Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman Read online

  where she walked along the high walls of the Villa Medici and looked over to the dome of St Peter’s, faith and love belonged together, they were inseparable, without her faith in God’s providence she would not have been able to accept this love and

  a man who had only seen her once, before she had even turned seventeen, at an aesthetic evening for young people with singing, games and dancing, and although he had not been her dinner partner had danced with her and, soon afterwards, sent a letter asking whether he might meet her, while she, because she had not been able to recall his name, did not even know which of the young men had written to her, and had declined to enter into a correspondence, because I feel too young and have only just turned seventeen years old, such a correspondence is always a slight commitment, and I should like to be completely free in this respect,

  a man who had waited two years for her, from autumn 1938 through the start of the war and the French campaign up to autumn 1940, and had then written, of all the experiences in my life I have not forgotten that evening when I got to know you only briefly, it amazes me, but I really wanted to write to tell you that the thought of you has not left me since,

  and after this unbelievable letter had reached her in Eisenach via three offices she replied, enraptured by the patience and persistence of this stranger, with a postcard and then they arranged the meeting in the café that led to the first Wartburg walk, which was followed by a second, and their engagement less than a fortnight later,

  because she, as befits a good daughter, had sent a short letter to her mother after the first meeting, and a longer one after the second meeting, and at the same time had told everything to the head of the kindergarten teacher-training college, Tante Emma von Rentorff, who had asked the man to come and see her, gained a very favourable impression of him, and relayed this by telephone to Bad Doberan and, as there were only a few days left before he departed for Rome on church duties,

  to Via Sicilia, along which she now walked, pregnant, and, her thoughts drifting back to the sequence of events, still astonished and overcome with gratitude for all those fortunate acts of providence,

  her parents demanded not only that this young man should present himself to them, but also that the engagement should take place immediately, having found the favourable impression of their barely nineteen-year-old daughter’s suitor confirmed, which unsettled him greatly as he was not used to such pious customs, after only twelve days and three meetings with his future bride, before he had to yield to these wishes after a long conversation with her, and then at the edge of the woods, near Heiligendamm, sealed with a kiss something that had begun in the shade of the Wartburg’s trees and was to become a life’s journey as in the poem

  I have made my way to you through life, / as unmistakably as the dove, / although so long in captivity, / soared over green fields to find her way home, this is what Börries von Münchhausen had written, these lines contained the complete truth, and it had been the revered and clever Tante Emma who right at the start had advised her to meet the young stranger, after two years!, and who had given the two of them the poem after their engagement, And when I think of storm and strife and striving, / of my youth here and there, / I often feel: My whole life has been / a silent, unwavering passage towards you,

  on her silent, unwavering passages through Rome, the Wartburg was often in her mind, as a symbol of the reliability of love and faith, and of beautiful Germany, but also as a Protestant foil for St Peter’s Basilica, Luther’s fortress, Luther’s strength, Luther’s invincibility, Luther’s beautiful language, and as a reminder of the clemency and humility of the holy, or rather evangelical paragon Elisabeth, who rebelled against court life and voluntarily lived a life of poverty, helping sick people and children, which is why she became a role model for the young kindergarten teachers trained in Eisenach,

  she liked to walk through the capital of the Catholic Church with the image of the Wartburg before her, south along the wall of the Villa Medici, on the right-hand side of the street that sloped gently downwards, each step bringing her closer to Africa, looking to the right at the roof gardens and thinking of the wonderful roof garden at the deaconesses’ mission and of the benefits that Rome brought,

  the fresh fruit on her plate mornings and evenings, something one could only dream of in the Reich, an orange and an apple every day, there had even been grapes in November, fat, blue, sweet grapes, and whenever she had the craving for the greatest luxury, chocolate, she was allowed to go to Gert’s room in Via Toscana, to the sweet drawer,

  also the mild autumn-spring sun on the roof terrace, a room, at first one to herself, now one she shared with Ilse, soon, after the birth, her own one again, even without her beloved husband these were sufficient Roman delights, a roof over her head with Christian people and enough to eat, looked after, spoilt, and the sun to boot,

  occasionally Gert sent her dates and date paste, raisins, figs and sugar, sometimes almonds, pasta, rice, and fairly regularly, thank goodness, the popular green coffee from Africa in field-post packets that could weigh a maximum of one hundred grams, or once he gave a friend who was travelling to Rome on duty a whole kilo of coffee to take, he received his pay in French currency and almost every week sent one of these tiny packages, either to relatives, or to her, and his friend Jacobi, at the Rome headquarters in Via delle Quattro Fontane, knew a thing or two about dealing and sold the precious goods for her,

  or she put it away in the cupboard for a future emergency, coffee kept its value, or for celebrations such as his return from the front or the christening, the coffee was keenly sought on the black market, it had been rationed for years and become even scarcer recently, there was no coffee left in Rome, it fetched unbelievable prices, she was astonished by how valuable coffee was to the Romans, people drank only a substitute coffee and had no more than three slices of bread, how could it go on like that,

