Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman Read online

  then Frau Bruhns had stopped talking, and the idea of the war, which was supposed to be feminine, had remained hanging in the air, beneath the pines of Ostia Antica, of course she had not said anything either, she did not say much at the best of times, particularly not in the company of such educated people, she would not have known how to add to this observation or what to ask whether war was feminine or masculine,

  she turned into Via Sicilia, the thought that the war pleased nobody any longer made her feel uneasy, unfortunately it had not yet been won, and luckily not yet lost, but in all probability people were tired of the many deaths, fresh defeats, separations and directives, orders, sirens, threats, pains, sleeplessness, rationing and the supplies that dwindled each month,

  but one must not harbour those thoughts, and she, in particular, must not harbour those thoughts, as a German and the wife of a soldier fighting in Africa, in any case she must not think so much, she had to carry, protect and nourish the child, that was her task, the most wonderful task a woman could have,

  almost there, just two more turnings before she reached the church she was walking to, as she did every Sunday, the island of salvation in the Roman ocean, where she was safe from all temptations, including such rebellious thoughts about the war,

  which she must shake off as quickly as possible, they had probably only occurred to her because, apart from the sisters of the deaconesses’ mission and four or five women from the German colony and community, she only had Ilse to talk to, who, with her stories from the kitchen and laundry,

  professed to understand the modern Romans and preferred to talk about the comet that could be seen this year in the constellation of the Great Bear and was supposed to signify some future event, rather than abide, with Christian humility and faith in the Lord, by the maxim for January, Enter ye in at the strait gate, this was a clearer message than that of the stars and comets,

  at the start of Via Sicilia, two houses behind Via Veneto, a poster in black capital letters, faded by the sun and rain to grey, pasted to a forgotten billboard, advertising a performance in March 1941 of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice by the Berlin Staatsoper at Rome’s Teatro Reale,

  every time she went to church this old poster reminded her of the days shortly before her engagement in October ’40, when Gert and she had heard Orpheus und Eurydike in Kassel Opera House and had been so enraptured by the blissful music that afterwards they hummed the tune She is gone, and gone for ever, at the time when they had just found each other, could regard everything as a game, and were still able to joke about separation,

  March ’41, barely two years ago, four months before the wedding, before the Russian war, before the war in Africa, all that seemed in the distant past, almost as peacetime did, and for this reason she was always pleased that the poster was still on display there, and had not been pasted over or ripped down, and that it evoked her happiness, the beginning of her still ongoing happiness, and

  she approached the church with joyful steps, no longer paying attention to the shop windows, the empty restaurants and the people coming towards her, she went up to the church, whose bright frontage, which became more clearly visible from the side with every step, stood out against the profiles of the neighbouring houses along the length of the street, all that was missing was the ringing of the bells, why should they not ring for a church concert too,

  with joyful steps, the way she had always gone to Bible study and services, apart from between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, when she was completely taken by the League of German Girls, and the handbook Girls on Duty had pushed the hymn book and the Christian scriptures into the background but, nevertheless, she

  obeyed the summons of her father and of the bells as a confirmand in Doberan, as a young girl at the housewifery school in Kassel, and at the kindergarten teacher-training college in Eisenach, sometimes uneasy, sometimes dissatisfied with herself, as when she was a kitchen assistant at the Lazarus hospital in Berlin, and yet church doors had only rarely felt too narrow or pews too hard, and she had always found something uplifting in the songs, liturgies and sermons, a comforting adage or verse and a firmer heart,

  and a vital balance to the hostility of the League of German Girls’ leaders towards Christianity, and that of the Führer himself who, as her father and Gert sometimes cautiously hinted, made the mistake of placing himself above God, or practically allowing himself to be venerated as a god, and so exaggerated the belief in race and the superiority of the German national community,

  You are nothing, your people is everything!, that the racial theories contradicted ever more sharply the obligations of humility and brotherly love, and repeatedly gave rise to fresh inner conflicts in young people like her,

  without the Church and her devout parents and several courageous preachers she would not have been able to cope with the daily conflict between the cross of the Church and the crooked cross of the swastika, between the selfless community of the League of German Girls and the selfless community of the Christians and

  would not have been able to achieve the difficult balance between the wonderful times around the camp fire with competent, uniformed girls, the fun games and social evenings, the singing and physical exercises, the instruction in racial theory, national customs, first aid, nature, and the zeal for serving the people and fatherland, on the one hand,

  and on the other, the Bible study which her mother gave at home to a dozen girls from her class and that of her sister, Christian teaching, and the unwavering captain’s voice of her father,

  with which he would strike up, in the face of the dangers, temptations and adversities of the world, his Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation or A mighty fortress is our God, early in the morning if possible, her father who knew how to defend himself at every turn with hymns, and who, it seemed, Even if the earth were full of devils, nothing could alarm any more,

  since he, in despair at the collapse of the empire and the Bolshevik workers’ uprisings after the war, or due to a malicious virus, first developed problems walking and then his legs and voice became paralyzed, an illness with a high fever lasting for days, so baffling that the doctors had given up on him,

