The Exiles Return (13 page)

‘Maybe they don’t
have
gardens or vegetables in America, Frau Gräfin. I’ve heard that they eat everything out of tins there,’ the woman answered.

Resi felt her aunt’s occasional suggestions that she should do one thing or another were meant kindly but not seriously, and that it would not be taken amiss if she passed them by. She loved watching her at her various comings and goings and enjoyed simply being near her. There was so much natural dignity, together with warmth and simplicity, in the older woman that it gave the girl a feeling of trust and security such as she had never known before. She liked everything about her aunt – the way she wore her hair, swept up smoothly from her temples and the nape of her neck and held in place by beautiful honey-coloured combs. She liked the clothes she wore, her faded gardening clothes as well as her formal dresses – rather old-fashioned, as she had hardly bought anything for years, and yet so elegant and becoming. And she simply loved her face, sunburnt and only faintly lined, innocent of all make-up, and kindly blue eyes, firm mouth and magnificent teeth that gleamed when she smiled. ‘Of course they’re my own, child! Do you think I’d wear false teeth? I’m not as decrepit as that, and I trust I never shall be!’

Inevitably Resi compared her aunt with her mother. She found it difficult to believe that they were sisters, although she did sometimes catch a resemblance in a tilt of the head or a movement of the hand and, quite startlingly, in an inflexion of the voice. Francisca Lensveldt was only six or seven years older than Valery Larsen, but in appearance and manner they might have been a generation apart. To Resi, her aunt at fifty seemed genuinely and comfortingly old, while her mother in her early forties was incongruously and artificially young. Only now, with her aunt for comparison, did Resi recognise that she disliked her mother’s studied youthfulness, her slim figure achieved by severe dieting, her ultrafashionable clinging clothes, her plucked eyebrows. They went well, of course, with her restless activity, with her ceaseless pursuit of a host of ‘futile occupations’ – which was what Resi felt them to be. Aunt Franzi’s figure was ample, her expression, though energetic and purposeful, was calm and her movements seemed to be a mixture of strength and repose. Resi never though
her
occupations ‘futile’.

Her Uncle Poldo was rather less of a pleasure. He was stout, spoke in a loud voice and laughed a lot. That was harmless enough, and he certainly meant to be kind. Only sometimes she caught him looking at her in what she felt an embarrassing manner, difficult to describe. And then, every evening at ‘good night time’ there was a little ceremony in which he insisted on kissing her. There was no means of escaping it. He would put his arms round her, draw her very close to him so that she felt the soft bulge of his stomach and implant a kiss as near to her nose and mouth as he could manage, though she twisted her head as much as possible without appearing positively discourteous. For, after all, he was an elderly gentleman and her uncle, and her aunt, who was always present, seemed to think it all perfectly natural. He then rounded off his little performance, still holding her, by humming or whistling a few notes of a tune which, she learned, were taken from a popular song beginning ‘Girls are made to be kissed’. Her involuntary blushing and stiffening as he held her tight surely added a touch of spice to his secret enjoyment, had she but known it; and perhaps he would have been less insistent if she had been more acquiescent. Then, releasing her at last, he would heave a theatrical sigh: ‘Ah, to be young again’, or some such sentiment, and with ‘sweet dreams, my child’ and ‘good night, Uncle Poldo’ the evening ordeal would be over.

On the whole she was able to ignore him and forget about those few uncomfortable moments as soon as they were past. They cast only a very fleeting shadow on her happiness. But Budd’s letters were a different matter. They nagged at her conscience and made her feel guilty. And it was impossible to ignore them because everyone knew she received them, although, to her shame, she did not read them. Budd wrote regularly every week. Whenever she saw an envelope in his handwriting on the hall table where the postman left the letters, she would pick it up and hurriedly retreat to her room. If Hanni or her aunt happened to be present, they surely assumed she was taking them there to read undisturbed. What she actually did was to push them unopened right into the back of her drawer, and try to forget them. There were several in it already, and as the little pile grew, so also the sense of her own injustice towards Budd, of a kind of betrayal of him, grew within her. She tried to argue herself out of it for, she thought, she had never promised him anything, never tied herself to him in any way. Then why was she so reluctant to read his letters? He was so
good.
But why, oh why was he so persistent, why couldn’t he leave her alone, allow her to be free! Later perhaps, some other time, she would read those letters and possibly even answer them if she felt like it, but not
now
, not
now.

