EPILOGUE
Woodside, CA
Present Day
It was the first of March. And the eve of Alix’s wedding.
Having a partner—a true partner—is an interesting thing, isn’t it?
One is at the same time stronger and more vulnerable.
When we have only ourselves to rely on and must survive by our wits, we can’t allow loneliness to enter the picture.
But when we let down our guard and open our hearts, the story is very different.
It’s so difficult not to need once one has begun!
So Alix came to visit, and Elise often came for an afternoon, too, and gradually, as the weeks and months went by, I told them the rest of the story, and did what I’d never done before: gave my daughter her father’s wartime letters to read, and my diary as well.
With some mothers and daughters, I’ve come to believe, it takes many years for a true understanding to grow up, perhaps until one is old enough to realize that one’s way of being is not the only way.
Which in my case had taken ninety-three years.
So, yes, I told the stories now without fear or second-guessing.
Of Joe and me: our meager wedding and our cold and uncomfortable German flat, and how happy we’d been there.
Of my journey across the Atlantic to join him, and my terrible driving and worse cooking.
How Alix laughed at the Jell-O salads! There was Joe being splashed with sewage, too, and banging his fingers with hammers as he learned to work with his hands as well as his mind.
The mountain lion and the birth of Elise, and all that had followed after it.
And Joe’s family, of course. The Starks.
“How Mrs. Stark changed after your mother was born!” I’d told Alix one rainy winter afternoon as we cooked together.
It was Rinderrouladen today: the slices of beef pounded thin and rolled around pickles and bacon and mustard before being baked slowly in the oven, and then the gravy and the vegetables and the potato dumplings.
Alix had wished to learn about this part of her heritage, and it warmed my heart to show her.
“Really?” Alix asked, scrubbing the countertop. “I don’t remember them at all. She died when I was little, didn’t she?”
“Yes, and we’d made our peace long since.
Oh, the mountain lion was all very well and good, but to give her the much-wished-for granddaughter!
Barbara, you know, had four sons, and Sophie one.
And your mother was very pretty, with her blonde hair and brown eyes, and so neat and tidy always, with what used to be called ‘taking ways.’ She wanted to stay clean, and to do what she called ‘girl things,’ and she loved her grandmother best in all the world.
Mrs. Stark spoiled her terribly—the dolls she bought her!
—but that’s what grandparents are for, isn’t it? ”
“I can hardly say anything critical about that,” Alix said, “since you and Grandpa did the same thing with me. You notice, though, that Mother didn’t keep the Stark name after she married. How did that go over? Elise Glucksburg-Thompkins? Elise von Sachsen?”
I waved a hand. Goodness, my hands were knotted and age-spotted now, and I couldn’t have removed my rings if I’d tried.
Luckily, I didn’t want to try. It always took me by surprise, though, this aging of mine.
“Elise Alexandrina Esther Glucksburg Stark. The ‘Esther’ was for Mrs. Stark’s mother.
Jews name children after the dead rather than the living, but Mrs. Stark took the name as a compliment, which was indeed how we intended it.
Esther was the Queen of Persia, and a Jew. So you see, royalty on both sides.”
“You’re so shockingly devious,” Alix said, and I laughed and said, “But I was in real estate, you know. When one bakes a beautiful cake, one doesn’t just hack off a piece and dump it onto a paper plate.”
“Well, maybe you don’t,” Alix said. “I generally eat it out of the pan.”
“Quiet. I’m making an important point. No, one ices and decorates it perfectly, then cuts it very carefully and places the slice upright on a china plate with a gold rim, perhaps with a paper doily beneath. I merely decorated the cake.”
“Ha,” Alix said, and we both smiled. “So did you ever get that reception?”
“Well, no,” I said. “She could hardly have held such a party so many years later, as if she’d forgotten that her only son had married and was only now getting around to commemorating it.
But when your mother was born, she did send out announcements, and, goodness, the gifts we received!
Many of them very impractical: sterling silver baby cups and spoons and rattles; baby clothes of the finest wool, embroidered and lined with silk; hand-smocked dresses; a very beautiful white blanket with lace trim …
things one couldn’t possibly put anywhere near a baby, even one as well-regulated as your mother, without the baby immediately finding a way to render them unfit for public viewing. ”
“You mean she’d poop all over them,” Alix said. “Or possibly throw up.”
