nothing between us, Mütterlein. Everything to go on as before.

MRS BRESKE

(Weeps.)

TRUDI

(Goes to her, puts her arm round her).

Mütterlein, Mütterlein. When were you not the best of mothers to me?

MRS BRESKE

(Weeping.)

Ich bin schlecht, ich bin schlecht!

TRUDI

No, don't say that, Mütterlein.

MRS BRESKE

Ach, how could you forgive me?

TRUDI

There is nothing to forgive, Mütterlein, nothing.

FRIEDA

(Stares murderously at Trudi, her blunt fingers hooking at air.)

GENTLY

(To Walters.)

Fetch that photograph which stands on the what-not.

(Walters hands it to him. Gently studies it, then glances at Trudi.)

You are not Mrs Breske's daughter, of course.

TRUDI

No.

GENTLY

In effect your real name is Trudi Lindemann.

TRUDI

I am Mütterlein's niece. I am the daughter of her sister, Mitzi Lindemann.

GENTLY

But you were brought up to think you were Trudi Breske.

TRUDI

Yes. I didn't know who I was till recently. I knew I was like that photograph, naturally, but that sort of thing can happen in families.

GENTLY

Who told you different?

TRUDI

Uncle Martin.

GENTLY

By whom you mean the deceased.

TRUDI

Yes. He knew all about what happened in Vienna. He thought I should know who I was. I never knew my parents, of course, but Uncle Martin told me about them. My father was Professor of Music at the University . . . I believe he was a distinguished man. My mother's health was never very good and she died soon after I was born. Just before that my father had been arrested. Nobody knows what happened to him.

GENTLY

Then, apparently, you were registered as the daughter of your aunt.

TRUDI

That was necessary, don't you see? Mütterlein had a permit to leave the country, but she could never have got one for me.

MRS BRESKE

Dass ist wahr, mein Gott! Without this she is finished. I promise Mitzi when she is dying – swear I take her baby with me. Ach, that journey! With Frieda two, and Trudi crying – crying – crying. What do you know about this? What do the English know about anything?

GENTLY

And Trudi Lindemann remained Trudi Breske.

MRS BRESKE

But yes – how can it be different? How do I know the English will take her if she is not what the papers say? Und when she grows up, shall I tell her then all the terrible things that happen – how her father is put into an Ofen, how her mother is dying of grief? Nein, nein! Better she think the ugly old woman is her Mütterlein, that she haf a scamp for her father – ach, yes! Much betterer!

TRUDI

Oh mother, mother, you're
not
ugly.

GENTLY

But after the war, when the Nazis were beaten, when the estate of your sister was properly administered . . . was it so much better then?

MRS BRESKE

It is the same. How can I show that Trudi Breske is Trudi Lindemann?

GENTLY

Perhaps you couldn't. But you inherited the estate and had it in your power to gift it to your niece.

MRS BRESKE

She is then a child still!

GENTLY

But not now. When did Miss Trudi become twenty-one?

FRIEDA

(Fiercely.)

What does that matter? Did she make all this – our hotel, our business? Oh no – oh no! It was mother and I who did that. It was we who worked sixteen hours a day, seven days every week – while Trudi lived like a lady: first at school, then here!

TRUDI

But Frieda, I wouldn't dream—

FRIEDA

What right has she – tell me that? It was mother who gave her life in the first place: Trudi Lindemann wouldn't be alive today. And if mother hadn't risked her own life then – if she'd left dear Trudi to the Nazis – there wouldn't have been any question, would there, about who Aunt Mitzi's money belonged to. No, no! When she became a Breske she gave up her rights as a Lindemann. She was equal with me then and she is equal with me now.

GENTLY

The law views it a little differently.

FRIEDA

Where was the law in Hitler's Vienna?

GENTLY

Your mother did a brave thing, but that doesn't make a wrong a right.

MRS BRESKE

I do not wrong her! Ach, the money is now four times, five times – she will have more, much more, than poor Mitzi is leaving her.

GENTLY

That may be so, yet still a wrong has been committed against her. I imagine the courts' decision will be that this hotel belongs to Miss Trudi.

FRIEDA

Never!

GENTLY

Oh, I think so.

FRIEDA

We'll pay her out, and no more.

GENTLY

But you were in illegal possession of the principal, so you will scarcely be allowed to retain the increment.

FRIEDA

(Thrusting her face towards his.)

This is our work – we made it! Nobody is going to take it away. I'd sooner burn the place to ashes than hand it over to her.

GENTLY

You'll fight, will you?

FRIEDA

Yes – fight!

GENTLY

To establish your illegal possession?

