Butterfly kisses

Tiney stepped off the train at Friedrichstrasse, into the bustle of a Berlin afternoon. She’d slept much of the way from the Belgian border, where a customs officer had taken her papers and shouted at her until she explained, in her best German, that she had come to visit her cousin.

From Ypres Tiney had travelled to Brussels, where she spent three miserable nights in a hotel. She had made the mistake of detailing her travel plans in the note she had left Ida, and when she checked in at the front desk she was given a stack of mail forwarded from Paris. There was a letter from her parents, one from Thea and, most annoyingly, a long letter from Ida begging Tiney to come back to Paris. There was also a slim white envelope from Geneva.

Tiney placed the letters from her family and Ida in her suitcase. Then she sat up all night writing a reply to Martin. His letter was as honest and intimate as their conversation in the restaurant. Even if he wasn’t interested in her romantically, at least she was sure he valued her friendship. She wrote back to him sharing every detail of her visit to Ypres and also gave him an outline of her planned visit to Berlin, though she knew he wouldn’t approve.

Berlin was beautiful in the afternoon light, with its elegant buildings, shops with plate-glass windows, and tree-lined boulevards. Trams and buses glided smoothly along the streets. There were no ruins, no dust, and no destruction. The bombs had never reached Berlin. Unter den Linden, a long boulevard of trees budding with green leaves, lifted Tiney’s heart for a moment but as she drew closer to Kurfürstendamm she began to notice that beneath the surface, the city was suffering. She saw a half-starved woman in black holding the hands of two skinny little children, and a barefooted girl with a wretched face leaning against the corner of a building dressed in nothing but her overcoat. Then Tiney passed a man standing on a street corner, begging. He had only one leg and one eye. The side of his head was bandaged with dirty strips of cloth. He held out a tin cup to passers-by, and Tiney could not bring herself to meet the gaze of his single blue eye.

Tiney was alarmed to find Hotel Elvira was both smaller and grubbier than she’d hoped. She checked in and then set off on her quest, crossing over the river into a network of narrow laneways, where the poverty of the city grew even more obvious. A pile of rags in the shadows of a deep doorway began to move and she saw the faces of an old woman and two small children peer out from amid the dirty cloth.

She stopped a girl, dressed in a tattered wool coat, and showed her the address that Onkel Ludwig had sent her, the address from which Paul had last written to his parents. The woman pointed down another shadowy laneway.

Inside the building, the paint was peeling from the walls and a bitter dampness hung in the air. Tiney climbed to the second floor and knocked on the door of the apartment. It opened only a crack and a dark eye peered out at her.

‘Guten Tag,’ she said, using her best German, ‘I’m looking for Paul Kreiger. My name is Martina. I’m Paul’s cousin from Australia.’

The door opened wide and a thin, dark-haired woman stared at Tiney, her face lit with wonder and surprise. ‘Tiney Flynn!’ she cried.

From behind her skirts, a fair-haired boy peered up at Tiney. For an instant, Tiney was confused. Had Paul married a widow? Who was this woman and her golden-haired child? And then she knew. This was the woman in Louis’ photo, the woman holding the small baby, though the baby was now a boy.

‘You know me?’ said Tiney.

‘Your cousin talked of you often. He told me about you and your sisters and your brother Louis. This little boy, my son, his name is Louis also,’ she said, drawing the boy to stand shyly in front of her. ‘He is named for your brother.’

Tiney couldn’t think what it could mean. For a fleeting instance of longing, she wanted the boy to be Louis’ son, to be her very own nephew. But how could it be possible? How could Louis have fathered a child that was raised behind enemy lines and never written of it? And the boy looked too old. Louis hadn’t reached Europe until late in 1915, so no child of his could be older than four.

As if the young woman understood Tiney’s confusion, she said, ‘My name is Hannah. My son, his father is your cousin Wilhelm.’

Tiney felt her knees grow weak as she understood what the woman had told her. All the pieces of the jigsaw were falling into place. Hannah drew her through the open doorway and led her into the small apartment. It was simply a bedsit, with a bed in one corner, a long divan in another, a small table with three chairs, and one window overlooking the laneway. Hannah gestured for Tiney to sit down.

‘Will is alive?’ asked Tiney, hope and confusion brimming inside her. Could it be that he was not among the fallen at Langemarck?

Hannah hung her head. ‘No,’ she replied softly. ‘No, he died when our child was a baby.’

‘But my uncle sent me this address as Paul’s address. Do my uncle and aunt know about you and the baby?’

‘I’m not a baby,’ interrupted Louis. ‘I’m six years old!’

Hannah smiled and stroked the boy’s fair hair. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Wilhelm sent a picture of little Louis to your brother just before the war began. He was the only one who knew about our child until now, though Will also wrote to Paul and told him that we were engaged. Now Paul thinks it best not to tell your uncle and aunt. Not yet.’

‘But you must tell them. You must!’ said Tiney.