  until very gradually the paralysis abated, disappearing completely after about six months, during which time the two of them, her mother and her father, recognized that their Christianity had only been a formality and not a real commitment, so from that point on together they prayed, sang and praised God with loud voice, who had saved the father so miraculously at the time of his greatest need, as He had once saved Job,

  so after all these trials the life of her father had become one long service, and he himself a preacher who went to meetings of workers, communists and Nazis, in order to lead them away from political ideas and win them for heavenly salvation, and he proselytized to the people in pubs, tents and churches, attempting to guide them onto the one right path, consultations in the morning, Bible study in the afternoon, lectures in the evening, until the new powers banned this work soon after the Olympics,

  with joyful steps approached the church that meant far more to her than the other places of worship she had been to in the past, because this was the only place in Rome, besides the deaconesses’ mission in Via Alessandro Farnese, where she not only understood every word, but longed for them and welcomed them, where she was addressed in the language familiar to her, in a well-phrased German which warmed her heart and soul, and where hymns, prayers and blessings provided strength for everyday life and

  strength to endure the separation from her husband, who really should have been performing his duty here, speaking from the pulpit in his voice, if there were no war, or at least only a minor war, in which there was no need for theologians with wounded legs in orderly rooms in Africa,

  for this reason the comfort she received here was doubled, trebled, without the Lutheran Gospel she would not have been able to cope with Rome and would hardly have been able to leave the house, in spite
of Dr Roberto’s encouragement, Walk, young lady, walk, almost as paralyzed as her father had once been, she felt this very plainly, and without the energy she regained here each week she would not have been able to carry the entire Wartburg in her head through the streets of Rome

  or the familiar Doberan Minster, whose outline appeared to her now, during these last few metres, the warm tone of bright-red brick, the music of majestically tall windows, the row of steep arches in the most slimline Cistercian Gothic, the slate roof with its pencil-tip tower, in the middle of the green countryside, amongst meadows and trees and near-derelict monastery walls, the Minster stood in the limpid Baltic air,

  to which she had walked in a wide arc, arm in arm with her beloved husband, she in a bridal dress, he in a borrowed dinner suit, and the entire large family behind them, here on Via Sicilia by the Lutheran church she wished she could feel the pressure and the warmth of his right arm, as she had felt it back then during their wedding procession towards the south portal,

  when everything was good, and God’s will was her will, to follow this man wherever he went, first of all into this centuries-old, astonishingly beautiful church, familiar to her since childhood with its woodcut, strangely vivid and radical Bible figures at the main altar, the lions on the pew ends and the naked figures of Adam and Eve with the crowned serpent, and, beneath the richly decorated vaults, near the portraits of the rulers of Mecklenburg, pillars with bright ornaments and the huge monumental crucifix, to say to him, I will,

  since then she sometimes felt that with each church visit, whether it be in Doberan or Rome, she was also confirming the I will she had uttered to him a year and a half earlier, when the order to prepare for deployment had already been given, and all the guests knew

  that soon after the wedding night he would have to leave to conquer Russia, Moscow, and half of the family shared the silent fear that they would soon see the bride a widow at nineteen or, if fate were to be more merciful, pitched at twenty from white into black like so many,

  now she had followed him to the friendly foreign land, at the junction with Via Toscana by the church, concert-goers, individuals or in pairs, appeared, some nodded to her, others, such as Frau Fondi, Frau Heymann and Frau Toscano, who she knew better, offered their hand, but not Frau von Mackensen, the wife of the ambassador, who had just got out of a black Mercedes and had helped arrange her visa for Italy, Gert had said, and who she was always slightly afraid of, because the ambassador was such an important man,

  most of them looked at her belly in acknowledgement and smiled at her, people knew her because people knew her husband here, they were pleased that a German woman would soon be giving birth to another German child in Via Alessandro Farnese, they were all nice to her,

  all of them in a peaceful mood beneath the figure of Christ which, flanked by Peter and Paul above the entrance, awaited visitors and seemed to say, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, while she looked around for Schwester Luise and Schwester Ruth, who were to accompany her on the journey home, and who she wished to sit next to, and suddenly,

  as if she had heard a call from afar, looked back in the direction of Via Veneto at the evening sky above the street, the roof gardens and the reddish-gold glimmer on the clouds of the red western sky, it was the view towards the south, towards Africa, but she was sure that at this very moment Gert was also looking in the direction of the setting sun, thinking the same as her, only then did she

  climb the steps, shake hands again in the narthex, and receive more good wishes from people, even those she only knew by sight, and she felt as if these people, by bidding the young pregnant woman welcome, were trying to give themselves some hope in these tough days of losses and defeats,

  while two girls, probably confirmands, handed out the programmes for the concert which ought to have taken place on the 8th of November, but had to be postponed at the last minute because heavy bombing had meant that the oratory singer, Albrecht Werner from Stuttgart, had not been able to get to the railway at Innsbruck on time, and so the concert had been rearranged for this Saturday, with the old printed programmes from 8th November 1942,

