Chapter 30 The Value of Self-Control
THE VALUE OF SELF-CONTROL
We dined at the Kobalt Club Royale that evening, sitting outside on Brühl’s Terrace beside the river.
I said, once we were seated, “Do you know that Jews were banned from this terrace? I didn’t know myself, but Dr. Becker told me later that it was one of the things that disturbed him most on that morning after the raids.
To set foot here meant shipment to a concentration camp. ”
“What, to walk on the sidewalk?” Ashleigh asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Merely that. Most inconvenient, he said, when he was also not allowed to ride the tram, as it’s quicker to walk to many places in the city along this route. Really, the Nazis were extraordinarily inventive in all the ways they found to humiliate the Jews.”
I regretted saying it, as talk of persecution does tend to put a damper on an evening, and on such a beautiful, balmy June night, too, with the Semperoper towering in the background!
Another building restored to its former glory, its grand facade glowing gold in the evening light.
I wondered if the royal box had been restored, too?
Not if the restoration had been done by the East Germans, unless they’d meant it for Party officials.
I mentioned that to Sebastian as a way of shifting the conversation—this restaurant had been his idea, and it was extremely kind of him—and he immediately said, “We should go and see for ourselves, if you’d enjoy it.
” He pulled out his phone—really, what these people can do with their telephones!
—swiped his finger over the screen a few times, and said, “It’s La Bohème next week.
What do you think? I don’t think we can get the royal box, but … ”
“What’s that?” Ben asked.
“A very famous opera by Puccini,” I said.
Ben made a face, and Sebastian read, “The opera follows the passionate yet fragile romance between the poet Rodolfo and the seamstress Mimì, set against the backdrop of a vibrant but impoverished Parisian community of artists and bohemians.” He raised his brows. “Sounds cheerful.”
“Oh, it’s not cheerful,” I said. “It’s very sad, but so beautiful, and the music! The Italian, also—how beautiful the Italian language is, truly made for opera.”
“Do people die?” Ben asked.
“But of course,” I said. “It’s an opera, after all.”
“Great,” Ben said. “Just what I wanted on my vacation—to go see some tragic opera with people wailing in Italian for about four hours and then dropping dead. Hasn’t anybody ever heard of a happy ending? Or, like, an action movie? Something actually entertaining?”
“You’re free to go see an action movie,” Sebastian said.
“It’ll be in German, but then again, it’s an action movie, so you’ll probably be able to follow the plot.
A whole lot cheaper for me if you do. Ashleigh too, if she’d rather.
Alix and I, though, are taking Marguerite to the opera.
At least—” He looked at Alix, who said, “Why not? I’m supposed to be stepping out of my comfort zone these days, and I haven’t been to an opera since my parents used to drag me.
I’m guessing I may appreciate it more now than I did at fifteen. ”
“And you have that red dress,” Sebastian said.
“I do indeed have that red dress,” Alix said. “And the heels to go with it, too.” At which Sebastian sighed and said, “I am a happy man.” And I laughed.
“And, yes,” Sebastian said, scrolling some more, “it looks like the royal box has been restored. This is some place. Our house is going to seem a little plain after all this decoration.”
“Our house,” Alix said, “is going to seem awesome after all this decoration. Not to take away from your former glory, Oma, but this place is a lot.”
“Totally extra,” Ashleigh put in. “But amazing. I’m definitely coming, as long as somebody else is buying my ticket, because I’m sure I can’t afford it. Ooh—wouldn’t it be something if we found the tiara by then and you could wear it, Mrs. Stark?”
“That would be great,” Alix said. “And the earrings, too.”
“The earrings are yours now,” I said.
“Oma,” Alix said, and put a hand on mine.
“I’d rather you wore them. Your mother said you’d wear the parure to the opera when you were a beautiful, grown-up lady, right?
And now you are. We’re going to get the very best seats we can—notice how I’m freely spending Sebastian’s money here—you’re going to sweep in like the princess you are—it’s too bad you didn’t bring an evening gown or something—and Ashleigh’s going to film you and put it on her feed.
It’s going to be the most beautiful moment. ”
Her voice had gone a little choked by the end of that, and her eyes had filled with tears. That was most unlike Alix. I said, “Are you pregnant?”
