The Aftermath Read online

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Whoever thought that was a good question … can’t have been serious. Or have had any idea of what it was like for –’

  ‘It’s a perfectly serious question, Herr Lubert. “Did the bombing affect the health of you and your family?” If you want to return to full, professional employment, we need to be sure that you have no mental-health issues. Answering with exclamation marks is hardly the response of a stable mind.’

  ‘I think the bombing affected the health of my wife, Major. She perished, along with 40,000 other people, in July 1943. The day the British destroyed this city in the firestorm.’

  Burnham was unmoved, but he seemed pleased that Lubert had brought the subject up.

  ‘Let us talk about your wife. For a residential architect, you live in some splendour. You have a listed art collection. Including works by Léger, Nolde. I presume she was the money?’

  ‘She was from a wealthy family, yes.’

  ‘And how had they acquired this wealth?’

  ‘Trade.’

  ‘Trading what? And with whom?

  ‘Everything. They owned a number of the shipping yards.’

  ‘Shipping yards used to transfer Nazi weapons?’

  ‘From 1933, they traded what they were told to.’ He could have pointed out how many of those ships had sailed to and from England, but the major must have been perfectly aware of this.

  ‘So this is an art collection paid for by Nazi trade?’

  How simple this mathematics was: an equation that always ended ‘equals guilty’. The numbers and fractions that got you there were unimportant.

  Lubert shook his head. ‘Hamburg got on with its own business, it was all commercial. We had no Party affiliations. Only Claudia’s brother –’

  ‘Yes.’ Burnham looked at the relevant page. ‘Martin Fromm.’

  Lubert hadn’t wanted even to write his brother-in-law’s name, or his title: Gauleiter. There wasn’t space on the page to get into the nuances of his Party ambitions and the consternation that his joining it had caused the family.

  ‘Let us turn to another question. Question F.iii. “Did you ever hope for a German victory?” You wrote … “I wanted the war to end quickly.”’

  ‘Of course. Everyone did.’

  ‘You wanted Germany to win?’

  ‘I was – I still am – a nationalist, but that doesn’t make me a Nazi.’

  ‘I think that is a sophistry. In 1939, a nationalist was a Nazi.’

  ‘I didn’t want a war at all.’

  ‘Tell me about your daughter.’

  The man knew how to keep the ground shifting. Lubert felt himself lose his footing.

  ‘What about my daughter?’

  ‘Well, I presume she was affected by the bombings. By the loss of her mother?’

  ‘She’s … still … angry about it.’ For the first time, his tone was defensive and unsure. ‘And … she has found it very difficult to share the house with a British family.’

  ‘Angry? At the occupation?’

  ‘Angry at the loss of her mother.’

  ‘She was a Hitler Mädel.’

  Lubert had nearly not written it – but it was a fact. ‘It was mandatory – from 1936.’

  ‘You didn’t stop her?’

  ‘We … my wife and I did … have a disagreement about it. I was against her joining … but, ultimately, we had no choice. I have a bad conscience about this. But to refuse would have been treason. And that would have been worse for us.’

  ‘But a man of conscience would take prison over evil, would he not?’

  ‘You seem determined to find me guilty of something, Major.’

  ‘Your guilt is just a matter of degree to me, Herr Lubert. My job is to determine its colour, its hue. So tell me … I’m intrigued: how can you stomach living with your former enemy?’

  ‘They are civil to us.’

  ‘How does your daughter feel?’

  ‘She is … sullen about it.’

  ‘How does this manifest itself?’

  ‘She’s … well … She doesn’t appreciate how … privileged we are to still be in our house.’

  ‘And why should she?’ Burnham said. ‘After what happened to her mother. What is she doing now – with the schools closed?’

  ‘She’s working on the rubble runs.’

  ‘When you see all this rubble you must wonder if architecture has any point, Herr Lubert. Are you sure you want to go back to this career?’

  ‘I’m not good for much else. I would like to be’ – he tried to think of the word – ‘involved in the rebuilding. I make a poor factory worker.’

  ‘You miss the days of building summer houses for Party officials?’

  It was true that he had enjoyed an upsurge of commissions for summer villas at that time – including a ‘small palace’ for Harold Armfeld, the arms manufacturer – but non-military work had been sparse.

  ‘After 1933, there were few opportunities. It didn’t help that the Party despised the school of architecture I came from.’

  Burnham flicked to another page of the Fragebogen. ‘You miss the past?’

  ‘All I miss of the past is my wife, Major.’

  ‘You don’t miss the good old days?’

  ‘I don’t know which days you mean. After 1933, Germany became a prison for most of us.’

  Burnham sat back, opened a drawer and pulled out a pile of photographs. He threw them on to the desk and spread them like cards.

  ‘Was it a prison like this?’

  He picked up a photograph of a skeletal Jewish prisoner. Then another. And another. All the time searching Lubert’s face for his precise reaction. Lubert had seen these pictures in the first months after the war, pinned against walls for all Germans to see. He wearily looked at them now then looked away.

  ‘Whatever inconveniences you might have suffered, Herr Lubert, I’d advise you never to compare your circumstances to this.’

