A House on the Rhine Read online

  VII

  JOSEPH awoke to Moe’s shakings. She was standing over him in her cotton wrapper, her hair a loose mass, her face shining from its daily scrubbing with cold water. She had flung open the shutters admitting the merciless light.

  “It’s after six! Get up, get up!” she was shouting.

  He sat up and pushed a hand over his stiff face. His whole body ached and hurt as if he had been beaten. His mouth was dry and vile. In the middle of his forehead a gong was striking with each breath he drew.

  He looked resentfully at his wife’s freshness and energy, and distaste of her deceptive cleanliness swept over him. He glanced at the place beside him in the bed—still warm from her body—and knew that she must have slept beside him as usual. He hated her, hated her sly black eyes and that vicious hair.

  “Marry a woman with blue eyes and hair that is either very dark or very fair,” his mother had told him and his brothers. “None of the in-between colours are to be trusted.”

  He put one foot to the ground and the floor rose up to hit him. He reeled back on the bed. “I’m sick,” he moaned.

  “You’ve got a hangover,” she said brutally. “A nice spectacle you made of yourself all through the village last night—it took a regiment to drag you home.”

  She fetched a cloth and cold water and bathed his forehead, and then held out a cup of strong coffee to him. “Here, drink this black—it’s the real stuff, not ersatz; it’ll do you good,” she coaxed. He wanted to strike the cup out of her hand, but he began to retch and heaved himself off the bed and lurched over to the basin.

  He put his head under the tap and let the cold water trickle over his forehead. A set of clean clothes lay on a chair. There was no sign of the ones he had worn yesterday. Moe stood looking at him as he strove to get control of his stomach.

  “Get out!” he said.

  He couldn’t remember anything of the previous evening except for that picture of Moe and Rudi. There was a vague recollection of Krista . . . her anxious face through the mists of alcohol and of Father Lange pleading with him to stop drinking, but of getting home or of how he’d got home he hadn’t the faintest idea. What he did remember was the cause of the drinking, that damn lodger! That sleek dark Rudi whom she’d brought home from the Carnival last February.

  “Where is he?” he shouted suddenly, lifting his face from the water. “Where is he?”

  She didn’t pretend not to understand him.

  “At work!” she said flatly. “Work has to go on . . . for him, for you and for me.”

  “Come here!” he said roughly. The habit of obedience to the male was still strong in her. She went over. He put his wet hands round her full thick throat and her eyes flickered before his. Then as a fresh fit of retching seized him he released her and leaned again over the basin. She watched him dispassionately, a little smile on her face as she stroked her bruised neck. She had seen Hank do just the same to the girls’ necks. Well, now she knew where he got it from.

  “Better hurry,” was all she said, “you’ll miss the tram.”

  She heard his lumbering movements as he put on the clean clothes—the sudden thud as he slipped once. She brought fresh coffee. “Drink this—the other was wasted.”

  He got the hot fluid down somehow, then sat down on the bed and pulled on his boots. His face was grey but she saw that already he was regaining control of his stomach and head. The second hooter sounded from the great factory where the twins worked.

  “Half past six!” she said, and at the same minute the alarm in Hank’s and the twins’ room went off and there were sounds of their getting up.

  Joseph picked up his cap, brought in by Franz Joseph from the garden where it had fallen last night. It had rained, and the cap was soaking wet.

  “If he’s here when I get back tonight I’ll break his neck—and yours too!” he said as he reached the door.

  Moe shrugged her shoulders and went to get Katie out of bed. She lay on her back dead asleep with her wide mouth open. Her mother leaned over and examined her face curiously. She noticed the green stuff on her eyelids—the mascara which had run down one cheek, the lipstick still on the mouth and the faint red smears on the pillow. Peppi was not in the bed with her, he was with Krista again, she supposed. Katie must have been out again last night, that was evident from the frock flung over the chair and the make-up still on her unwashed face.

  Moe’s face expressed her distaste. She was fastidious about washing. She washed everything in the house regularly, there were always at least three lines of clothes out each day; and she washed her own body just as thoroughly. All the boys were scrubbed in the bath by Joseph at least once a week with a hard brush, and no less vigorously than the clothes. Moe would throw refuse or potato peelings cheerfully on the ground and leave others to deal with it, but where personal hygiene was concerned she had definite standards.

