Lynne Pemberton – Sleeping With Ghosts (страница 2)

Instead her hopes had given way to bitter disappointment: Ingrid turned out to be surly and bad-tempered, whilst her son Stefan, who at fourteen was two years older than Kathryn, was sullen and menacing in his quiet cunning.

With a pang of contrition, Kathryn recalled her delight when, eighteen months later, Ingrid and Stefan had moved out. Ingrid, at Freda’s insistence, had found a job as a seamstress at a shop in the small town of Cranleigh. With grudging reluctance, Freda had then bought her a cottage on the outskirts of the town and, having done so, felt no more obligation to the younger sister she had always detested.

Last week, at her mother’s funeral was the first time Kathryn had seen her Aunt Ingrid for fifteen years. She had aged beyond recognition: an old woman standing alone in the church vestibule, leaning heavily on a walking stick, her face framed by a shock of white hair that could have been momentarily mistaken for a hat. It wasn’t until this figure was joined by a tall, good-looking young man that Kathryn knew it was her Aunt Ingrid. She would never forget Cousin Stefan’s penetrating midnight blue eyes; his gaze had terrified her when she was twelve, and it was still chilling twenty-two years later.

Ingrid began to rock to and fro, gazing unblinking into space. With a sense of shock, Kathryn stared into the liquid depths of her vacant eyes thinking about something her father used to say to her mother. ‘Your sister’s not all there.’ As a child, Kathryn had always wondered what piece was missing. With increasing unease, she chose her next words carefully.

‘You and Freda changed your name to “Hessler” – why?’

A hush followed, then Ingrid uttered a soft moan and answered. ‘It was Freda’s idea. She said it was best to assume new identities in order to make a fresh start, because it would be simpler.’ Ingrid could hear her sister’s voice as clearly as if it were yesterday: We must reinvent ourselves; the children of Nazis will be ostracized and made to suffer, like the Jews. It’s for the best, Ingrid, believe me …

‘When the war ended, I was only sixteen. But Freda was eighteen and very strong-willed; all she could think or talk about was how she intended to leave Germany and start afresh. She was very attractive, in a sultry sort of way; everyone told her she looked like Marlene Dietrich, but I could never see it. Before she met Richard, your father, she was sleeping with an American officer. I can’t remember what he was called now, it was one of those ridiculous American names like “Chuck” or “Brad”. He was working in the office for relocation of refugees. It was all such a mess after the war: misplaced people with no homes, nowhere to go. Anyway, this officer issued false papers for Freda and myself. I wanted to tear them up when Freda told me with triumph that she’d used not only her body to bribe the American, but also a necklace belonging to our mother. A beautiful old piece, that had been handed down through several generations. It was set with over a hundred baguettes, and a fifteen-carat flawless pear-shaped diamond. God knows what a necklace like that would be worth today!’

Ingrid was so preoccupied with her story she didn’t hear Kathryn’s sharp intake of breath, nor did she notice her look of profound shock as she tried hard to absorb what her aunt was telling her.

Kathryn had always known her mother was determined, but to prostitute herself ? She found it hard to accept she would stoop so low. There were a million and one questions racing around her head, but she kept quiet and allowed Ingrid to continue without interruption.

‘I will never forget the very first time I saw the necklace. I must have been about four or five. My mother was dressed for a state occasion, and I whispered to my nanny that Mama looked like a princess. My mother leaned forward to kiss me, and I stretched on tiptoe to touch the tip of the diamond drop gleaming against her bare neck. Her perfume filled my nostrils as she whispered in my ear, “This necklace will belong to you one day, my little Ingy.”

‘So you can imagine, the thought of some loud American woman, strutting around in a seventeenth-century Von Trellenberg heirloom, made me feel physically sick. But Freda merely pooh-poohed my protests, insisting that desperate means required desperate measures, and that if we were to go forward we had to forget the past. Then Freda got sick, and as usual got lucky, meeting your father like she did during her stay in hospital.’

