Heritage (32 page)

‘How old were you when your parents were killed in the war?' she asked tentatively, hoping she wasn't being insensitive.

‘I do not know exactly,' he shrugged. ‘I think perhaps I am eleven.'

‘Then you must remember them.' She was pleased that he didn't seem to mind her asking, and she wanted to picture him as a little boy with his mother and father. ‘What were they like?' she asked ingenuously. ‘I bet your dad was handsome like you – Italian men are so good-looking. And your mum probably looked like Gina Lollobrigida.'

‘I do not know what they look like. I cannot remember them.'

Then Pietro told her his story; he, too, believed there should be no secrets between a husband and wife. But there was so little to tell, he said, he only wished he could share more of his past with her.

Violet huddled on the bed, spellbound and incredulous. It was incomprehensible to her that Pietro had no memory of his early childhood.

‘That's terrible,' she said. ‘So you don't even know if you have brothers and sisters?'

‘No. I know nothing. I wish that I did.'

‘You said there was a farm,' she reminded him. ‘You told me that once. “Before Milano there was a farm”, that's what you said.'

‘Yes, I remember the farm. Only a little. I cannot remember the house where I live, but I remember the mountains. So big.' He looked up at the ceiling and gave one of his extravagant and all-encompassing gestures. ‘So big, more big than the Snowies. And I remember the pine forests in the valley and the flowers in spring. And in winter, all covered in snow. And I remember the river, and, near the river, my goats.'

Pietro felt no fear in recalling the goats – he was too eager to share whatever remnants of his childhood he could remember with Violet, who was listening, enthralled.

‘I love my goats,' he said. ‘And I am good with them,' he added proudly. He had been too – he could remember how they'd come to his call. ‘My goats they love me also. They stand very still when I milk them.' His hands curled into gentle fists: he could see and feel the rubbery teats in his fingers.

It was the dangerously vivid image which had often, in the past, preceded a seizure, but Pietro felt no threat. He'd been meticulous in taking his medication each morning and evening and he'd had no warning signs for months now. He no longer wore the strip of leather hanging from its string around his neck, although he always kept it in his pocket. Whether as a safeguard, or because it had simply become a part of his life, he wasn't sure.

Now, as he allowed himself to dwell on the images of the goats, smelling their rich animal odour, hearing their milk squirt against the side of the pail, he felt nothing but comfort in the memory.

‘I have a special goat, she is my favourite.' He could see her, dun-coloured, gentle. Rosa was not mean-spirited as the others sometimes were. ‘Her name is Rosa. I deliver her baby.' He saw his bloodied hand sliding out of the animal, the kid slithering along with it. But the image did not upset him. He heard Rosa bleating with the pain, he saw her raising her head off the ground, a further cry of relief, then the look of gratitude in her eyes as she lay back, exhausted. Rosa knew that he had helped her.

‘Violetta,' he said excitedly. ‘I remember Rosa.'

‘Yes, you just said. She was your favourite, you delivered her baby.'

‘No, no, you do not understand. Never before do I remember Rosa. Is just now, here with you, that I remember her.' Pietro was elated. ‘Is you, Violetta. Is you have done this.'

She didn't know exactly what it was she had done, but she was happy that he seemed so excited by it.

‘Do you not see? I wish to share my past with you, and it is because of this that I remember Rosa.'

The significance suddenly dawned on Violet.

‘I will help you, Pietro,' she said, and she hugged him with all the passion of her newborn purpose. ‘I will help you remember.'

Genuine as Violet's fervour was, she couldn't help imagining the scene as it would look on the screen. She would devote her life to helping her husband regain his past; it was the noblest cause imaginable. For a moment she was Bette Davis.

Pietro was unsure of the main source of his elation, whether it was the fragment of returned memory or the non-threatening image of the goats. But he related the two. He was free from his fits, he thought. He was free to remember without risking the onslaught of a seizure.

That was the one thing he had not shared with Violet. He had not told her about his epilepsy. He had felt wrong in not admitting to his illness before their marriage, but he had worried that Violet might not wish to marry him if she knew of it. Now a huge weight was lifted from his shoulders. He was not ill any more. His epilepsy was a thing of the past.