FRIEDA

This place is ours!

GENTLY

What a pity, Miss Frieda,
that your father knew different
.

Snap! The trap has closed, and Frieda is suddenly, shockedly aware of it. Her pale-lipped mouth is caught open, her next retort stopped in her throat. Her wolfish eyes have grown wild, protruding, echoing Mrs Breske's and her flat, kitchen-pale cheeks have turned a new, floury, grey. Her breath won't come. She stares and stares. Gently watches, casual, expressionless. Mrs Breske, mouth open too, drags at her daughter with her eyes. Trudi's eyes are incredulous, Shelton's baffled, but drinking it in: Walters, who knows his place, glances furtively, as though not wishing to be thought to interfere. Only Sally Dicks, that model stenographer, relishes that moment only with her ears, her pencil, one of several waiting, poised, alert for the next syllable.

GENTLY

Let me recapitulate the situation. Mrs Breske inherits her sister's money. She – and you, Miss Frieda – are both aware that the money properly belongs to Miss Trudi. Miss Trudi however does not know she is the daughter of Mrs Lindemann, and the only person who can possibly tell her has vanished into wartime Germany. Miss Trudi does not and cannot know. It is safe to proceed on that basis. So Mrs Breske invests the money in this hotel, and with the especial aid of Miss Frieda, makes it prosper.

MRS BRESKE

Ach, yes, is true – Frieda works so hard.

GENTLY

That was my impression, Mrs Breske.

MRS BRESKE

The books, the staff – she is good. I cannot do it without Frieda.

GENTLY

Nevertheless, all this prosperity – of which you, Miss Frieda, were a principal agent – arose from the misappropriation of the Lindemann estate. It was balanced on that. If a whisper of Miss Trudi's origin ever reached her, then the Hotel Continental, representing years of effort, would be lost – if nothing worse.

MRS BRESKE

How . . . worse?

GENTLY

An offence was committed. You cannot be unaware of that. Certainly Miss Frieda is not so unintelligent as not to know an offence was involved. The loss of the hotel and perhaps prison were the penalties of Miss Trudi finding out, and any prospect of this happening would be a very serious threat.

TRUDI

But it wasn't – isn't! You must listen to me – I would never have done such a thing to mother!

GENTLY

Perhaps not, but your mother and sister couldn't be certain of that.

TRUDI

Yes they could – they know me! Mütterlein, you know me, don't you?

MRS BRESKE

Ja, ja.

TRUDI

Frieda?

FRIEDA

(Shrugs.)

TRUDI

You see? They knew I wouldn't behave so. It is true what Frieda says – so true! – that Trudi Lindemann wouldn't be alive. I am here because I became a Breske, because Mütterlein took me for her daughter. And there cannot be two standards, one for then, one for now. Mütterlein has the rights of a mother with me, and I am glad, proud to be Frieda's sister.

FRIEDA

No sister of mine.

TRUDI

Yes – sister! Equal with you, the way you said. If you don't love me, Frieda, I'm sorry.

MRS BRESKE

Ach, ach, is Friedachen's way.

GENTLY

But I'm afraid the facts of the matter make all this irrelevant, Miss Trudi. It is self-evident that your mother and sister didn't trust you enough to confide in you. There can be no two ways about this, they either trusted you or distrusted you; and plainly they distrusted you. They intended to keep you in ignorance of the deceased's identity.

FRIEDA

So we did. What then? What reason had I to trust this
sister
?

TRUDI

Oh, Frieda!

FRIEDA

Oh, Trudi! Aren't we the sweet little miss? But not so sweet, not so sisterly when it comes to other people's fiances. You soon had your hooks in Stephen Halliday when you came tripping back from college.

TRUDI

I didn't know—

FRIEDA

You didn't want to! You just reached out and grabbed him. Not that I care – if he's such a fool you can have him and welcome. But trust you? Schweinefleisch! I wouldn't trust you to carry out the swill. No, I wouldn't have told you who was staying here – what was my father to you?

GENTLY

In fact he represented that threat I spoke of.

FRIEDA

Yes – another worthless person! He came running to us . . . never mind that. I don't care what you think.

GENTLY

He came running to you when he was in trouble?

FRIEDA

Oh no, you can't put words in my mouth. He was in England, he found us up – reckoned we would be a soft touch.

GENTLY

Which you seem to have been.

FRIEDA

Not me. I would never have let him in the house. He was trouble. I knew he would talk to her, even though he promised not to. But mother let him in – she's soft, a hard-luck story always gets round her – and we were stuck with him. If this hadn't happened he'd have been here for life.