A House on the Rhine Read online

What was the guide saying about the enormous wealth of the cathedral? As he thrust away the thought about not laying up treasure, another and much uglier one took its place. Had all these priceless objects been lying here while people starved at the end of the war? What about “Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor”? Even as he considered this he heard the guide saying that the treasures had not been there. They had all been buried far away for safety, and the Allies had been very helpful about getting them all back to the cathedral. Not one object had been lost. Well, even if they had thought of selling them there would not have been any food to buy with the money.

  And now the tour was ended, and again he was being hemmed in by the surge of tourists and children. He tried to say a prayer of apology for his lack of grace as he was carried by the sheer weight of the crowd to the door and pushed out into the hot sunshine.

  The man who had spoken to him in the chapel was mopping his brow outside.

  “Phew! What a crush!” he grumbled. “If I had known it would be like this I’d have got up very early and come before the crowds got in.”

  “It’s only recently been opened again, on account of the bombing,” said Joseph. “They say it’s always like this now, except during services; it’s quieter then.”

  He was still violently agitated. What was the matter with him? Was he ill? He stood uncertainly on the cathedral steps facing the station. The sun shone on the gay umbrellas of the terraced cafés at the side of the cathedral, on the flags fluttering from the station, on the scaffolding of the new buildings shooting up all over the ruined square, on the great flock of pigeons fluttering round the travellers at the busy station entrance. He had seen it all before. Seen it every day when he came in and out to the factory. Today it was as if he saw it all for the first time. But why? Why just today? Because he had a free one? But every year he got a whole free week. He was puzzled. I’m outside it all somehow, he decided. It’s all exactly the same, only today I have just seen it as if for the first time.

  He was hungry, and went and sat at a table outside a small cheap café off the square. He couldn’t read the scrawled menu—his eyes were no longer as good as they had been, and spectacles cost money. When the waiter came he asked for the dish of the day. When it came he ate without tasting the food.

  “Enjoy it?” asked the young lad who came to clear away. The restaurant was almost empty and he lingered to chat with Joseph, whom he knew by sight.

  “Ever been in the Treasury in there?” asked Joseph, jerking his thumb in the direction of the cathedral as he picked his strong teeth.

  “Ach! All that stuff! Makes me sick. I don’t believe in having all that wealth lying idle. Why don’t they sell some of it and use the money to help the rebuilding? What’s the use of the treasure if the church falls down?” asked the lad contemptuously as he flicked the crumbs from the table and threw them to some pigeons.

  “It’s stood up for a thousand years although everything else has gone,” Joseph said sourly. “Why should it fall down now?” He remembered Moe saying something similar recently and it had infuriated him. Yet he himself had just been thinking along the same lines.

  “It’s had a good shaking, that’s why,” said the lad, who was bending over trying to coax the pigeons nearer. Joseph hated him too now, and thought how satisfactory it would be to send him flying with a neat kick in the pants.

  “Seen the Circus?” asked the waiter, straightening up suddenly to admire the legs of a young woman who was passing. “There’s some grand trapeze artists, a lot of dwarfs—tiny little creatures—and a peach of a lion-tamer! She’s a smasher!” He blew an imaginary kiss in the air. “Just my type—large, blonde and decorative!”

  It was only two o’clock and Joseph didn’t know what to do. Why didn’t he go home? He thought longingly of the shady trees in the garden. He was already hot and tired from doing nothing. He was far more tired now than after ten hours of fitting nuts on to bolts. He felt a strong reluctance to go home—Moe was not expecting him. Was it fear of knowing for certain?

  He would go to the Circus. He had enjoyed circuses with Moe and the children before. Today he could scarcely sit through the trapeze act; the performers could not grip him any more than the clowns could amuse him. He looked in astonishment at the people round him laughing immoderately. But when the lions came on he sat forward tense in his seat. The great cats excited him terrifically. Not the blonde over whom the waiter had raved. He wanted her silly head to be crushed when she put it between the huge jaws. A violent excitement assailed him at the sight. He wanted to hear their teeth crunch on her pretty simpering face. Bite her—bite her—crunch her face! he breathed, sweating with excitement at the hope of her being mauled.