Ingrid felt the old familiar stab of jealousy as she recalled her elder sister’s excitement at falling in love with the handsome English doctor, Richard de Moubray, who had asked her to marry him.

‘I begged Freda to take me with her to England, to a new life, but she was so full of herself and so madly in love with your father that the last thing she wanted was a sister to worry about. She thought I would be a burden.’ Pausing for a moment, eyes beginning to dart from side to side as if searching for something she had lost, Ingrid’s voice became ragged and disjointed as she muttered incoherently under her breath in German.

Kathryn watched the old woman in morbid fascination as she resumed her account. ‘I was wretched after the war, a helpless young girl, barely sixteen, a child. I had lost my family, and everything I held dear. For a while I hated my mother for committing suicide, I was very angry and I blamed her for leaving me. Only later, after I had found and read her letters, did I realize how desperate and how very sick she was in the last months of her life. Her adored son Joachim had died of gunshot wounds in a French field hospital in 1944, two weeks before his twenty-first birthday. Four months later her beloved Klaus suddenly stopped writing, and in the ensuing weeks all contact between them ceased. She tried without success to locate him. She was certain that he had deserted Germany, and his family, for ever – afraid of recriminations because of his Nazi connections. The vast country estate was requisitioned by the government, a fortune in antiques and art were looted by the Russians, I believe she even sold her priceless Fabergé egg collection. We lost everything.’

Ingrid’s lids fluttered then closed as if to shut out the memory. She began to pick manically at the tattered remains of a fringed cushion near her lap, a dark blue tangle of veins clearly visible under her papery skin. ‘Freda left not long after that and I was left stranded in that huge empty house. I hid most of the time, afraid to go out; the Russians were everywhere. I had no money or food, I was alone, except for the ghosts. At one point, I thought I was going insane, and if I hadn’t met Karl Lang when I did, I might have done so. Or joined my poor mother. I must admit, in the long, dark nights, I thought about ending it many times, anything would have been preferable to that terrible fear.’

A lump formed in the back of Kathryn’s throat and she swallowed with difficulty. The face next to her, loose and dulled with age, had suddenly reverted to that of a frightened young girl, alone in Berlin amidst the chaos of defeat. It filled her with an unexpected sympathy for this desolate old woman, who had lost her entire family in the space of a few months. It also confirmed what she had always suspected about her own mother. Freda had been a cold, callous creature, unable to love, or even show compassion to her own sister.

‘I’m sorry.’ Kathryn said kindly. She knew it sounded lame, but could think of nothing else to offer. Gently she placed a hand on Ingrid’s lap, but the old woman pulled back from her touch.

‘It’s over now, thank God; all over a long, long time ago, so long I sometimes imagine that none of it ever really happened or that I dreamt it all.’

A snuffling, followed by a scratching noise, momentarily distracted them both; they looked towards the sound, made by a West Highland Terrier, pushing his wet nose around the door.

‘Come, Sasha!’ Ingrid called affectionately. The dog’s ears pricked up instantly and he trotted towards her, leaping on to the sofa to settle in her lap. Ingrid patted the dog’s head, brightening a little. ‘Well, I have a new life now,’ waving a hand around the shabby room. ‘My pretty cottage, and my garden.’

‘Are you sure my father never knew the truth?’ Kathryn asked.

Ingrid shook her head. ‘As far as I know, Freda told him the same as she told you, and everyone else: that she was Freda Hessler, born in Cologne, you know the rest.’

Kathryn took a deep breath, knowing how important the next question was. ‘OK, now about my grandfather …’ She was surprised her voice sounded so calm. ‘Was Klaus Von Trellenberg one of those despicable Nazi monsters?’ Kathryn felt her mouth dry up, as she watched a muscle in Ingrid’s jaw twitch uncontrollably.

The old woman began to shake and Sasha growled softly. ‘My father was an officer, an SS Oberführer. He was an aristocrat, a highly respected man and a good German, who served his leader and his country with loyalty and integrity.’