The words were out before I could stop them. Sebastian stared at me, then at Alix, all his sangfroid vanished. Alix said, “What? No! At least—no. We’re not even married yet!”
I said, “I understand that’s not always required.” Dryly, because really—Alix was meant to be the modern woman here.
“And, you know,” Alix said, “hemophilia carrier? Genes? IVF?”
“Right,” I said. “Never mind.” I’d swear Sebastian looked disappointed, and I regretted saying it. After all these decades, I still can’t always control my tongue! I picked up the menu and said, “Now, about this meal. Ben, I think—I really think—you must try the lamb.”
Over dinner, Ashleigh asked, as always, “So what happened next? With the story? You were going to tell about going to Bayreuth.” She had her phone out again, neglecting her dinner.
“Sorry,” she said, “but this place is, like, gorgeous, with the river and the lights and everything. Perfect backdrop for more storytelling, and our count keeps going up. You won’t believe this, but we’re at almost seven hundred thousand views now! We do need to keep feeding the beast.”
I told the story—how glad I was to have read the diary already and prepared myself! When I finished detailing our first two days in the village, Ashleigh said, “So is that the happy ending? Were you able to stay there until the war was over? When was the war over?”
“In early May,” I said, “more than a month after our arrival. No, I’m afraid we weren’t.”
“Why not?” Ashleigh asked. “It sounded like they were excited to have you. Except for that one lady. Seriously? Those two guys were guards at Auschwitz? It sounds like one of them was more than just a guard, though I never understand all those long titles.”
“Yes,” I said, “although I didn’t yet know what Auschwitz was.
Dr. Becker did, though. The Red Army had liberated the camp a month earlier, and had told the world what they’d seen there, but the German people didn’t know that.
The Jews had their own ways of getting news—passed from person to person—that was more accurate than what the rest of us heard on the wireless and in the newspapers.
The press was very rigidly controlled, you see.
I can’t remember, in fact, when the government ever told us the truth.
Before my time, certainly. I have no idea what happened to those two men, either.
Dozens of the SS guards and officials were hanged and some sentenced to prison, but most escaped consequences.
They merely shed their uniforms and blended into the population.
Who was to know, afterward, who’d done what, so far from home? ”
“That’s terrible,” Alix said. “What a witch, though.”
“She was resentful,” I said. “Unhappy. This wasn’t the world the German people had been promised. They couldn’t blame Hitler—”
“Why not?” Ben asked. “I’d have blamed him.”
“Not if you’d believed in him utterly,” I said. “It’s much harder to convince somebody they’ve been fooled than it is to fool them in the first place. Nobody wants to admit they’ve been taken in, and to accept that you’ve been part of something terrible is the hardest of all.”
“Confirmation bias,” Alix said.
“Exactly,” I said. “For Frau Biersack to believe that Germany’s actions were evil would have meant believing that her husband was engaged in evil, so naturally, she resisted believing any of it.”
“OK,” Alix said, “but you still haven’t explained why you couldn’t stay.”
So I did.
It was the eighth day of our stay in the village—I’d had that week I’d dreamed of, being able to put our few clothes into drawers, knowing that we could have a bath, that we’d be eating today.
I’d begun driving the cows to pasture and back every day, riding an old blue bicycle and beating on the handlebars with a stick to urge the gentle brown Jerseys along.
I’d learned to milk, though I was still hopelessly inept at it, and had helped Frau Langbein start the seeds of tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers in cold frames in the barnyard—that is to say, in simple wooden boxes with clear lids to concentrate the sun.
We’d sowed more seeds directly in the ground, and as I sprinkled the earth with seeds of lettuce, radishes, peas, carrots, and onions, I’d been able to hope that I’d be here to thin them out—and to help eat the tiny carrots, the tender lettuce shoots.
How my body longed for fresh vegetables, now that I had some hope of getting them!
I’d never gardened before—the palace in Dresden had a courtyard, but it was tended by a gardener; German royalty, unlike the indefatigable and garden-mad British, didn’t dirty their hands with such things—and the act of tending something, of nurturing it into life, delighted me in a way I wouldn’t have imagined.