  and she entered the church and first looked for the white hoods of the deaconesses, the church was quite full, in the first row she recognized Frau von Bergen, the wife of the ambassador to the Vatican, to whom she had already paid her respects, everywhere people sought the proximity of friends and acquaintances, the shaking of hands and nodded greetings continued inside the church,

  the two sisters, easy to recognize by their hoods, were already seated, they had kept a place for her in one of the middle rows, and finally, after almost an hour of leisurely walking, she was able to sit down, sit down carefully and shift the weight inside her body, she immediately felt such relief in her legs and feet, in her shoulders and in her over-burdened spine, that she let out a sigh, which caused Schwester Luise to give her a look of concern,

  no, she told herself, unbuttoning her coat, it was not too much, Walk, young lady, walk, every step, she had enjoyed every single step, but a longer walk would have been too much, it was precisely the right distance, she did not feel exhausted, it was just the desire finally to sit down and breathe more easily, nothing more, everything was as it should be, everything was fine, she began to get excited about the organ, the choir, the singer and the string quartet,

  as she looked straight ahead at the glinting mosaic tiles in the apse, where Jesus sat enthroned on a blue planet and a rainbow, his right hand raised in the greeting of benediction, in his left the script with the letters alpha and omega, clad in a gold-and-white cloth robe, folded many times over, this mighty figure before a background of sparkling golden mosaic tiles in an oval wreath of floral ornaments,

  it was as if the saviour, with his eyes and gestures, was demanding silence from above, people had stopped whispering and murmuring, Pfarrer Dahlgrün stepped forward and greeted the audience, spoke of the vicissitudes of war and of the gratitude with which the community was finally receiving this concert today, he kept it short, avoided speaking as if it were a service, and did not recite the Lord’s Prayer,

  perhaps he did not want to annoy the Italian, the Catholic music lovers who, given the scarcity of opportunity, had come to listen once more to Bach or a Haydn string quartet, or simply to listen to nothing but music for an hour, German music, mainly Baroque music, both instrumental and choral, perhaps this time the pastor just wanted to allow the harmonies of the chorales and soloists and string players to convey the message,

  as there were hardly any concerts any more, not in the evenings due to the air-raid warnings, and in the afternoons people had other things to do, once in December she had been lucky enough to see Der Rosenkavalier, Frau Heyman had offered her a press ticket for the dress rehearsal, unfortunately she had understood nothing as it was sung in Italian, nonetheless she was grateful for a musical experience and the beautiful voices,

  Schwester Luise had also said it was a miracle that this concert was taking place at all, who knows when we might have something like this again, a miracle that the railway line was not bombed this time, a miracle that string quartets and choirs could even still meet to practise, led by Frau Fürst, in charge of the community’s music, who engaged them to appear at these concerts and who also played the organ,

  and with full force, it was almost frightening, the organ started up with chords which first shot like thunderbolts into the soul and limbs, and then filled the room with a cheerful, ordered arrangement that dominated everything, and even woke the child in her belly, which wriggled as if wanting to join in, dance along or at least listen and feel with the rest of the audience,

  she smiled and leant back in order to think of nothing except for the wriggling of her child and the joyously leaping piped notes of the prelude, leant back to relax and be carried along by the clear melodies and broken harmonies, and when these pleasures were over far too quickly, she attempted to retain in her ears for as long as possible the last cho
rd that floated and faded in the room,

  after a short break the organ started up again, complemented by the choir which stood in the gallery behind the audience, I call to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, unlike many in the front rows she did not turn around, it was strange to be in a concert where the music reached your ears from behind, but that was no reason to gawp backwards and upwards,

  she found it perfectly natural to join in quietly with the chorale, just to herself, without raising her voice, and sing along, calling out and asking for help, Bestow me with grace at this time, and, with each bar, the inner feeling of uncertainty or anxiety she sometimes had, her Roman anxiety, was lifted away layer by layer, that I may no more be scorned, like a soft, harmonious prayer, give me hope as well, while she

  stared at the mosaic of the face of Jesus, not as delicately worked as the very early mosaic faces, such as those in Santa Prassede, which Gert had shown her, here everything was somewhat cruder and the splendour more laboured, she looked at the beard and the strikingly large hands and feet, without scars, and the arabesques of vine leaves and grapes on both sides branching out in all directions, and in which her floating, aimless thoughts and wishes became entangled, and to the right of that,

  looked at the eagle lectern in the stone pulpit, embedded with reliefs of the prophets and apostles, and suddenly, or finally, she understood why in this city she kept noticing sculptures, ornaments and images of eagles and, with a feeling of relief, she allowed her gaze to rest on the elevated pulpit,

  where her husband ought to be standing and from where she had yet to hear him preach, there the wings and head of a marble eagle supported a panel and an angled board made out of dark wood for Bibles, manuscripts, notes, only now did she remember that the eagle was the symbol of John the Evangelist, this eagle of John was more ancient and more important than all state or Borghese eagles, than the eagles with the swastika or