Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman Read online

  fasces, and more beautiful as well, with its bearing, helping, useful wings, not as domineering or burly or luxuriant as the other stone eagles,

  although not for the first time she felt confused here by the quotation on the pulpit GOD’S WORD WITH US IN ETERNITY, which sounded almost the same as the words on the soldiers’ buckles GOD WITH US, both were right and yet somehow did not go together, on the belt the eagle with the swastika, on the pulpit the eagle with vines, and she was unable to resolve her confusion in this matter,

  until the soloist, Herr Werner who had travelled from Stuttgart, stood on the steps by the altar and, accompanied only by the cello, filled the tall room with his voice, with the aria ‘You Have Fear in the World’, met the sensibilities of the audience and at the same time was able to offer consolation with his warm, paternal bass tones,

  a voice that she was happy to listen to and which, in spite of its powers of consolation, she found disquieting, arousing a longing for the male voice, the bass she missed, she must not complain, she must not yearn too deeply, how much nicer it would be if we were not at war, Gert had written in his New Year’s letter, but given that we are at war, we are very fortunate… to remain protected from all harm… so many lovely hours,

  yes, this was a lovely hour, she was incredibly lucky, she received her letters fairly regularly, she had his photograph, from morning till evening she felt his presence in her child and in all her thoughts and feelings, but his voice was missing, she became immediately aware of this, for nine weeks she had not heard his voice speak, whisper, sing, not a long time, compared with the experiences of other soldiers’ wives or that of Ilse, but far too long nonetheless, and in spite of all her self-control tears started to flow, she resisted them in vain,

  and still more tears when the bass sang the second Bach aria, ‘Yea Though I Walk in Death’s Dark Vale’, the variation on Psalm 23, again with the cello that swept through the depths of the soul, the tears flowed, she reached for a handkerchief, wiped her cheeks and held back her sobs, so as not to disturb the singer, yet could not stop weeping, Schwester Luise took her arm, stroked her hand, and she felt ashamed, because her tears came so readily and simply refused to stop,

  even as a child she had cried more than her five siblings, she had grown up with the saying, built close to water, even for a girl it was a stigma to burst into tears and howl on account of trivial things,

  something not even her captain father with his continually repeated admonitions such as Spare the tears, later on you will have more reason to cry, was able to stop, especially not with jokes such as Dearest Liese, weep you not, not every bullet hits the spot, for how could the sobbing child know how many harmful bullets flew through life and which ones you had to watch out for,

  the consolations of the staff and rod, which the bass sang emphatically, were of more help, as was the overwhelming final chorale of the St Matthew Passion, where for once crying was not forbidden, but was part of the power of the sorrow, We sit down and weep, which is why once she had heard this section in Doberan Minster, she loved and treasured it like no other piece by Bach, and she would summon it whenever she was most ashamed of her tears in an attempt to mobilize all her powers of resistance,

  not until the end of the aria with the meander through the comforting psalm, during the Haydn C major string quartet, played by four Italians, did the tears stop, she caught her breath, the dark vale had been traversed, she had regained her composure, and after the first, lively, cheerful movement,

  she felt liberated and happy and, to focus her mind on something different, she read the names of the musicians from the programme, Corrado Archibugi, Gino Giometti, Clemente Pagliassotti, Marco Peyot, she was sure that she would mispronounce them all, but that did not bother her,

  as now, while allowing her eyes to wander over the slabs of marble on the walls, over the grey, red, brown, black and white, and the different patterns of the most exquisite marble paid for by Kaiser Wilhelm, and while the strings created a detached mood with the second, slow movement,

  she tried to picture a future without war, without air-raid warnings, orders to keep one’s chin up, without the scarcely comprehensible differences between orders to muster, orders to detach and orders to march, a future without Wehrmacht reports, without enemies and without quarrels, without the deaths that could no longer be tallied, and the daily death announcements Fallen in action, which were printed ever smaller,