The next morning they'd walked down to Circular Quay and caught a ferry to Manly. Violet had categorically declared that there was nowhere in the world as beautiful as Sydney Harbour.

‘I know I haven't actually been to other places,' she'd said defensively, although he'd made no query, ‘but I've seen them at the pictures. I've seen Rome and Paris and London at the pictures, and I've seen New York too. And Sydney Harbour's much prettier.'

At Violet's insistence they'd visited Taronga Park Zoo and, on their return to the Quay, they'd explored The Rocks where, at a souvenir shop, Pietro had bought her a miniature statuette of the Harbour Bridge and a tiny stuffed koala like the ones she'd seen at the zoo. Violet had gawked in awe at the Harbour Bridge. ‘It's even bigger than it is in the postcards,' she'd said incongruously, but he'd known what she meant. The bridge had had much the same effect upon him when he'd first laid eyes on it. How long ago that seemed, he'd thought. And yet it wasn't really. It was barely eleven months since he'd arrived in Sydney, and three weeks later he'd been on the train to Cooma. And now here he was, earning more money than he thought he'd see in a lifetime and married to the most beautiful girl in the world. Australia was most certainly the land of opportunity.

Upon his return to Spring Hill, many noted a change in young Pietro Toscanini. The boy had become a man. He was no longer withdrawn and there was an assurance in his manner. Several of his mates who knew that he'd spent the weekend in Sydney, made ribald comments about what he'd got up to in the big smoke. Pietro said nothing, but grinned good-humouredly.

‘Marriage suits you, Pietro,' Lucky commented out of earshot of the others. ‘You're a new man.'

‘Violetta, she has changed my life.'

Pietro said nothing to Lucky of the other factor that had changed his life, for he knew that if he told Lucky he was no longer ill, Lucky would insist he visit Maarten Vanpoucke, and Pietro had decided that there would be no more doctors. There would be no more pills either, he'd decided, and he stopped taking his medication – there was no need for it. He was healthy now, as normal as the next man, and he wanted no reminders of the illness and the shame that he'd put behind him.

 

Having refused Maarten's offer of port with his coffee, Lucky was relieved that the evening was finally drawing to its conclusion. He'd conquered the fruit flan, although he now felt bloated, and he'd steered the conversation away from Pietro's love life to an interesting discussion about the American contractors. Maarten had agreed that Kaiser would have an immense impact upon the region.

But now, draining his glass, the Dutchman again reverted to the topic of Pietro.

‘I am glad that young Pietro is happy in his personal life,' he said, ‘it will help keep anxiety at bay and avoid triggers which could lead to a seizure. But I worry that he is perhaps being slack with his medication. I will check my records, but I'm sure he's due for another script.' He was about to reach for the port decanter.

‘I'll have a word with him, I promise.' Lucky rose from the table, it was time to make his escape. Maarten was labouring the point, determined to get drunk and eke out the evening. ‘Now, if you'll forgive me, I really must go.'

‘Yes, yes, of course.' The Dutchman looked at the clock on the mantelpiece as he stood. ‘My goodness, I didn't realise how late it was.'

As they stepped out onto the first-floor landing, they found Mrs Hodgeman's son, Kevin, loitering uncertainly by the door. The housekeeper had retired, as she usually did when the doctor stayed up late, and it was invariably Kevin who cleared and washed the dishes.

The Dutchman nodded briskly. ‘You may clear the table.'

‘Goodnight, Kevin,' Lucky said, and the gauche young man gave his bashful smile, a mixture of self-consciousness and pleasure.

The two men walked down the main staircase to the hall and shook hands at the front door.

‘Thank you, Maarten, for a most delightful evening.'

‘My pleasure indeed, we must do it again soon.'

‘And do thank Mrs Hodgeman for me. The food was magnificent.'

‘She'll be delighted to hear it.'

As soon as the Dutchman had closed the door, Lucky took off at a sprint for Peggy's house only several blocks away, where she lay dozing and dreaming and waiting for him.

Maarten Vanpoucke returned upstairs to the dining room.

Kevin was methodically placing the dessert plates and glasses onto the silver tray, wary of the delicate bone china and crystal, each movement painstakingly slow. He picked up the decanter.

‘Leave the port,' Maarten said as he sat.