  Burnham picked up the questionnaire and turned to the last question, on the last page. Question Y.

  ‘I see you’ve left “Any further remarks?” blank. Is there anything you’d like to say now?’

  Lubert looked at the major in as contrite and courteous a manner as he could manage and said, ‘I don’t think so, Major.’

  ‘Why did you hang this without asking me?’

  ‘There used to be a picture there. It left a yellow mark. I thought you might like –’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’

  Rachael was waiting in the hallway, pacing the room. She addressed him with a steady stare and ramrod posture, as though coached by a stern governess in how to deal with a recalcitrant pupil. Lubert had just walked through the door. He was hungry, cold and angry. After his interview, he had gone to work, only to discover that the factory had been closed. The British claimed it was because of the weather, but everyone knew it had been done to keep a lid on the simmering dissent there. His fellow worker Schorsch had been at the gates, handing out leaflets. They were planning a big rally, encouraging all workers in the British zone to picket the factories in protest at them being dismantled. ‘Remember whose side you’re on, Herr Lubert,’ he’d muttered as he handed him the flier. Lubert was fed up with being told what to do.

  He looked up at the picture he’d asked Richard to hang that morning. He’d gone to some trouble choosing it, taking the Morgans’ provincial sensibilities into account: nothing too outré, nothing too abstruse. He’d initially selected the lovely Liebermann landscape, but it failed to cover the old discolouration left by the portrait. The ‘half-nude female’ by von Carolsfeld was, he t
hought, perfect: elegant and understated, it covered the stain and lifted the whole room; it was a rare masterpiece, worthy of any wall in any hall in any land. Only a philistine could object to it; a philistine or, perhaps, a prude.

  ‘He was one of Germany’s great nineteenth-century artists.’

  ‘I don’t care who he was,’ Rachael said, folding her arms, refusing to acknowledge the gentle glory of the maid behind her.

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  ‘That isn’t the point.’

  Was it the nudity? Lubert wondered. The picture was perhaps on the cusp of erotic, but it was too restrained and delicate to be offensive. He was suddenly hit by an unstoppable urge to make this moment as difficult for Rachael as possible, to make her blush and squirm, to put her in her place.

  ‘Perhaps you would prefer depictions of the countryside. A hunting scene? Or perhaps someone with their clothes on?’ As he said it, he felt like a contemptuous older brother patronizing an uppity little sister. Thrillingly, he didn’t care.

  Rachael looked away, feeling herself reddening. Mrs Burnham was right: the Germans were a haughty lot, and she’d allowed this one to get way above his proper altitude.

  ‘Herr Lubert, I really don’t like your tone –’

  But Lubert couldn’t stop himself. ‘I would like to know why you don’t like it. It is such an honest picture. It isn’t – I don’t know what the word is in English … unschicklich: just for the sake of something to shock. I mean, look at her. It is a beautiful piece. I thought you would appreciate it. That you were a woman of taste.’ He paused for effect. ‘I must have been mistaken.’

  This seemed to light the fire.

  ‘What are you implying? Of course I can see that it is a good piece. I object to your insinuation. You know nothing about my taste or my background.’

  ‘This is true,’ he said. At the end of a long, frustrating day, this was good sport.

  ‘What could you possibly know about my preferences? Or my taste – what I think is good art. You know nothing about me or where I come from.’

  ‘This is the problem!’ he said. A reckless mood was on him. ‘How can we begin to understand each other when both of us have pasts neither of us knows anything about?’

  ‘But it’s your past that troubles me, Herr Lubert.’

  This struck a different note. She looked at the picture – or rather at the space inhabited by the new picture.

  ‘It was a picture of “him”, wasn’t it?’

  Lubert was stunned into silence by the contempt and incredulity this question aroused in him.

  She breathed heavily through her nostrils and started to nod.

  ‘It was, wasn’t it? A portrait of the Führer,’ she said, avoiding the dread name.

  Lubert emitted a laugh which sounded more frivolous than he felt.

  ‘Well?’ she asked, backing him on to the ropes, sure she had him. ‘Was it a portrait of the Führer or not? I know that most of you had them. I just would like to know.’

  He didn’t quite believe her suspicion. It seemed borrowed. By rote.

  She couldn’t resist one final swipe: ‘I’m disappointed in you, Herr Lubert. I thought you, of all people, would have had better taste.’

  The contrarian in him wanted to say nothing. But her ignorance was too provocative for him to resist.

  ‘Take a look around, Frau Morgan. Take a look at the furniture. The books. Take a look … at the music sheets in the piano stool. Music by Mendelssohn and Chopin – two composers banned by the Party; browse the library. You will find works by Hesse, by Marx, by Fallada – books that should have been burnt. And look at the art. I would show you around if I thought you were interested – artworks banished thirteen years ago. Degenerate art. Even this woodcut by Nolde.’ He pointed to the simple cut of a trawler on the wall of the first staircase. ‘All of it unGerman. Jewish Bolshevist. Artists unable to work or sell, because they were not to the Führer’s taste.’

  Lubert started to circle the hall, declaiming to the fittings and fixtures.

