The Search for Joyful (14 page)

I don't know when it stopped being routine—as he talked I could see a blond boy in a sailor suit wandering the shore, pitching stones, seeing how many times they skipped. More pictures formed. Novels from Old Irish Bill's library, romances by Wassermann, Thomas Mann, and Romain Rolland furnished the background. Gracious hotels looking out on ski runs, summer homes on the lake, picnics aboard the family yacht. And the daughter of this house, I imagined her too. Bobbed hair, of course, after the latest fashion; she'd be quite a beauty. Her little boy longed to climb into her lap, but no one took liberties with Elizabeth Madeleine Hintermeister von Kerll.

“Heinrich, the old gamekeeper, used to take me fishing. Have you ever had rainbow trout? Pike and grayling too. The finest fishing in Austria.”

“You're Austrian? Not German?”

“We were annexed in '38, in preparation, I see now, for the war.” He stopped, and went on again in an altered voice. “March eleventh at ten in the evening. On the thirteenth Hitler announced we were a province of the German Reich. You can see why. We are the third-largest producer of crude oil in Europe. And we have a modern airport at Wien-Schwechat near Vienna. You don't have to look further than that. The Nazis tore up our constitution. We became a German satellite overnight.”

“But Hitler is Austrian himself, isn't he?”

“The house painter?” He snorted. “Yes, he is Austrian. So are the cattle in our barn, if being born on Austrian soil makes one Austrian. But the heritage is something different. Our Academy of Science goes back to the Middle Ages. Architecture, poetry, music, the Vienna waltzes and operettas of my grandparents' time. The Burgtheater is the best German-speaking theater on the continent, and then there's the Viennese Staatsoper, the state opera. Music was born in Vienna. Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, even the moderns, Schoenberg, and Alban Berg. And our museums have a wealth of Old Masters down to the cubist painter Oskar Kokoschka, who naturally has fled. But that's Austria, the heart and soul of her.”

My mind had caught further back. All thought of a little blond boy throwing stones into the water disappeared. “It was a plebiscite,” I said.

“What?”

“A month after the Germans took over Austria there was a plebiscite. Austria voted to go along, voted for the—what is it called?”

“The Anschluss.” His voice had dropped so low I could scarcely hear him. The next minute he rallied. “You have to understand. It was called a plebiscite, it was supposed to be the will of the people. The will of the people was to live, and that was the only way we could manage it.”

“Still, you left that part out.”

“You're right. I apologize. I wasn't deliberately misrepresenting. I wanted you to see Austria as she had been, as I know her.”

He spoke so sincerely that I relented a bit. It had not occurred to me that not all Germans or Austrians supported the war, that some, like Erich, were caught in its net.

In the days that followed, his Austria became very real to me. Years of reading . . . Schnitzler, Franz Werfel, Mann's magic mountain down which lovers skiied, made it easy to close my eyes and see a line of sloping meadows and craggy peaks rising behind them, smell forests of beech and larch, and the many streams sparkling their length like unwinding ribbons. To see the mighty Danube moving lazily, a water bridge from Germany to the Black Sea, where the snow of the valleys and the snow of the streams met.

He spoke of
Grunderjahre,
the good times, his life a procession of nursemaids and governesses, whom he ruled with the quick easy charm of his class. When he was nine a tutor was found for him, a tutor who was strict and knowledgeable in science and mathematics.

It had been decided, probably when he was in his first little sailor suit, that, like his father and grandfather, he would be commissioned in the navy. It was easy to picture him sailing his toy boats from the shore of the Bodensee.

The next time I dropped by to check on the malfunctioning Quebec heater in ward B, I found my two patients arguing violently about the war—this time it was the American Revolutionary War. Von Kerll was vigorously defending Benedict Arnold, who he claimed had been unforgivably snubbed, passed over, and insulted by jealous fellow officers.

“No excuse,” Duprez declared hotly, “for stealing a cannon and bringing it with him when he defected.”

