Fifty-Three
Fifty-Three
My wedding day. The dress, pale yellow, is laid out on the chair next to my bed.
It’s all folds and layers. Mutti cleverly designed it to distract the eye from my bump.
It doesn’t feel real, somehow, this day, this marriage.
How do I feel? I hear you ask. Well, my darling, I suppose I’m resigned to it.
It’s not the day I imagined. That fairy tale of white sequins and handsome prince with the happy-ever-after is not for me.
I think about you and wonder, should I not be jealous, or angry, that you’ve gotten away from all this?
No. Not a scrap of it. I’m glad you have escaped.
That I helped to save your life. Somehow, that thought makes this day bearable.
And now I just have to do the same for our baby.
So for the present, I go along with this grotesque plan and hope for a miracle.
The room in the Hotel Sachsenhof, on Johannisplatz, is decorated with violets and sprigs of white gypsophila, making it look jolly and bright.
Several rows of wooden chairs with cream seats are set out so the few guests can watch our civil ceremony take place.
A long table is set at the back of the room for refreshments later in the proceedings.
Tomas, smarter than I’ve ever seen him, wears a new, light brown suit and patterned tie. His hair is neat, and like the boy who won first prize, he wears a swagger alongside his broad smile.
“You look...” He pauses and takes my hands as his eyes flicker over my face, down to my chest, and back to my face. “Radiant,” he says. He raises my hand to his lips and winks at me. My guts curdle.
“Now, you remember my mother, Hetty,” he says, guiding me toward her.
She is a tall woman, strongly built, with cropped graying hair.
A dark blue dress hangs awkwardly over her frame, as though neither the dress, nor she, are truly comfortable with the arrangement.
In her face is the hard grit that has helped her, and her seven fatherless children, survive.
“So lovely to see you again.” I try to smile, but her expression is like a blast of icy air. I glance up at Tomas. He has never once invited me to meet with her. Clearly this was a mistake. Perhaps I should have insisted, before today, but I’d been so wrapped up in myself, it hadn’t occurred to me.
“Well, here we are.” She looks me up and down. “It’s a serious thing, marriage, you know,” she says. “Children. A responsibility.”
“Yes, and we’re prepared for that, aren’t we, Tomas?” I grip his hand tightly.
“Of course,” he agrees smoothly. “I’ve told you, Mutti, Hetty is going to make me a perfect wife and mother. She’s a natural.”
She makes a noise. Something between a snort and a cough.
“It’ll be a different life to what you’ve been used to,” she says, narrowing her eyes.
“When you’ve not got maids and cooks and nursemaids to do the daily grind.
When you’re up all hours of the night with a crying baby and an ailing child and you still have to get breakfast on the table in the morning, scrub all the floors, make the beds, launder the clothes, buy the food.
.. Without much money if you’ve a husband with a taste for beer.
” She stops to take a breath. “Well, then. The romance tends to go out of it.”
I shrink from the bitterness of her words and Tomas puts a protective arm around my shoulders.
“I shan’t let Hetty have a life like that. She knows I’ve got ambition. She knows that life is a thing of the past in our new German Reich.”
“Huh, that’s what you all think, you fools. The young always believe they’re going to change the world.” She gives a bitter laugh. “But they never do. And you lot won’t be any different. False promises, and you’ve bought them all.”
Tomas’s jaw is set. “Just remember who you speak with.”
“Oh, I do, Tomas.” She stares back at him. “Do you think I could ever forget? The ones who stole my husband and sent him to his death—”
“Be quiet! I warned you... I should never have let you come.” He pokes his finger toward her face, making her take a backward step. “Say another word and you’ll be following in his footsteps faster than you know it.”
He jerks me hard by the arm and pulls me away from his mother.
“Sorry. I’ve tried to protect you from her bitter, stupid tongue. Silly cow—”
“Tomas! You shouldn’t talk of your mother like that. It’s understandable that she feels that way...”
“No. She has no right to feel anything except gratitude. My father was nothing but a filthy traitor, and she should disown the bastard. But she won’t do it.
She won’t. She has no vision. Anyway..
. I won’t talk about this anymore.” His face is red, and his teeth are clenched.
“How dare she try to ruin this day for us.”
“She hasn’t ruined it—”
He looks at me, and his face relaxes.
“No. You’re right. She hasn’t. She can’t. This is going to be one of the best days of my life. And once, well, you know, once we are free to be together properly, well, then I shall be the happiest man on earth.”
The room pitches.
“I should like to sit down for a few moments, Tomas.”
I sink onto one of the chairs. Tomas goes to speak with Vati, who stands, big and awkward, in the corner of the room, looking as if he would prefer to be anywhere else in the world but here.
Tomas’s mother has turned her back, shoulders hunched, and is whispering something in the ear of the tallest of Tomas’s brothers.
The door opens and Erna, the only person outside the family I’ve managed to convince them to trust and allow to come, slips inside.
Like ice cream on a hot day, she is the most welcome sight.
Her eyes dart around the room and she smiles when she sees me sitting alone.
She comes to me, her hair neatly braided, her nose freckled from the sun.
“Are you doing okay?” She sits next to me and studies my face.
I swallow. “I don’t want to talk about me. Quickly, while there’s a chance. Have you thought of anything? Could there be another option?”
“I have... contacted a trusted friend.” She stops. Her face closes. “It’s complicated, Hetty... but we’re working on things.”
“Who is? What things?”
“I can’t say more at the moment. I hope to have news soon.”
“But I don’t have time, Erna!” Invisible hands claw at my throat. “I’m to go to Berlin in just two weeks. Everyone is being told I’m spending a few weeks at Hausfrau school, until closer to the time the baby is due. Vati wants me away as soon as possible. He cannot bear the sight of me.”
“Okay, okay.” Erna holds her hands up. “We’re doing our best.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t cry, Hetty. Not today. Look, I’ll come and visit you soon. Trust me, we’ll find a way.”
“Herta,” Mutti calls, “it’s time.” She hurries over to me, fiddles with my dress, tidies my hair.
The small wedding party take their seats. Tomas guides me to the front where the official waits for us, solemn faced. The chattering dies and silence descends over the room.
The ceremony begins.