  When it was all over and the great cats were sitting docilely on their stands again, and she was bowing and acknowledging the applause, he was deeply ashamed. He, father of eleven children, had actually been praying that this woman, who had never harmed him, should be mauled, wanting her beauty disfigured and ruined. He was horrified. When everyone else had got up and crowded to the exits he sat on until an attendant told him sarcastically that if he wanted to see the show over again he would have to buy another ticket.

  He went out and found his way behind the circus to the ground where the beasts were kept in their cages. The largest lion had sad yellow eyes. Joseph stood by its cage, fascinated by the almost human misery in them. He spoke softly to the creature in sympathy, and it rubbed its tawny head against the bars of the cage as if it understood.

  “Get away there! Get away from those bars!” an attendant screamed at him, and in a moment he was being bundled off without ceremony. For a second Joseph thought of smashing the men’s faces when they released him at the barrier. Then his hands fell to his sides.

  “You might have been badly hurt,” said one of them in a mollifying voice. He saw Joseph’s fury.

  “It liked me!” said Joseph angrily. “It liked me.”

  “Just hark at him!” jeered the second man. “Liked him—liked him! He’d like you all right, but inside, see? Why, that beast’d have your arm off in a second! Get out, now, get out!”

  Joseph saw nothing of the square as he went wearily to the tram halt, nor did he hear the cathedral clock striking five. As he sank down in the stuffy tram, and waited for it to move off, he was blind to the shining river with the sunlight making long shadows from the brand new bridge. He did not see the newly-painted steamers waiting for the evening tourists, the busy barges chugging up and down the wide traffic way. He saw only a cage—the cage with the lion . . . then the wire cage in which he had been a prisoner. He had been just a number in that cage. He hadn’t rushed frantically at the wire posts beating desperately at them in a frenzy as Peter and some of their companions had done. No, he had accepted confinement in the same sad apathetic way as that lion. Men and lions, caged, caged. In a cage, in a cage, in a cage, went the creaking wheels of the tram. Build, build, build . . . he could still hear the sickening thuds from the huge block being erected near the halt. In a cage, in a cage . . . he dozed off, he was tired. The conductor woke him roughly, asking for his ticket. Joseph dozed off again and did not wake until the tram reached the village where he lived with Moe and the children.

  III

  KRISTA ran quickly towards the factory gates, her heart beating wildly. Then she pulled herself up sharply. What was she running for? As if she were catching a train or being pursued! She stopped short and tried to get her breath as she came to the turnstile.

  “Steady now,” said the old timekeeper. “Anyone would think the devil himself is after you. There’s no need to hurry for a young man—he can always wait!”

  From his look and the wink he gave her she knew that he meant Paul. Would he be there? He would not. She would not look. But she found herself turning her head to that piece of wall against which he always leaned whilst waiting for her. He was there. Her heart turned such a somersault that when he called “Hello there” at the sight of her s
he could not say a word. She just stood there with her heart thudding in such beats that she could hear nothing else.

  He took her arm and took her away from the crowd of hurrying girls and women. Her fellow employees turned, smiled and chattered, but not maliciously. They all knew him, or at least knew him by sight. He was Krista’s American. Not that there was anything unusual in the fact. Hundreds of girls had American or British boy friends now. It was just that Krista was different. It seemed right somehow that she should have a foreign admirer. Lots of them thought that she was foreign herself. Her story had got out all over the factory. The girls considered it romantic and wonderful not to know one’s age, name, or parentage. They made up all kinds of incredible stories about her. She might be anyone. She had “class”. All were agreed on that. She wore her clothes differently, simple as they were, her head was poised proudly, her hands and feet were small, her ears and brows delicate. When they looked at the thick necks and ankles, the broad thighs and shoulders of her fellow employees, they felt that she was someone of another world. Her voice, light, warm, and full of tones, was something which was so much a part of her that few of them realized its charm. They only knew that they liked to talk to her and to hear her talk.