She would have liked to put Budd right out of her mind, but that was not possible because Hanni was too curious about him. When she was not with her aunt she spent most of her time with Hanni and she liked her too. It was impossible not to like her. She was so jolly, full of life and warmth, overflowing with cheerfulness. Although four years older than Resi, it was flattering that she treated her as an equal and took her into her confidence. She seemed to have so much experience and knowledge about life and its problems, only to her they were not problems, just interesting situations, to be talked about endlessly. And all these invariably revolved around the one and only subject; love. There were infinite variations to this theme: love undying, love light-hearted, love as a vocation, love as a pastime, and on all these Hanni would pontificate seriously as if arguing a philosophical thesis. But not for very long, for then laughter would break in and she would pass from the general to the particular and illustrate her thesis with concrete examples: what made a certain young man attractive, why one girl she knew had a string of successes and another had none, poor creature. It was all very fascinating for Resi but especially so when Hanni talked about herself, which she did for the sheer enjoyment of making confidences to an impressionable and admiring listener and at the same time doing something for her young cousin’s education.

These talks usually took place down by the lake after they had both had a swim and lay sunning themselves on the wide strip of grass belonging to the bathing place. The Lensveldt family had their own cabin in the long low wooden building on the edge of the water, from which stepladders gave direct access to the dark depths of the lake. There was also an artificial swimming pool embedded in the shore, where children and less experienced bathers could safely splash about, for the waters of the lake were very deep even at the edge and gave no foothold anywhere. Hanni, of course, was an excellent swimmer and was delighted to see that Resi, who had learned to swim but had only been used to pools, soon overcame her hesitation and followed her into deep water. Afterwards they lay on the grass, drying, eyes half-closed, completely happy.

‘Now, Resi, it’s your turn to talk. Tell me about your boyfriend. Out with it! Don’t be so secretive. I’ve a right to know, haven’t I?’

‘What boyfriend, Hanni?’

‘The one who writes to you. Now don’t pretend! I’ve seen his letters – always the same handwriting, and it’s not a girl’s. What’s his name?’

‘Oh, you mean Budd.’

‘That’s not his
real
name, surely?’

‘No, it’s Harcourt.’

‘I mean his
first
name, his Christian name.’

‘That
is
his first name, he’s Harcourt Gresham, but everyone calls him Budd.’

‘What extraordinary first names Americans have! Dwight, Averil, Woodrow – Harcourt – so un-Christian! But never mind. Tell me all about him. What’s he like?

‘He’s very nice.’

‘I don’t doubt it. But that’s not very informative. Let’s put the question differently. Are you very fond of him?’

‘Yes – I mean: no. I don’t know.’

‘So you’re not in love with him?’

‘Oh, no!’

‘All right.
That
’s what I’ve wanted to get clear about for a long time. In what way has it got to do with ‘Budd’, as you call him, your coming away like this for a year? So it’s not because you want to marry him, and your parents don’t want you to either because they think you’re too young or for some other reason? Is it because
they
want you to marry him and
you
don’t, or you’re not sure and you want to think it over? Or because you want to break off the friendship altogether? Is that it? Anyway, I see that you let him write to you, but I haven’t noticed any letters of yours waiting to be posted.’

‘Oh Hanni, you ask so many questions at once! I don’t know how to answer them. I think that Budd
thinks
I’m going to marry him some day, but he has never asked me because he knows I’d say no. Anyway, he hasn’t finished college yet, and after that he’s going to study and be a scientist like Papa. I know Papa likes him very much and would be pleased if I married him because then he’d have a son after his own heart. But he hasn’t told me so. One feels that kind of thing, doesn’t one? I’m sure Papa loves my brother Carl, but Carl isn’t going to be a scientist. He’s only interested in baseball.’

‘In any case you wouldn’t marry Budd just to please your father!’