Kevin did, setting it down very carefully.

‘And the glass.'

Kevin's eyes flickered between the two port glasses on the tray. Fortunately he could pick the one that was the doctor's, as Lucky had not drunk any port. He replaced the glass on the table and left.

Maarten poured himself another port. He took off his spectacles and placed them on the table, rubbing eyes which felt weary, then he leaned back in his chair. There was such a lot to think about.

His mind returned to the woman in the photograph. Was Ruth still alive? It was quite probable. If so, he wondered where she was.

As they drove through the suburban streets of Jerusalem, Ruth glanced at Moshe. He hadn't spoken for the past several minutes and she presumed he was sulking.

‘I'm sorry,' she said stiffly, ‘I didn't mean to be so brusque.'

Yes she had, he thought – even her apology sounded stilted. But he forgave her.

‘It's all right,' he replied. ‘I can understand your nervousness.'

She felt another irrational surge of annoyance, but tried not to let it show. Everything Moshe did and said grated. He didn't understand at all; if he did, he wouldn't have insisted she go to the funeral. And dismissing her trepidation as ‘nervousness' was infuriating, damn him – she was becoming more terrified by the moment. How would she react, coming face to face with her cousin? The last time she'd seen David he'd been knifing a woman to death. And what if Eli were there? Moshe didn't understand. He never had. She knew that now.

Ruth had contacted Moshe Toledano a week after her return to Jerusalem, convinced that he was the only person in whom she could confide. They'd met at the King David Hotel and, distraught, she had poured out her story. From her indoctrination at Kibbutz Tsafona to her affair with Eli Mankowski and the massacre at Deir Yassin, she had spared no detail, however sordid or gruesome, and he'd listened, not once interjecting.

News of Deir Yassin had been published in the press and Moshe had followed the reports closely, also gleaning inside information from his powerful business associates. In a post-battle press statement Irgun and Lehi had claimed a great victory, but in truth it had been the Palmach troops, the elite fighting arm of the Haganah, who had quelled the Arab resistance, accomplishing in one hour what the guerrilla fighters had failed to do throughout the entire morning of their initial attack. But the guerrillas' slaughter of innocents had continued for a further two days and, of the Arab dead, two-thirds had been women and children. The Jewish Agency in Tel Aviv had condemned the attack, but there were rumours that there would be no criminal prosecution or inquest by the British, whose final departure from Palestine was due in only a matter of weeks. The reason, Moshe had heard, was that, as the attack and subsequent massacre had been instigated by the Revisionist underground militia rather than by the official Zionist leaders, nothing more than a police investigation was required.

The massacre of Deir Yassin had confirmed Moshe's worst fears. There would be no turning back now, he'd thought. Already, in direct retaliation, Arabs had ambushed a Jewish medical convoy and murdered over seventy people. The wheels of destruction had been set in motion and who knew where or when it would end.

But he'd made no comment as Ruth had told her story, and when she'd finished and stood before him, emotionally drained by the weight of her confession, he'd remained silent.

Ruth had expected his condemnation. She had been involved with the murder of innocent
falachim
, Arab peasants who'd simply been going about their lives, and guiltily she'd awaited his verdict, hoping for some kind of absolution. Moshe, with his sympathy for both sides, was the only person, she thought, who could possibly understand.

But Moshe had offered neither judgement nor absolution.

‘It is this senseless violence I had wished to save you from, Ruth,' he'd said finally. ‘And I still do.' Then he'd repeated his offer. As his wife, he could provide her with a peaceful life, he'd said, away from the horrors of the war that would devour Palestine.

Ruth had found his detachment extraordinary. Had her revelations of the hideous brutality she'd witnessed meant nothing more to him than a renewed opportunity? It seemed somehow obscene that, after hearing her story, he could discuss something as mundane as marriage. And yet the prospect of escape to a life of nothingness suddenly appeared irresistible to Ruth.

‘How can I become your wife, Moshe, if I do not love you?'

An empty question, he'd thought – he could see that she already knew there was only one answer.

‘You need me.' To Moshe Toledano, love and need were perfectly equated: he wanted her, she needed him, and a love of some form would develop over time.