“Yes,” I said, “although I was trying not to be quite so crude. Babies are rather messy, and diapers were not nearly so leakproof as they are today. We saved all those lovely things, though, and your mother greatly enjoyed dressing her baby dolls with them later. And the tea set! It had to be what she called a ‘breakable’ tea set, not one made of plastic. Imagine her delight, at four years old, at receiving it from her grandmother! To see Mrs. Stark on the floor with her, having their pretend tea-party, would have softened any heart. Oh, and the pram! The pram was a gift from Joe’s parents, and thoroughly ridiculous.
Silver Cross, the same model as the one Prince Charles’s nanny used as she perambulated around the palace grounds with her royal charges.
What a silly thing to buy for a family that lived on a winding road without sidewalks in the California hills.
We left it at the Starks’ instead so we could wheel your mother around Pacific Heights, which was vastly preferable anyway. ”
“Since their neighbors and friends could see it,” Alix said. “Oh, dear. I feel like I understand Mother much better now.”
“Yes. But there’s nothing wrong with being more conventional, you know, if one is born so.
It’s merely that you and I were not born so, so we don’t resonate to the same frequency.
Your mother, though, loves you as much as I loved her.
As much as Mrs. Stark loved Joe. As much as my mother loved me, for that matter, though I’m sure she sometimes wished me to have rather less of my father’s nature.
This pan is ready; you may put it in the oven now. ”
Alix did, but she also said, “You know? I still miss Grandpa like crazy. I always did, but since you’ve told me so much about him, I miss him even more.
And I think about Sebastian out there in Buffalo this weekend, so far away, and what I’d do if I lost him, and I don’t see how you’ve managed. Isn’t it awfully hard?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “It’s more than hard. But you know, after seventy-five years together, he is here still”—I laid a palm flat against my heart—“and more than that. In my very blood, exactly as Rilke said. And soon, you know, I’ll—well, perhaps not join him, precisely, but—”
“Oma,” Alix said with alarm as I sank onto a chair. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
I put out my hands to the stove. It had been fueled by gas for many years, for there was no Joe to chop firewood anymore, but it still gave out its cheerful warmth and showed its cheerful flames.
And across the room, Joe’s cello stood against the wall as it always had.
I dusted it every week, knowing I should donate it to a music school but unable to bear its departure.
“No,” I said. “Merely being realistic. Your grandfather and I never could decide what happens after we die, but we did decide that it didn’t matter.
There’s a poem about that. I read it long ago; I don’t remember where.
I’ve since tried to find the author, but without success. ”
Alix had put the kettle on for tea, but now she sank down beside me as the rain ran in streams down the windows and the flames leaped behind the glass of the stove. “What does it say? I can’t believe you don’t know the author of any piece of poetry.”
I had to smile at that. “Perhaps you can find it. This is what it says.
“We only lose the presence
Of those who have left us.
What they have created,
Accomplished,
Sought for and found,
And all that they have given of themselves
Remains with us.”
“Oh, man,” Alix said. “Did you have to make me cry?”
“It’s very comforting, isn’t it?” I’d teared up too, but that was what handkerchiefs were for. The electric kettle boiled, and Alix jumped up to make the tea as I said, “But I do want to ask you a favor.”
“Hang on. Let me do the tea first.” She splashed water haphazardly over teabags in two mugs—Alix would never be putting her perfectly decorated slice of cake onto a doily—and came to sit with me again. “Shoot.”
“You’ll think it very strange,” I said.
“Oh, boy,” she said. “Coming from you …”
We both smiled, and I said, “You know how much your grandfather loved his garden.”
“Well, of course. His favorite place to be.”
“The raised beds have been empty for some years, as you also know,” I said. “I haven’t had the heart, and I certainly haven’t had the ability to stoop. The worm bin, though, I’ve kept supplied with compost. How many generations of worms must have come and gone by now?”
“You want to bequeath me your worm bin?” Alix asked. “Unusual, but you know what? I’ll take it. Ben wants to grow a garden. Can you believe that? Sixteen years old? He’s discovered that he loves heirloom tomatoes, for one thing.”