  without the young men far away in foreign lands, and the mothers and children in burning cities, without the overcrowded hospitals and field hospitals, without amputations, shots in the head, frostbite and leg ulcers, without rationing at starvation levels and shortages even in Rome, and without Ilse’s depressing reports from the washerwomen and cooks and without the superstitions about comets,

  tried to picture a May-green future far away, in the Reich, a friendly home with Gert, who as a war orphan had never had a real home, with the child, with four or six children, preferably in a village somewhere, maybe a timber-framed house with a garden in Hessen, where he came from, perhaps a thatched house in Mecklenburg with the sea air, it did not matter, just so long as it was not in the city,

  most of all, peace and a life without trepidation or worries in the tranquil rhythm of the church year with organs and bells and singing, as in Röhrda near Kassel, where Gert’s brother was the pastor, and where they had spent a wonderful holiday the previous May,

  and she tried to picture quiet evenings without the wailing of sirens, with swallows at sunset, a bench in front of the house where they could happily sit side by side, watching the children run around and play, and if they were really lucky, perhaps listen later to this very Haydn string quartet on the radio,

  she found it difficult to imagine all this, even though the violins, the viola and the cello encouraged such thoughts with the truculent Haydn cadences, especially the allegretto movement, which in the church seemed almost cheeky, she found it difficult to remove herself from the God-given present with such immense, almost blasphemous leaps, it was hard enough to look back, for example to the date 8th November, the date printed on the programme,

  she had not yet arrived in Rome, she had just obtained her visa and packed her cases by the Baltic, back then the situation was a little better on the fronts in Africa and in Russia, in Stalingrad, the name now on everybody’s lips, and the German cities were less damaged then,

  even this most recent past, the beginning of November, with all its hopes in the Roman delights, now seemed to her relatively peaceful, in retrospect each past appeared more peaceful than the present, for example the walk with Gert up to the Wartburg and their engagement in October 1940 seemed from today’s perspective almost like peacetime, while their wedding summer of 1941 was much more peaceful than autumn 1942,

  and perhaps in a year’s time she would think back to this Saturday in January 1943 and reflect with envy how peaceful it was when, in good health and pregnant, she had walked through the winter warmth of Rome and listened to a concert while giving free rein to her fantasies for the future with a husband who was still alive,

  no, she must not think too much about all of that, must not expect or wish for too much, the future was in the hands of the one pictured in the golden mosaic giving the blessing and pointing gently at the Bible, but sometimes she had to be allowed to dream of a life after the war, which her housewife instruction and the kindergarten teacher-training college had prepared her for, prepared as a mother and a wife at the side of the husband destined for her,

  you also had to pray for a happy finale, which the strings seemed to promise most beautifully with their artistry, and for this you had to pass through the strait gate, even though this gate was not at all narrow, nor difficult, nor did you have to walk crouched, but, when the time came, upright and with your head raised humbly, to bring your own will into harmony with the will of God, and thereby find the greatest freedom in obedience,

  applause, suddenly there was applau
se when the string quartet came to an end, there is no applause in church, not in the Evangelical Church, neither the organist, nor the choir, nor the solo singer had been applauded, it was more of a Roman Catholic tradition to clap in church, even at funerals, but here, following the chorales and arias, the applause sounded even more insubordinate than the worldly music that had strayed far beyond the usual practices of praising and thanking, and had triumphed over day-to-day worries,

  the music which had evidently stirred or reinforced the longing for peace amongst other members of the audience too, perhaps people were showing their gratitude for the liberating impulse of their dearest and innermost fantasies, possibly provoked by the final chords of the Italian string players, full of joy for peace, and played with such great effect,

  perhaps it was the Catholics or concert lovers who had burst into applause out of habit after the fourth movement, and then the others had joined in, even she had sheepishly put her hands together a few times before she realized what she was doing, and then it was all over, over much too quickly,