‘No,' she'd said, ‘I will not become your wife, and I will not bear your children. But, if you wish, I will live with you on your orchard.' Then she'd shocked him with her own unequivocal offer. ‘I will perform all the duties of a wife. I will cook for you, I will work by your side and I will share your bed.' She would owe him that duty, she'd thought. And why not? She'd been a whore to Klaus Henkel and Eli Mankowski: her body was already a commodity, and it was a cheap price to pay for a peaceful existence. ‘If it is companionship you wish, Moshe, in all its forms, I am willing to provide it.'

And Moshe's arrogance had allowed him to accept. A woman like Ruth Lachmann, he'd thought, would not be content to live in sin for long. She would marry him eventually.

 

They were not far from her uncle's house in Beit Yisrael, and Moshe, having accepted her apology, tried to put her at her ease.

‘A lot has changed in six years, Ruth,' he said.

‘Yes, I can see that,' she replied, deliberately misunderstanding him, looking out at the new buildings.

‘I mean people,' he said. ‘People like David.' He made no mention of Eli Mankowski – in the six years they'd lived together they'd never once spoken the man's name – although he knew it was Eli she was thinking of. ‘People do change,' he said. In any event, he wasn't referring to Eli. He doubted whether Mankowski would ever change – from what he'd heard the man was an insane fanatic. But he'd noted her scathing tone when she'd mentioned her cousin and he felt obliged to assure her there was nothing to fear. ‘David was young,' he said, ‘and easily influenced at the time.'

At the time
, she realised, meant Deir Yassin. It was a subject which never came under discussion, and although she knew he meant well, she wished he would stop.

‘He's changed, Ruth, you'll see. David has grown out of his radical phase.'

Grown out of killing, do you mean?

‘He's been working with his father for three years now, Walter was so glad when he came back to the fold.' Moshe had often seen David Stein during his trips into town, and although he still didn't particularly like the man, he'd maintained the semblance of a friendship for the sake of his old friend, Walter. Out of deference to Ruth, however, he'd never mentioned the fact – David was another subject never discussed.

‘David will be taking over the family business now that Walter has gone.'

Good for David.

He wished she'd say something. ‘You've changed too, Ruth,' he said encouragingly. ‘You're a different person, you've adapted to a different life.'

Adapted? Oh no. Oh no, I haven't.

‘I know, Moshe,' she agreed, anything to stop him talking. ‘I know I have, and it's thanks to you.'

He smiled, glad to be appreciated, and took a left turn into the street which led to her uncle's house.

Adapted, she thought. No, she'd never adapted. If only she could. That was her trouble, she'd never learned to adapt. Ira had tried to teach her, but it had been a skill she had never mastered.

In her loneliness over the past years, as she'd tried to reconcile herself to a life with a man she didn't love, Ira Schoneberger had become Ruth's constant companion. She heard his voice and pictured him in her mind as she'd desperately tried to heed his advice. She even had conversations out loud with him when she was on her own. Perhaps she was going mad, she'd thought, but she'd found comfort in Ira's words.

‘I intend to become a chameleon,' he had told her, ‘when I am free.' Ira had always said ‘when' and not ‘if'. ‘I shall change my colour to suit my environment, I shall become whatever people wish me to be. If I am in a country intolerant towards Jews, I shall change my name and live accordingly. And if I go to America, which I believe is very sympathetic to the Jewish plight, then I shall tell my story to anyone who wishes to hear it. Who knows what lies ahead for us all? To survive successfully, Ruth, one must adapt.'

She had tried. She'd tried her hardest on a daily basis, year after year. But, unlike Ira, Ruth had been unable to adapt, and the nothingness of her life with Moshe Toledano had become a prison.

‘Ruth!'

As they pulled up outside the apartment, Rebekah ran out to greet them. She'd been watching for their arrival through the front downstairs window.

Ruth climbed from the car and embraced her young cousin, grateful for Rebekah's uninhibited display of affection. The two had maintained contact over the years by letter, but she'd been unsure of the reception she might receive in person. There was no awkwardness, however; Rebekah's welcome was warm and genuine, and there was a hint of tears as she clung to Ruth.