  Ilse had been born in Brazil, could speak Portuguese, and during her three-year wait had learnt very good Italian, and in her uninhibited manner enjoyed talking to the kitchen and laundry staff, Ilse knew about the Romans’ discontent, the people don’t want the war any more, Ilse had said, and particularly not when coffee and bread, flour and sugar are taken away from them, and the gas is turned off for hours on end,

  these were bold words, you would not have been able to say such things out loud in the Reich, that would have been undermining military morale, and here too, you had to watch out, hopefully Ilse only said these things in their room, when it was just the two of them, Ilse confided in her, but it made her feel uneasy, she was not used to such boldness, that is why she tried just to nod when Ilse talked, at most uttered a soft yes, and otherwise said nothing more,

  she did not want to risk getting into trouble and neither did she want to harm the war morale, because what would happen if the Italians no longer wished to fight, or if the war suddenly came to an end, an end without victory, an end without defeat, she could not imagine in the slightest what would become of Germany, of poor Germany, surrounded by enemies,

  the war was a difficult trial, and the completely unimaginable period following the war would be a difficult trial too, perhaps even more difficult, that is what the Job story taught, but it was pointless, it was conceited to start thinking about that now, for there was only a single helpful thought, we are all in the hands of God, and God will make everything right again according to His will and not our will,

  as she approached the fountain with the conspicuously large trough beneath the trees opposite the Villa Medici, a place which invited you to stop briefly because the view from here opened up again, down to the shimmering surfaces of the city and the dome of St Peter’s in the background,

  in front of this fountain with a stone ball, from the apex of which the water flowed, she would always be reminded of the school poem about the Roman Fountain, The stream rises and falls / to fill the round marble trough, even though the description did not match this fountain at all, she still kne
w the poem by heart because she loved the way it ended, And each one gives and takes alike / and flows and stills,

  and onwards past a coffee stand from better times, when there was coffee, when there were no shortages, she had never seen the man behind the counter busy with the mighty silver-and-copper espresso machine crowned by a bronze eagle, he sometimes gave her a friendly or ambiguously friendly smile if she did not look away in time as she passed by, and nobody had ever sat at the four tables in front of the stand,

  as if the espresso machine and the empty tables were waiting for the end of the war, it would be a beautiful spot here, opposite the Villa Medici, in peacetime, sipping beside the fountain that much-too-strong coffee that the Italians loved, two old men were standing by the counter, talking to the barman, she looked away sharply, did not want to be met by suggestive glances, and focused straight ahead at the towers and flank of the Trinità dei Monti with the obelisk in front,

  and because Ilse was likeable in spite of her outspoken manner, because her circumstances were especially difficult and she knew so much about Rome, for example she knew why children ran around with snotty noses, their parents did not have the money to buy handkerchiefs, and most people did not have heating in winter and wore coats to bed, hence the chilblains,

  she worried about Ilse, who rarely had a good word to say about authority that was invested by God, about Hitler and Mussolini, only a few days ago she had said Hitler always demanded that people show no weakness, but human beings were not made like that, and Mussolini always demanded that people had to hate the enemy, but the Italians that she knew were not fond of hatred, why should they hate the English and Americans,

  fortunately Ilse had broken off at this point, perhaps out of consideration for her, because she, the younger woman, who was always silent when national and political questions were discussed, had just for a second wondered why it was necessary to hate the British and Americans, and in the same instant this forbidden thought made her feel guilty, confused and horrified,

  because after all they were fighting against her husband, against the Germans and Italians in Africa, and causing so much suffering to innocent people with their bombs that fell on towns and cities, and it was not only houses that were being destroyed, but churches as well, what would the Romans say if their churches were flattened, for example this famous one above the Piazza di Spagna, which she was now approaching, and whose bells were suspended in the semi-open tower, as if they were just about to start ringing,

  perhaps, she thought, you ought to keep your distance from Ilse, at the very least stop getting into discussions with her, Ilse is older and more experienced, but clearly faith is not so important to her, she rarely speaks about it and neither does she go to church every Sunday, perhaps that is the reason for her strange opinions, on the other hand one had to feel pity for her and understand her, she had been waiting for more than three years now for this journey to her fiancé in far-off Australia, for that reason alone she must wish that the war were over,

  Ilse did not like Rome obsessives either, those who could only see the ancient city or the palazzi, altars, columns and works of art, and who quoted Goethe or the fountain poems at every opportunity, because these addicts, according to her, knew nothing of the day-to-day starvation, or of the outer suburbs where people kept chickens and rabbits on balconies, or of the simple people and the dreadful poverty, on which all the splendour was founded,

  the people in the laundry, in the laundry press, down below at the heated mangle and in the kitchen, they could sing a very different Roman song from the educated Germans with their eye for superficial beauty, from the academics at the institutes and the German aristocrats at the two embassies, the black embassy at the Vatican and the white one of the King and the Duce,

  for example, the Rome obsessives from the upper classes surely had no idea that the Romans had been advised to bake so-called war cakes, without cake flour or butter, but instead using pasta dough, and then to save the water they cooked pasta in and wash themselves with it, it was supposed to be as good as soap, another thing that no longer existed, and how much propaganda there was about cooking water being the best soap, and propaganda about so-called war gardens in squares or on free plots of land in the city itself, such as in front of the Altar of the Fatherland, where they were growing vegetables because these were in very short supply,