  and in the two-minute break, while the string players left their seats, there was restlessness in the audience, occasional whispers could be heard, a moment of embarrassment, hopefully Frau Fürst, who had put the programme together and certainly not planned for this Haydn piece to have such a liberating effect on the audience, would not have any trouble from the official people who, either in uniform or civilian clothes, must be sitting everywhere, not just in the front rows,

  especially Frau Fürst, who lived for music alone and who, with the words open up your heart to music!, never tired of inviting everybody she met to join the singing group, and encouraged their active participation in trying to unite musically with the Almighty,

  a link the bass singer now sought to forge again with the solo part ‘I Laid Me down and Slept, I Awaked’ by Heinrich Schütz, he had a difficult task singing against the unsettling restlessness of the congregation inside the church, which surprised itself with its behaviour, moreover the piece of music he had to perform was more delicate, and the text more disturbing, My God, thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone, thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly,

  it did not fit with Haydn’s lovely harmonies, and neither did it relate to Germany’s enemies, the British, Americans and French, who after all were Christians too, it could only mean the Bolsheviks, if it was appropriate to apply the biblical message to the present, the battles against the Russians were the hardest and most costly, and the outcome not yet decided, even though, from the very first, the Führer had fought and almost defeated communism, this religion of the ungodly,

  perhaps the official people were now satisfied that the war morale had been weakened only momentarily in this concert and Heinrich Schütz had reinforced it again, whereas she, seated next to the sighing Schwester Luise, did not want to think about it, certainly not in the middle of a wonderful concert,

  so instead she looked at the font where she and Gert hoped to have their child baptized in a few weeks’ time, something she had difficulty imagining just then, instead she continued her daydream of an unknown future with her family living somewhere in the country,

  when the war and the separation were over, she saw herself coming gladly to Rome again with Gert, to visit the deaconesses’ mission, to enjoy those pleasures together that he had once rhapsodized about, the exceptional ice cream, the ridiculously cheap, juicy oranges, the fat cherries in May, the chocolate, the bitter coffee that could only be drunk with lots of sugar, and maybe even the elaborate, very long spaghetti with over-spicy sauces, and at last learn how to turn her fork properly while eating it,

  wander hand in hand through the Forum and over the Palatine Hill and through the old streets, rest a while in the silent Pantheon and raise their faces in gratitude, warming themselves in the kind morning sun or the benevolent evening sun, or beneath parasols on terraces where officers were now sitting, and look and marvel,

  Oh how fleeting, oh how slight, the choir began, accompanied powerfully by the organ, catch up on everything, the museums, starting with the gallery in the Borghese park, and let Gert show her everything again in peace, the fork gods and Caesar and Augustus and Michelangelo, and

  descend into the catacombs, where the first Christians survived centuries of persecution and where she did not dare venture on her own, or where it was too risky for a woman in her eighth month of pregnancy, steep, slippery steps, she had heard, and arduous bus journeys along the potholed roads of the outer suburbs,

  she would rather save these adventures for a better time with Gert, Oh how fleeting, oh how slight, again the organ seemed to induce the child to kick out, and go on the trips that other people had gushed to her about, to the gardens in Tivoli, to the vineyards of Frascati, are the days of human life, to the sea at Ostia, or by tram up to Monte Cavo, as a stream begins to flow,

  destinations which to her, richly endowed with the sights of Rome, seemed like a double, even triple luxury, as if the bottomless wealth of the city were not enough, as if you always had to surpass beauty with new beautiful things, as if you could not be content with what you had, and pauses not as it runs on, difficult thoughts which, if her much longed-for husband were here, she might be able to discuss, or perhaps they would all of a sudden become irrelevant,

  if now, because of his injured leg, he were simply to fly back across the sea to Naples, and then take the train, and pauses not as it runs on, she would not have to wait for some distant peacetime to go with him to Monte Cavo or Tivoli, perhaps in spring already, after the birth, she might be able to go with him and the child to the beach at Ostia, in the sand and sun, so our time drifts away, family outings such as those she used to make to Heiligendamm,