  She flung the covering off the sleeping girl. “Get up, you lazy good-for-nothing!” she screamed, and as Katie opened dazed and sleep-logged eyes, “and wash that stuff off your dirty face! You’ve been out all night again! If you bring any more brats here you’ll be out on your backside, make no mistake about that.”

  She went over to the bed in which Anna slept and shook her roughly. “Time to get up!” she said, more kindly. “Hurry now.”

  Katie, who had been in bed only two hours and a half, pulled the bed-covers up and lay back again.

  “I’m not getting up yet,” she said sullenly. “Let them get their own breakfast.”

  “You’ll get up and fast!” shouted Moe, pulling the clothes off again and heaving Katie out by her shoulders. “If you choose to work all night that’s your own business, but you’re not going to get out of your work here. Come on now, out!”

  “You can talk,” grumbled Katie mutinously; “look at what you’ve done!”

  Moe folded her lips tightly.

  “Shut up!” she said tersely. “I don’t want any remarks from you. Get up and be about your business—and see that your face is washed or I’ll clean it for you.”

  She slammed out. Anna, already half-dressed, stood yawning before the open window pulling her jersey over her head. Her good-natured round face was rosy with sleep, her dark slate eyes darting curiously from her sister to the crumpled dress on the chair.

  “Have a good time last night?”

  “Yes,” muttered Katie, “but I’m dead beat. I’m absolutely done in!”

  Anna was brushing her hair. All the family had the same thick strong hair as their mother. Anna’s was of a beautiful pale straw colour.

  “Like to cut in with our gang?” suggested Katie as she stood in her slip. Anna noticed that her sister had not even removed her under-things but had slept in them. She was lucky indeed Moe had not started on that.

  “No thanks. I earn all I need at the factory,” said Anna, swinging the hairbrush vigorously. “I don’t want anything to do with it. Your jobs are too dangerous for me.”

  “We’re on to something new. We can use some good lookers like you!” Katie purposely flattered Anna, but Anna was not to be drawn.

  “No thanks, Katie. Talking of good lookers, Krista’s going to be the beauty of the family. You should just see how the men in the trams are beginning to eye her.”

  “Krista!” Katie spat the name contemptuously. “Father’s little angel! Did you hear how he kept babbling about her when he was drunk last night?”

  “No,” said Anna comfortably, “I was too busy looking after your Peppi and Franz Joseph. Krista’s all right, she’s a good kid. You’re only too glad to dump your Peppi on her night after night; and she does it willingly.”

  “You should talk! You’re the lucky one. Your brat died.”

  “Shut up! Shut up!” said Anna fiercely. “I wanted mine . . . I loved Gabrielle . . .” her voice broke off. “Don’t mention her again or I won’t do another thing for Peppi.”

  “Hurry up, you girls,” screamed Moe. “Am I to do all the blasted work th
is morning?”

  “Where’s the sainted Krista?” retorted Katie. “Isn’t she helping?”

  “I’m here—in the kitchen!” Krista was standing at the table cutting up long loaves. She had already been down the street to the baker’s to fetch them. The boys were supposed to do this, but they were never up in time, and it was usually Anna or Krista who went. Beside her were a dozen mugs waiting for warm milk or cocoa and she was keeping an eye on Peppi and Franz Joseph who were quarrelling violently over some bricks on the floor.

  Moe, entering suddenly from chivvying the boys, sent both children flying with a sweep of her strong arm and planked Franz Joseph outside the door where he promptly set up a loud bawling.

  “That Katie, she should be doing this, she doesn’t earn her keep, the lazy bitch. D’you know where she goes at night?”

  “No,” said Krista, her eyes on the pile of bread which was not yet high enough. There had to be sandwiches for Pa and Hank as well as for Anna. Krista’s factory had a canteen at which the girls ate at tables with lavender cloths and flowers on each one.

  “You had her brat last night; didn’t she tell you where she was going?”