  She spoke with a difference so subtle that they could not put it down to anything except an unusual accent. She was clever, too, and very quick in the extension classes which the perfume factory provided for those who wished to learn languages. The speed with which she was mastering English and French amazed them as well as her teacher. To them Krista was a romantic figure. Shy and gentle, she had that suggestion of helplessness and sweetness which drew out the best in all around her. They adored her, protected her, helped and petted her in a way which they never dreamed of doing to anyone else. She accepted it gratefully, always with a delighted surprise.

  They had been watching this affair with the American. From a shy friendship from which she had hung back it appeared to be developing into something serious. He was a “steady,” a regular boy friend. What would her foster-father say about it? His devotion to her was common knowledge. When she had first come to the factory he had brought her each morning on his way to work, and she had waited for him every evening. Now he no longer did that. And her foster-sister Anna came in and out too. She worked in a sweet-factory near by. All the girls knew Anna. Large, blonde and comfortable, she sometimes came during the lunch hour. The American had been hanging around several times a week since Krista had met him last February at the Carnival. He was tall, quiet, and very attractive. The girls were entranced with this romance blossoming under their eyes, but impatient that it never seemed to get any further. She never made any “dates” with him, it seemed, never went dancing or walking or on the river or to a cinema, as they did with their boy friends.

  “Shall we go down on the tow-path?” Paul asked her now, squeezing her arm as he hurried her away. “Or what d’you say we go drink some coffee and eat somewhere?” He spoke German easily but with a marked accent. Krista was learning English at the factory class.

  “Tow-path,” she said decidedly. “I haven’t long tonight, Paul; I’ve got to get back. Moe and Katie are both going out; it’s my turn to put the boys to bed.”

  Paul was disappointed. “You’re always in this hurry,” he said. “Why can’t you make a proper date with me like other girls do?”

  She was stricken not only at the tone of his voice, but at the mention of other girls. Did he have other girls then? The idea suddenly hit her, but she said carefully, “It’s because of father—I’ve told you, Paul.”

  “But your sisters, Anna and Katie—they do as they like, they get around places; why just this nonsense over you?”

  “I’ve told you he’s afraid for me. He always worries if I’m late home.”

  “But he can’t keep you cooped up there all your life. How old are you?” he asked abruptly, and was immediately dismayed at the look on her face.

  “I told you,” she said quietly, “I don’t know.”

  He could have kicked himself for his lack of perception in asking the question. She had an almost morbid reluctance to discuss the mystery of her parentage or origin.

  “Forget it,” he said quickly, drawing her closer to his side. “I’m sorry. Let’s go right down to the water, shall we?”

  “It’s all right,” she said, smiling suddenly. “It doesn’t matter. I must be about eighteen. Pa found me on his birthday, the 31st of May. We always keep that as my birthday too. It’ll be here soon. We reckon it as my eighteenth.”

  “But that’s next week,” he said excitedly. “Krista, we can’t go on like this. I see nothing of you except for these few minutes after your work. Why can’t you come down the river with me on your birthday? We could take one of these steamers to Königswinter or Godesberg and climb up the Drachenfels. Have you ever been up there? It’s wonderful!”

  They had gone down the steps to the water’s edge and stood there looking at the river craft. The barges with the flags of many countries, the new pleasure steamers to which Paul was pointing, were fresh in their coats of paint and their gay striped awnings. The paddle steamers passing swiftly brought waves lapping at their feet on the steps, and from the pleasure boats came the drifting sound of lilting music, the chatter of voices, the clink of glasses, and laughter. It was hot. There was going to be a heat wave, the papers said, and the local urchins were already swimming from one moored barge to another, their shrill thin cries echoing across the water as they dared one another to fresh deeds of valour.