  from the eyes of the Christ figure enthroned in the golden mosaic heaven, from the bearded face beneath the halo she read this gentle exhortation not to wish for too much nor indulge in idle fantasies, she concentrated, the climax of the afternoon was imminent, the cantata ‘I Will Gladly Bear the Cross’, now the soloist stood up again, the string players, standing in for the orchestra, tuned their instruments, the organ gave the concert pitch, the choir hummed,

  and then the singer, accompanied by the strings, let his bass stream forth, firmly, confidently, every word intoned with integrity and joy, and the most beautiful thing was how he could sustain, raise, lower and smooth the pitch on the word bear for so long, without a breath, or with only a scarcely audible one, that bear seemed to be a musical depiction of the long and patient act of bearing, a piece of virtuosity the singer repeated with the same sequence of notes for the word care,

  she could almost sing along silently to the slow aria, and just as she took every word from the Bible as assistance and encouragement, this too went straight to her soul, the music of Bach penetrated to the very depths of her soul, inspired by biblical and other powerful phrases and by the clear sight of a beseeching and thanking I,

  which was also her I, which found its own thoughts expressed in every sung syllable, my Redeemer wipes my tears away, that is exactly how it had just been, but she could never have put it so beautifully, perhaps she might not have been able even to think it,

  astonished at the miracle that, with a single cantata, this Johann Sebastian Bach, two hundred years after his time, could understand and express the feelings of a twenty-one-year-old woman, highly pregnant and alone, cast away from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, in limbo in the middle of a terrible war, and could soothe her, but not just her,

  no doubt everybody here could relate what they were hearing to their own lives, to the war and hardship, and to the everyday reality of death, no doubt Frau Fürst had chosen cantata number 56 for this very reason, for an audience in which everyone had already lost close relatives and friends and was adjusted to death,

  she could be grateful that everybody in her immediate family was still alive, her parents, her five siblings, and Gert’s only brother, and she prayed that it may stay like this,
it had been much worse in the last war, then two of her father’s brothers and one of her mother’s had not returned, as well as dozens of cousins and uncles and friends of her parents, Gert’s father had died prematurely, and soon after the war his mother had died too, and many more from that family had died far too young,

  but precisely because they were all still alive, the probability that one would fall victim grew with every day, it might be her siblings and parents, it might happen to all of them today, perhaps not in peaceful Rome, who could tell, not in Rome yet,

  how long would she be able to stay, if the fronts started to move and the Americans and British got closer in North Africa, the sea to Sicily is not that wide, and they will not spare the Eternal City from bombs for all eternity, and what will happen to Mussolini, if some of Ilse’s fears or secret hopes were true, and yet,

  she did not want to worry, and so she abandoned herself again to the bass voice and the cello, in the Lord shall I find strength, and it seemed to her as if the power of this music delivered itself to her, as if the melodies were building a protective wall,

  higher and more magnificent, as if they were rising and forming an architectural structure with high vaults, and with the wings of the eagle, and she felt secure in this music as if she were in a pantheon of notes, shall I fly away from this earth, beneath a heavenly ladder made of pure heavenly scales, and beneath a dome of harmonies,

  beneath which her life fitted and both their lives and that of the child, and beneath which, brightly elevated by recitative and arioso, the Wartburg and Doberan Minster slotted into place, the Pincio and the Jacob’s ladder at the Spanish Steps, and mighty Rome in her entirety, which she no longer feared, and beneath which even the war seemed to shrink,

  beneath a dome of sounds, crowned by the chorale come O death, thou brother of sleep, in which, with astonishing boldness, come and lead me forth, death was intoned, glorified and desired so openly and, thanks to the slow, haunting bars of the music, lost its terror and was banished,