I could see they enjoyed these mock battles so much, I was sorry to see the sailor go. His infection was cured and he was discharged, gleefully promising to visit von Kerll and keep him up to date on the number of U-boat coffins sunk.

I continued to keep my eye on the Quebec heater, which definitely needed surgery, and received further accounts of von Kerll's magical childhood. That bygone era was so glamorous, so far removed from anything I'd ever known. He had been at the Olympic Games in '33, heard Hitler officially declare them open, watched in amazement as the black American, Jesse Owens, sprinted to victory leaving the champions of the master race to eat his dust. “Only my father's warning glance kept me from exploding in laughter.”

He talked of skiing in Cortina. Remembering the hot spiced mulled wine drunk afterward by a blazing fire was his way of dealing with skin grafts. I sat and listened because I knew the pain he was in. He told of climbs he'd made. “Class five-nine,” he said with a touch of pride. “And at night, in one of those isolated mountain huts, sometimes I'd practice my English on a Brit, American, or Aussie. There's a special camaraderie among climbers. The nationality doesn't matter, just the mountain. The same goes for sailors.”

With Erich it always got back to the sea.

“The sea runs in my veins like blood in other people's. In fact I am amazed to hear the way U-boats are referred to, as though they are inherently evil—We don't stand to, we
lurk
. We don't cruise the waters, we
infest
them like some sort of vermin. We don't pursue, we
stalk.
”

His grin invited me to smile back. But I couldn't. U-boats did infest, they did lurk and stalk—and kill.

“Even aboard a sub, things aren't what people imagine. It can actually be enjoyable. I remember one occasion, patroling in the St. Lawrence.” I gave a start. That was right here, home base.

He went on; perhaps he hadn't noticed. “I've been on it when we took a pounding from aircraft. But this particular day it was so quiet and peaceful that we cruised on the surface with the hatch open. To breathe fresh air was marvelous. And there was a tranquility over the scene.

“It was a crisp autumn morning, very early—about five or five-thirty. I remember a little cabin among pines, smoke curling already from its chimney. The captain called to me from the bridge, ‘Looks like home, eh?' At which the engineer pipes up, ‘In my hometown the baker lived in a little house just like that. He used to make Brötchen.'”

Erich looked over at me. “You've got to taste Brötchen sometime, it's a roll, very crusty. Freshly baked, it's part of the traditional German breakfast. . . . Slipping along between the banks of the St. Lawrence, that's what we thought of, not of war, not of pursuing or being pursued—but of those warm morning rolls and a mug of coffee or hot chocolate.”

“You make it sound so normal,” I said grudgingly. “A Sunday morning outing on the St. Lawrence. And torpedoes at the ready?”

“I'm just trying to say that one side isn't all white and the other totally black.”

“It
is
totally black. Look around you at this ward.”

This silenced him.

His dressings needed changing, all three, abdomen, thigh, and hand. No matter how delicately I went about peeling off the saturated gauze, his breathing quickened, and in a flood of words he began speaking of a great winding staircase with marble balustrade, along which slipped that shadow boy peering down at the party below—“I would sit still as a mouse on the stairs, looking into the music room while they put on amateur theatrics or a musical evening.”

The dressing was off now, and he spoke more calmly, telling me that when he was older, he himself played at these concerts. He must play very well because his face softened and took on a distant expression when he spoke of music. “I wonder if I'll ever get this arm back to where I—” He broke off.

“Of course you will. You'll be starting physical therapy. If you're conscientious your arm will be as good as new.”

But there was another skin graft to undergo, and to distract himself from the agony of the aftercare, he said very rapidly, his finger indenting the sheet, “I've made a study of boats. Boats of all kinds. But it's the history of the submarine I find most remarkable. Even the idea of a ship proceeding underwater is remarkable, don't you agree?”

Before I could answer he raced on. “Da Vinci designed an early prototype. But then, he designed the first of everything. The sub I like best is from the thirteenth century. Someone submerged himself in a huge glass bottle.”