  “Why can’t you come?” he urged her, pulling her against his side, and turning her so that he could look into her face.

  “It’s difficult,” she said flatly. “Oh, you know I want to come. . .” her voice trailed off. How could she tell him that she wanted it so much that it seemed the one thing in the world which mattered to her? She was shy as well as proud.

  “What’s he got against me? I’m not a thief or a criminal or even a liar. I’m just an honest guy—that’s all. What’s the matter with me?”

  But she didn’t want to talk about it. He saw that. She turned her face away and looked at the cathedral spires. In the soft evening light they were veiled in a rose-grey glow. Lights were already showing from some of the ships and flashing from the long new bridge over the Rhine. The blossoms from the heavily flowering lime-trees on the tow-path gave out a sweet heady perfume which mingled sharply with the smell of the water. Paul looked down from his height at the soft blurred outlines of her young face. The colour of her hair, her skin and her eyes seemed to melt into each other in this light. The eyes in sunlight were grey, and clear as a child’s, the curve of her short upper lip and mouth still immature, but there was strength and determination in the small rounded chin.

  He put both his hands on her shoulders and turned her face up to his. “Are you coming down the river with me on your birthday?”

  “Yes,” she said faintly. The river and the lights swung away into space as he kissed her.

  “But it’s wrong, it’s wrong!” she said violently when he released her, and burst into bitter weeping. Paul was startled. He simply could not follow her. What was wrong? Why shouldn’t he kiss her? What was the matter with that? He couldn’t know that he was the first friend she had ever had. That he was the first person except for her foster-family with whom she had ever gone out. She tried to tell him this now. To him it was incredible. He couldn’t take it in. To him she was so attractive that she must surely have had boy friends before. That she had never been kissed he had discovered very quickly. It had taken him weeks to overcome her refusal to allow him to touch her. What he could not grasp was that the easy boy-and-girl friendships in the States were something unknown to this girl. They appeared to be known to other German girls and boys—to her sisters certainly—but not to her. And it was all due to this wretched foster-father who kept her almost locked up.

  “Well, in the factory then—there must be someone there. D’you mean to tell m
e that none of those young supervisors ever makes a pass at you?”

  The burning colour which flooded her face was his answer. There was one apparently who made himself a nuisance. “Just let me get my fists on him. I’ll teach him to make passes,” he said furiously.

  “I’d lose my job then, and I love my work at the factory.”

  “Well, he’d better take care. You keep away from him.”

  “I do,” she said laughing. “Oh, don’t let’s waste time talking of him. What about this river trip? It’ll have to be on Saturday. Oh, here’s Anna coming.”

  She pulled herself away from Paul’s arms as Anna’s large solid figure approached them.

  “I must go now.”

  “But you will come on your birthday?” He still held one of her hands firmly.

  “It’ll have to be Saturday. I can’t come on Sunday—it’s Pa’s birthday too. I must be home for that. We always have a tremendous celebration, and this year Pa will be fifty. It’s a special one!”

  “O.K. I’ll fetch you from the factory?”

  “At one o’clock.”

  Anna, the eldest of the family now at home, came up smilingly to them. If she did not find Krista at the tram terminus she would walk along the tow-path to the next halt. She knew Krista was often there. She looked at the two of them. That she had intruded into their private world she could see. But Pa would be mad if Krista wasn’t home on time. Anna loved Krista, and for this alone Paul liked her. She greeted them warmly, taking in the younger girl’s flushed cheeks and shining eyes.

  “I am trying to persuade Krista to spend her birthday with me,” said Paul. “Can’t you help me, Anna?”

  “But I am coming,” protested Krista. “I’ve promised.”

  Anna looked anxious. “Not on the Sunday?”

  “No, the Saturday,” said Krista quickly.

  “That’ll be all right then.” Anna was obviously relieved. “The birthday’s actually Monday, but of course we’ll all be working then, so we are keeping it on Sunday. Pa would never stand for her being away on his birthday.”