‘Just look at you.' It was Ruth who finally broke the moment, holding the girl at arm's length and looking her up and down admiringly. ‘Every inch the young sophisticate.' Rebekah had certainly inherited the dramatic good looks of her mother, Ruth thought: always a pretty child, she was now a striking young woman. ‘So tell me,' she asked briskly, aware that the girl was trying to control the threat of tears, ‘how did your exams go?'

‘I'm fairly confident.' Rebekah smiled, thankful for the small talk.

‘You're being modest. Moshe tells me you're bound to top the course again this year.' Twenty-one-year-old Rebekah had just completed the second year of her medical degree at Mount Scopus Hebrew University.

Her emotions now in check, Rebekah was able to speak her mind. ‘I'm glad you're here, Ruth,' she said, ‘it would so please him to know that you'd come.'

The grief for her father's death was etched in her face, and Ruth was moved.

‘I'm glad I'm here too,' she said sincerely, casting a look in Moshe's direction, both apologetic and thankful.

Arm in arm, the women walked up the path to the front door, chatting as freely as they always had, and Moshe followed behind them, pleased by their reunion and his own vindication.

The moment Ruth stepped into the hall and was confronted by her aunt, however, the awkwardness she'd been expecting was instantly readable. It was clear that, even on the occasion of her husband's funeral, Sarah Stein wished to communicate her disapproval.

Sarah surveyed the group coldly. She was cross with her daughter – Rebekah's effusiveness was unfitting behaviour for one in mourning. Furthermore, it was offensive she should so warmly welcome her cousin, a woman who had besmirched the family name by living in sin with a good man who wished to marry her.

She ignored her daughter and greeted Moshe only briefly. Then, offering no words of welcome to her niece, she waited for Ruth to make the first move.

‘
Shalom
, Aunt Sarah.' Ruth crossed to her aunt and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘It is a sad day,' she said.

‘Yes,' Sarah replied stiffly, accepting the show of respect with the dignity it warranted. ‘A sad day indeed.'

‘I loved him. Very much.'

‘Yes. I know you did.' Recognising her niece's sincerity, Sarah relented just a little. She couldn't understand the girl, and she never would, but Walter had. They'd argued about it, she remembered.

‘She's disgracing the family name,' she'd said.

‘How is she disgracing it?' he'd asked. ‘She's not flaunting her relationship – she's gone into hiding.'

‘That's not the point …'

‘It's exactly the point,' he'd insisted. ‘She's been tortured for years by the death of her husband and child, perhaps Moshe and his orchard can provide some sort of peace.'

‘Then she should marry him.'

‘There are some who can't marry without love, Sarah.' He'd said it with no deliberate intention to wound, but she'd recognised it as a personal remark, even a criticism, and it had hurt just a little.

Over the years, Ruth's incomprehensible decision not to marry had continued to meet with Sarah's disapproval, but she had never brought up the subject again.

Now, thinking of her husband and confronted by her niece, Sarah felt herself mellow. As Walter would have wished, she had no doubt.

‘He loved you very much too, Ruth,' she said. She offered no embrace, no display of affection – she was too wearied by grief – but she could tell by the look on Ruth's face that the words were enough, and for the moment she was glad.

‘Now come into the kitchen,' she said, leading the way. ‘David is making us a pot of tea before we leave.'

Ruth braced herself.

He was setting out the cups and saucers on the large kitchen table as they entered, and Ruth's initial impression was that he seemed bigger.

‘
Shalom
, Moshe,' he said looking up from the tea things. Then to her, ‘
Shalom
, Ruth, it's been a long time.'

‘
Shalom
, David.'

He
was
bigger, she realised. Not yet fat, but fleshy, the finely chiselled cheekbones of his youth were gone, and the athletic frame was now that of a man approaching middle age. But David was not even thirty, she thought, relieved somehow that he looked like a stranger.

‘I'm sorry about your father,' she said dutifully.

‘Yes, it came as a shock to us all. He was only sixty-three.'

David's reply was equally dutiful, for the sake of his mother, but he was glad to see Ruth, and abruptly he changed the subject – he was sick of being maudlin.

‘You're looking good,' he said, and as he smiled Ruth was jolted into the past. His smile was as confident, as winning and as boyish as it had always been, and it was flirtatiously intimate, like a lover hinting at a shared secret. It unnerved her.