This effort was more than he could sustain. He converted a groan into a laugh, but he had to talk if he wasn't to disgrace himself and cry. “The first suggestion that came near being practical was when William Bourne, an Englishman, considered completely enclosing a boat and rowing it under water. That was never built. It was another forty years before a craft was actually constructed that could be rowed fifteen feet under water.”

“What was that like?” I stepped back to let him know I was finished.

He drew a deep breath. “What was it like? Greased leather was stretched over the ship's frame with close-fitting flaps for the oars.”

“Those early inventors must have asked themselves what-if a million times.”

“What did you say?” he asked, puzzled.

“Nothing.” I was suddenly embarrassed. For I had been thinking how extraordinary it was that an Indian girl from Alberta should come to know the history of early submarines. Too bad that fantastic ideas such as glass bottles had to end in worldwide war and destruction.

S
even

WHEN I GOT back to my room Mandy was sitting on the edge of her bed waiting for me. “You're late again tonight, Kathy.”

“You're a fine one to talk. I haven't seen you back here this early in weeks.”

“What have you been doing?” It was not said casually, but in an accusatory manner.

“Nothing. Writing a few letters for the men.”

“For a particular one, don't you mean? An officer off a U-BOAT. Kathy, you're spending too much time with him. People are beginning to talk.”

“That's nonsense, you're imagining it.”

“I'm not. It was brought to my attention and not in a nice way either.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. “Mandy, if you're talking about Erich von Kerll, he's a patient. He can't use his right hand, so I'm writing home for him. I don't think I'm breaking any international laws or codes of conduct.”

“Still, you must consider how it looks.”

“I don't care how it looks. I consider it part of my duties as a nurse. Besides, what I do on my own time is my business.”

“People are talking, Kathy.”

“Let them.”

“Have it your way. Knowing you, I know there's nothing wrong with it. Still, it does seem funny, spending so much time with a German.”

“He's not German, he's Austrian.”

“Big difference,” she said with a shrug. “Besides, why be mad at me? I'm just trying to be a friend, letting you know what the scuttlebutt is.”

“I'm not mad at you. I'm just telling you not to pay any attention to that kind of petty gossip.”

Was it the reflection in Mandy's glasses that gave her a speculative look? “He's the third bed on ward B, isn't he?”

“Yes,” I said shortly.

“I thought so. The good-looking one. No wonder they're talking.”

Was he? Was he good-looking? I'd been afraid to make such an assessment myself.

“Don't pretend you hadn't noticed.” Then a note of real concern stole into her voice. She was no longer passing along other people's opinion but focused on her own. “You've got to remember, Kathy, he's European. Austrian, German, it doesn't matter. They're a lot more traditional than we are.”

“What do you mean, traditional?”

“I guess I mean bigoted. I don't want you to be hurt, Kathy.”

“Because I'm Indian? Is that what this is about? Mandy, you are so wrong. Things aren't on a personal basis.”

“Are you sure?” She peered at me intently and there was no way I could any longer misinterpret the anxiety of her glance.

“Mandy, you think I don't realize the difference between Erich and me? His grandparents have an estate on the Bodensee. It goes right down to the water's edge. He had his own sailboat when he was nine.” I stopped abruptly. “I'm not crazy, Mandy.”

“But you
are.
You're reckless, like me, when you love. So I had to make sure you weren't edging that way.”

Her glasses looked a little misty to me. I diverted her with Erich's stories of early submarines. “Did you know they once sent someone down in a bottle? Then they tried rowing along the bottom.”

She started laughing when I told her about the model they built with wheels to roll along the ocean floor. “There's an American version too, the
Turtle,
in the shape of a walnut standing on end.”

I had succeeded in distracting Mandy and making her laugh. But I took seriously the fact that I was the subject of criticism. Did they think that while U-boats were sinking our ships, drowning our men, I had been discussing submarine warfare with an enemy?