  she had been struck by the term German aristocrats, even though Ilse was not wrong about this, as a Christian you always had to look to how the poor were faring, and it was true that in Rome, too, most people were poor, the many victories and conquests had not eliminated poverty, but only made things worse, and

  what should people abide by if they, as Ilse claimed, were told how they should talk and greet each other, and if they were forced to join the party just to get a portion of fish or half-price cinema tickets,

  but even if all that were true and Ilse were not exaggerating, you had to be wary of exaggeration and generalizations, it was still no reason to run down Germans from the educated classes or German aristocrats, who no doubt had a deeper insight into things than Ilse, it was not Christian either to feel superior to others and pass disparaging comments, and after all, even if the surname she had borne for the last year and a half gave no indication, she was a German aristocrat too, albeit without a deeper insight into things,

  she felt, in fact, that Germans from the nobility were particularly friendly and helpful towards her, she could do nothing about her background, nor about the fact that she knew no Italians apart from Dr Roberto, who always said, walk young lady, please don’t be making worries, I look after everything, walk!, and now she had completed that lovely long stretch as far as the Spanish Steps,

  cared for in the German colony and the German community, she could not help the fact that she was more fortunate than the poor Romans, and that she had little more to do than to find baby clothes and knit, write letters, and walk four or five times a week to the Wehrmacht headquarters, from where the field post was collected and sent, and to help the nuns, in the kitchen, with the cleaning, and with the baking and decorations for Christmas,

  a Christmas with the nuns almost like that at home, with a tree, lametta and candles, ‘Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming’, ‘Oh Thou Joyful Day’ and ‘Silent Night’ in Via Alessandro Farnese with the Christmas gospel and white tablecloths, with biscuits and presents, a writing pad, Hermann und Dorothea, baby things, with apples, almonds, oranges, figs, nuts, with a long letter from Gert and a package from Bad Doberan, for the first time Christmas far away from her family and yet without any homesickness, while in Tunis, after ‘Silent Night’ had been sung, Gert had been obliged to endure a tedious evening with the men getting horribly drunk,

  now Christmas was over, now there were about four weeks until the birth, and nobody could criticize her for only helping out with light chores in the kitchen, or that there was little more for her to do

  than wait for her child and her husband, the arrival of her child could be worked out approximately, but the arrival of her husband, who had promised to show her the interiors of the most important churches, including this one, Trinità dei Monti, could not be estimated, it depended on the highest powers, on God’s will and how the war progressed, he had left her the Baedeker and advised her to look around, in Rome there is something beautiful to discover every day,

  and every day she did find something beautiful, such as the view now from the balustrade down the curved, sweeping Spanish Steps, all her friends and relatives back in the Reich would envy her for this view, which was also said to be the most beautiful in Rome and which she was able to enjoy, as if in passing, on the way from her room to the church,

  just above the tallest buildings in the city centre with the labyrinth of roofs and roof tiles, chimneys and domes, as well as the winter sun, dipping above St Peter’s Basilica, and sharpening the profile of the hills on the horizon and the narrow bands of clouds,

  and she could let her e
yes wander from the generously wide steps to the palms and the façades in those bright southern colours, and to the roof terraces which housed plants in winter too, and two shining orange and lemon trees behind a bush in a garden on the left, and back up again to the domes and roofs and the first traces of the evening light,

  who would not wish to trade places with her, in Rome, above these steps where you could feel the whole of the sky, in the south, in the land of grapes and oranges, and no bombs, to stroll amidst a mild war whose only symptoms were sirens, and then to a concert, and yet,

  she was allowed to think this without feeling ungrateful, it was here, especially, that she missed the voice and the knowledge, the warmth and closeness of her husband, who belonged to her, she wished to see Rome as he did, not according to the Baedeker, she would have loved to know how he would react to her comment that, in these famous Spanish Steps of bright, porous limestone, at which people never ceased to marvel, she saw a ladder to heaven, the heavenly ladder of Jacob from the Bible, from the illustrated Bible of her childhood,

  a beautifully curved, slightly bent ladder to heaven, which from below, from the city’s streets and the terrestrial, from the boat fountain and the shops beyond it, led up via twists, detours, balustrades and platforms affording rest, heavenwards to the obelisk and the church set high up, And he dreamt, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it,

  the Baedeker said something about Rococo or Baroque, this meant nothing to her, but the passage from the Bible most certainly did, and she would have loved to know whether here, in the centre of Rome, it was acceptable to think of the father of the Israelites,

  given that she was Aryan, after all, and was not allowed to speak about the Jews, even the figures from the Old Testament were somehow suspicious, particularly Jacob who in this passage, she had checked it up, is summoned to make the people of Israel disperse in all directions of the world, and that was precisely the problem with the Jews, who were responsible for the unhealthy mixing of the races, as she had learnt at school and in the League of German Girls,