  “No, Moe, she didn’t.”

  “Does she give you anything for looking after Peppi?”

  Krista said in astonishment, “But Katie has no money, Moe. She has no chance to earn any.”

  Moe laughed unpleasantly. “She’s getting money from somewhere. Haven’t you noticed all her new bits of finery?”

  As Krista said nothing she went on: “She goes with that young Leo from the repair yard down the river. I’ve known it for some time.” She did not add that she had been afraid to reprimand Katie or to tell Joseph in case Katie told Joseph about Rudi. Well, now it didn’t matter. Joseph knew. There would be no more fear either of her or Hank. They’d get an earful from her now.

  Hank came stumbling into the room at that moment. His eyes were bloodshot and heavy, his hair rough and his clothes pulled on anyhow. He needed a shave, his dark hair grew quickly. Moe didn’t mind about that. Joseph sometimes omitted to shave in the winter mornings, as did many workmen.

  Hank slumped down at the table and snatched a round of bread, plastered it with jam and shouted:

  “Coffee. I want coffee this morning.”

  “Maybe you do, but you’re getting cocoa,” said Moe calmly.

  Hank looked up, astonished. “I want coffee,” he asserted loudly, “and it’s coffee I’m getting. You take enough money from us.”

  “You get coffee only on Sundays and in the evenings, you know that.”

  “I get coffee when I want it,” shouted Hank, thumping on the table and upsetting the mugs of milk poured ready for the children. “You made coffee this morning. I smelt it.”

  “That was for Pa—he had a hangover.”

  “Well, I want some too. My head is swimming.”

  The two pairs of bold hard eyes stared at each other. Then Moe went and fetched the coffee-pot.

  “I could do with some myself,” she sniggered to ease the tension. She had just made the discovery that she was afraid of Hank. Afraid of her own son. And just as she had decided that she need have no more fear in future because Joseph knew.

  “You’ve made a damned lot of trouble for us,” said Hank coldly, “and if Pa goes on drinking we’ll have the police come nosing round here. That won’t suit me at all, d’you hear? You tell Rudi to watch his step, and you watch yours.”

  She stared at him in amazement. How dared he talk like this. He was getting impossible. He wanted to rule the house.

  “Hank!” she said sharply. “Don’t you talk to me in that way! What is it you’re doing that makes you so afraid of the police? Where d’you go at nights? Katie’s dead beat this morning. I’ve kept quiet all this time because of . . .” she faltered.

  “Rudi! And now the old man knows, is that it? Well, if you think that makes any difference you’d better think again. It’s too late, see? I’m in pretty deep, see? And so is your precious Katie, and what’s more I’ll drag the whole of your brood in with me if you as much as open your mouth to Pa. Give me the coffee.”

  He swallowed it noisily and went without knocking into the room where Katie and Anna slept. Katie, still in her slip, was attempting to do her hair.

  “You little fool! Look at your face. You’ll give us all away! Come here!” He dragged her by her red hair out of the room and, half dressed as she was, pulled her under the tap in the yard. Still holding her, and regardless of her screams, he held her neck so that her face came under the full stream of cold water. He scrubbed her face viciously.

  Her screams brought the upstairs people to the windows and the children all running out in various stages of dressing. They thought it wonderful fun; none of them liked Katie, she was mean and sharp. Moe stood leaning against the doorway still in her wrapper and watched unprotestingly. She would have liked to have done the same thing to Katie herself, but had not the energy or courage this morning. Hank had taken his father’s place during the war years and had chastised his younger brothers and sisters. Willi had been older, but he was like Joseph, gentle and against the use of the stick. Hank had seldom been without some weapon with which to keep the children quiet in the bunker. Had he not succeeded, they would have been turned out long before they actually were.

  Moe looked on now unperturbed while he spouted water down Katie’s bare neck and arms.

  Krista came out and put a restraining hand on him.

  “Hank, please let her go . . . please . . . look at her clothes . . . please . . .”

  Moe caught sight of all the refugees gaping out of their windows.

  “That’s enough, Hank!” she said sharply. “Let her go and come and finish your breakfast. You’ll all be late this morning.”