  ‘I know someone has to be blamed. And it must be helpful to have someone to blame. I am sure it is convenient for you – to give it a face. But do you think that I would give pride of place to that man … whose stupid thinking led to these things being banned and burnt? He was a vandal. His only … creed was to destroy – not just art, but lives, families, peoples. Cities, countries – even God himself! His only legacy is death and ruins.’ Lubert stopped circling and paused for breath.

  Rachael needed to move. She looked away from the offending portrait and down at the fireplace. She started to fuss at the grille with the poker; her hand was trembling.

  ‘I think you’ve said enough, Herr Lubert.’

  ‘No. I haven’t.’ If anything, he was just finding his theme. ‘You are right. We know nothing about each other. You know nothing about me. My past. My present. My future. Yes, that’s right. I have future hopes. Yes, even I: a German!’

  Rachael set the poker back on the hod. She folded her arms to hide her shaking hand.

  ‘You say you are troubled by my past, but really I think you are troubled by your own. I know little about it. Apart from what Edmund has told me. But at least I have tried to imagine it. To see beneath the surface of things.’

  ‘What has Edmund told you?’

  ‘He’s told me about your son, Michael. About your … grief. He says you used to be happier. Apparently, you told lots of jokes and sang. He says I would have liked you more if I’d known you then. That you are not quite your old self.’

  Lubert could see – from her deep breaths – that this hurt her.

  ‘And I feel sympathy: for your own loss, for your dislocation, for the difficulty of living here with your former enemy and a husband you hardly ever see. It makes it easier to believe that you are more than just a bitter woman who is full of prejudice. You have your own pain. I have seen it in your eyes and heard it when you play. But there are others like you. Wake up! You are not the only one.’

  He was standing right in front of her, square on now.

  ‘You have said enough, Herr Lubert. You must stop.’

  ‘What will you do? Have me thrown out? Isn’t that what you would like? Well. Here. Let me make it easier for you.’

  Lubert suddenly took her by the shoulders and kissed her. He slightly missed her mouth, and it was rough and quick. He stood back, waiting for the backlash, his face craned a little forward, offering a target.

  ‘There. I have done it,’ he said, not entirely sure what he had done.

  The expected slap didn’t come. Rachael turned away, touching the side of her upper lip.

  He was not thinking straight. His adrenalin was pumping too fast. He had to leave before he did something worse. He put up his hands and backed away.

  ‘I will go,’ he said. ‘I will go and pack our bags. I’m sure this is what you want.’ He turned and started towards the staircase.

  ‘No, Herr Lubert,’ she said, with unexpected calm. ‘That really won’t be necessary.’

  Lubert had one hand on the banister and one foot on the stair. ‘I … should not have made the accusation I made. I provoked you. It was a misunderstanding. Let us leave it at that.’

  He didn’t look at her but, instead, after a long pause, patted the newel post to acknowledge her truce and continued on upstairs to his rooms.

  Edmund drove his new Dinky along the road of the landing runner, between the doll’s house and the source of his cigarette supply, and back again. He caught the sounds of words rising up from below – ‘forget’, ‘past’, ‘picture’ – half aware of the dicey tone being used, but too
focused on his mission to make sense of what was being said. To a passing maid or mother he was doing what any normal, healthy boy would do with their new toy car; but for Edmund it was all a ruse masking the much bigger game he was playing.

  He could still smell his mother’s perfume on the car as he turned it into his bedroom. She’d made quite a palaver of giving it to him: bidding him come sit on her knee, taking his face in both her hands and planting a kiss on his forehead before handing him the present. She said it was an early Christmas gift and added that it wouldn’t count against whatever else Father Christmas might bring home. She seemed very keen to please him, and this made him a little uneasy.

  ‘I know I haven’t shown it much, but I just want you to know … that I love you,’ she’d said.

  To have it expressed this way seemed to throw it into doubt rather than prove it. Like gravity or oxygen, Edmund had always taken this for granted.

  But he was pleased with the car. Although the model and scale were wrong, the Lagonda was now the stand-out prop in his attempt to replicate the Villa Lubert. If those manufacturers of Dinky cars could bring themselves to make a Mercedes 540K, the replication would be complete. He even had a Richard the gardener doll, distinguished by a home-made cardboard shovel. As Edmund parked the car outside the doll’s house, he made the Richard doll collect the shopping supplies, while the Edmund doll collected the real cigarettes. Checking to see that the Mother doll was in the front parlour playing the piano, the Lubert doll watching her, the Greta and Heike dolls in the kitchen, the Frieda doll in the attic and the Father doll across the carpet lawn, saving Germany, the Edmund doll ran with the two giant packets to the large central bedroom. Edmund looked back to the door, listening for sounds of approach. Sure that no one was coming, he moved the furniture to the sides of the main bedroom and lifted the miniature Persian rug. There were eight packets underneath it; with the two new ones, he now had the two hundred cigarettes Ozi had asked for: a soldier’s monthly ration; an orphan’s fortune. It was time to airlift this haul across the snow-covered tundra of the meadow to the Boys Without Mothers.