‘No, I’m not going to marry him – or anybody else. I don’t think I’m going to get married at all.’

‘Why, good heavens, Resi, of course you are, some day. You’re not the kind of girl to stay on the shelf. You’ll change your mind when you fall in love. Must I believe that it’s never happened to you yet?’

‘No, I don’t think I’m made that way. I can’t even imagine what it’s like.’

‘That’s nonsense!’

‘Have you fallen in love – often, Hanni?’

‘Of course, dozens of times. No,’ she corrected herself laughing, ‘that’s not true. Really and truly: four times.’

‘Are you in love now?’

‘Yes, I am with Georg. You’ll meet him, he’s coming here soon with my brother Franzl. I’m sure – I’m almost sure – that I really do love him – that he’s the
right
one. I wanted to see him
here,
then I shall know for certain, and we can get engaged.’

‘You mean you are really in love with him and he with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then he must be somebody very special, very exciting. You’re lucky, Hanni, I never find anybody exciting like that. All the boys
I
know are just ordinary – even Budd who is so nice and so good and whom I like very much.’

‘You don’t look like a girl who will pine in vain. Now let’s hurry up and dress or we shall be late.’

Eleven

Towards the end of July there was a change of rhythm in the life of Wald, as the Countess had told Resi there would be. Visitors came and went, some just for the day on their way to other places, some staying for a night or two. But the main arrivals who came to stay were the son of the house and the friend he brought with him. The young Count Franz Lensveldt, halfway in age between his two sisters, came with Georg von Corvinus, who was courting Hanni and almost definitely accepted by her as her fiancé. The Count and Countess, with Hanni, went out into the courtyard to greet them as Franz’s old car rumbled through the archway.

The cook and the maids were also there, hovering in the background, for the young Count was a great favourite with them and they were curious to catch a first glimpse of the man to whom, the rumour was, the Countess Hanni was about to be engaged. As the sound of the two young men’s laughter reverberated under the archway and in the hall, the whole atmosphere of the house changed. The Countess beamed and squeezed the arm of her son, the Count grunted some welcoming words at Corvinus, Hanni’s voice rose to a higher pitch, and the maids hurried forward to seize the suitcases, in spite of the young men’s protests, taking the opportunity to look them up and down with dancing eyes.

Georg von Corvinus, after taking his law degree, was destined to enter the diplomatic service. In due course he could look forward to being sent abroad. Meticulously groomed, and wearing the traditional grey loden suit with the small green stand-up collar, green lapels and antler-horn buttons on the jacket, with broad green stripes down the trouser legs, his ease and polish were at once marvellously contrived and perfectly natural. His manner towards his host and hostess, as he entertained them immediately with a flow of
faits divers
, struck the exact balance between deference and intimacy. One felt that whatever the situation he would never be awkward or embarrassed; in fact, it was a pleasure to see him function – for he functioned rather than behaved. Hanni felt a glow of satisfaction, she saw herself as a future ambassadress, and when her mother put an arm round her shoulders in a gesture of tacit approval, she knew that everything was going to be all right.

‘But wherever is Resi?’ the Countess asked, and at that moment Hanni realised she had completely forgotten her cousin. A wave of panic swept over her, and she thought of all the talks they’d been having and how she had been trying to teach Resi how to fall in love. Oh God, what if Georg, so terribly, terribly attractive, and Resi herself…?

They all turned round at the sound of the door opening and Resi came drifting in from the garden, smoothing her rather crumpled cotton frock with both hands. There was the faraway look in her eyes which she had when she had been dreaming in her favourite retreat. She smiled, and the Countess made the introductions.

‘Your cousin Franzl,’ she said, ‘and Herr von Corvinus.’ For his benefit she added, ‘Resi is my American niece. My sister emigrated, you know, with her husband before the war.’

Franz shook hands with her vigorously. ‘Splendid,’ he said, ‘a cousin worth having,’ but Georg, under Hanni’s apprehensive eye, bowed ceremoniously and made a few conventional remarks to her in English, asking whether this was her first visit to Europe and whether she was enjoying her stay.