  Hank released Katie with a violent movement which sent her spinning across the yard. She picked herself up, soaked, her streaming hair hanging down her face red from scrubbing, her slip and legs dripping with water.

  “You’ll pay for this, Hank,” she screamed. “I’ll tell Leo. He’ll take it out on you for this,” and flinging away from them all she rushed back into the house with Moe’s roars of laughter and Hank’s rough guffaws ringing in her ears.

  “Oh, dear, she looked so funny! So funny, with all that stuff running in streaks down her red face!” gasped Moe as she resumed her own cup of coffee.

  There were tears in Krista’s eyes as she began putting the sandwiches in the lunch tins. The twins had come out to witness their sister’s discomfiture, and now still giggling, were trying to swallow their milk quickly. Anna, dressed and looking placidly unperturbed, said quietly, “One of these days you’ll over-reach yourself, Hank . . . Katie’s not a person to trifle with.” She picked up her shoulder satchel, into which she put her sandwiches.

  “Coming, Krista? You’ve eaten nothing again. Bring a piece of bread to eat in the tram. Here, I’ll take it for you. Come on now, Katie can finish the other sandwiches—she’s done nothing. We must be off!”

  Krista picked up Peppi who was clinging to her legs, and kissed him and Franz Joseph. Robert was already at the gate.

  “Come home quickly, Krista,” he begged; “I don’t feel safe when you’re away.”

  “Silly,” she teased. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Hank’s away all day, and you’re going to school.” But as she turned to wave at the little face looking anxiously after her at the gate she knew that she was very afraid herself. Afraid of what? Of Hank? Of his arm-twisting, his bending back of one’s fingers, his pressing down on one’s neck or nose? She suffered it all herself as each child was the object of his attentions, even if her own body had never been touched by him. She was used to that. That was an old fear. No, it was a new fear, a much worse one which was assailing Robert as well as herself. The fear of what had happened last night. Even Karl, a stolid stupid child, was uneasy. Franz Joseph was fractious today instead of his usual impish mischievous self. Peppi howled miserably, and R
obert was a bundle of nerves.

  She smothered the fear. There was always something to be pushed away until one had to face it. Sometimes when she actually did face it she found that it was no longer there.

  Anna was calling to her that the tram was coming and that if she didn’t hurry the barrier would come down and she would miss it. They travelled together every day to the town. Anna in her chocolate factory didn’t get out until later than Krista. She had longer hours and it was harder work than Krista’s.

  Krista felt ill. Her inside kept rising and having to be thrust down again. She had not slept. After they had got Pa to bed she had had to soothe the children and then done as Katie had asked, and taken Peppi’s sleeping form from her bed into her own, but even with the warmth of his little body pressed against her own shivering one she had lain awake.

  She had heard Katie slip out, then the suddenly hushed barking of Lumpi, then the faint throb of a motor cycle. Hours later the same sounds heralded their return. What did they do? Where did they go? She knew instinctively that it could not be for any good purpose that they crept out in the night and returned with the dawn.

  The clanging bell of the approaching tram and the shrill warning from the level-crossing barrier hurried her to a run and she was panting as she caught Anna up; together they dashed through the barrier just as it was coming down.

  “Here’s your bread!” said Anna. “Come on, eat it. You’ll feel bad at work on an empty stomach.”

  Krista took the bread but she couldn’t swallow it. Her face was paler than usual this morning and her eyes were heavy. Her heart almost burst with anxiety for Pa and with shame for Moe. But Moe didn’t seem to care, that was what was so awful. She just behaved as usual this morning, as if nothing had happened yesterday, as if Pa had never broken open that door on her nakedness and shame. What would happen? What would happen to them all? She began to cry.

  “Krista, Krista, everyone’s looking at you! Try to stop, do!” Anna’s bulky form pushed itself in front of the weeping girl. Anna was rough and lazy, and in some ways stupid, but she loved Krista. There was something she admired in her. She couldn’t have said what it was, but she knew it was something she would never have herself, any more than Katie or Lise would. In the strangest way she wanted to protect the girl as she did the children. She could not look on unmoved while they were hurt.