Hannah drew a deep breath. ‘Australia is so far away. Until Paul came and found me in Heidelberg, I couldn’t think of this family. I was Wilhelm’s fiancée, but never his wife. At first, we couldn’t marry because he was a student and I was a secret he kept from his parents. My father wouldn’t have countenanced it either – Wilhelm was a foreigner, a gentile. I ran away from home to be with him. Then the war began. And we were going to marry when he was next on leave. But he never came back. He never lived to give me and our son his name, so I couldn’t believe your uncle and aunt would accept me.’

Tiney didn’t know what to say. How would her uncle and aunt feel about a child born out of wedlock?

Hannah made them tea and they sat and talked as the afternoon slipped into evening. Little Louis played quietly on the floor and listened. Finally, when the sky outside the window had darkened, Hannah lit the gas wall lamp. She insisted Tiney join her and Louis for their evening meal and went downstairs to warm a pot of turnip soup in her landlady’s kitchen.

It was a simple, meagre meal and Tiney was embarrassed that she had arrived empty-handed. Louis scraped the bottom of his bowl and licked the spoon and Tiney offered him the rest of her soup, though she was still hungry.

Hannah was putting Louis to bed when the key turned in the lock and Paul stepped into the room. He frowned when he saw Tiney, almost as though he didn’t recognise her.

‘Guten Abend, Cousin Paul,’ she said.

Then Paul crossed the room swiftly and enveloped her in a hug. Tiney pressed her face against his dark wool coat smelling of tobacco and soap and hugged him back. All her irritation with him evaporated and when he held her at arms-length to gaze into her face, she smiled.

‘Did my parents send you?’ he asked.

‘Yes and no,’ she answered. ‘They paid my fare to Europe but they don’t know that I’m here in Berlin.’

Paul visibly slumped. ‘Then you haven’t brought me any cash, have you?’

‘What happened to your trust fund?’ asked Tiney.

Paul glanced over at Hannah, who was sitting on the bed, gently humming a song to Louis as he drifted off to sleep.

‘Let’s go out for a walk,’ he said. ‘I’ll escort you back to your accommodation. It’s not a good idea for you to walk the streets alone.’

Tiney whispered a hurried goodbye to Hannah, promising to visit again tomorrow. Then she put on her hat and followed Paul out into the dark street.

‘We must get you back to your hotel before curfew,’ said Paul. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘In a pension in Kurfürstendamm,’ said Tiney.

Paul looked surprised but said nothing. He seemed to be wrestling with what he wanted to say first.

‘Why didn’t you tell me, Paul?’ asked Tiney. ‘You knew, when I showed you the photo of Hannah and the baby, didn’t you? You knew who they were, but you said nothing.’

‘Will wrote to me from Heidelberg. He said he was in love with a woman, a Jewess called Hannah. He said he didn’t think our parents would approve, more because he was too young and was still a student than because of her religion. He didn’t tell me he was going to become a father. But when I saw the photo, that evening when you and I argued at Kaiserstuhl, I simply knew. She looked exactly as he’d described her in his letters. And if the photo was among Louis’ things, it would have been because Will had sent it to him before August 1914, which matched the date on the back. Will trusted Louis more than me, I suppose.’ Tiney heard a hint of Paul’s familiar bitterness.

‘Is that why you ran away? Because of the photo?’ asked Tiney. ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’

‘How could I? What if I was wrong? What if Hannah had married someone else and the child wasn’t Will’s? There was so much I couldn’t know. And I wasn’t sorry to leave, you know that.’

‘But why are you living in such poverty? Paul, that room, it’s not a fit place to raise a child.’

Paul hung his head. ‘I could only get access to one part of the trust. My father controls the rest and he won’t release it unless I come home.’

‘But if you told him about Hannah and Louis, then surely he would help.’

The streetlights made Paul look pale and wan. ‘I’ve found work in a nightclub, but everything is expensive when you’ve only got German marks and not foreign cash. I should have left Hannah and the boy in Heidelberg. But they were living in poverty there too. I thought I could offer them a better life here.’

‘Are you in love with her?’ asked Tiney.

Paul looked startled. ‘No. But she’s my sister-in-law in everything except name and Louis is my nephew. Wilhelm should have married her. He should have told our parents.’

‘Then why haven’t you told them?’

‘They’d never believe me,’ said Paul. ‘They’d think I’m just trying to get my hands on the trust.’

‘They’d believe you if they could see Louis. He looks so much like Will. No one could see him and not realise that he’s Will’s son.’

Paul didn’t reply but kept walking swiftly along the avenue. Kurfürstendamm at night was a different landscape. Cafes and bars cast golden light onto the pavement. Girls with painted faces and short skirts stood along the roadside.

Tiney pointed to the entrance of Hotel Elvira. ‘That’s where I’m staying,’ she said.

Paul groaned. ‘You can’t be serious! What made you choose that flophouse?’

‘A friend of Ida’s in Paris stayed there before the war,’ said Tiney, feeling embarrassed.

‘Berlin was a different city before the war. We’ll get your suitcase and I’ll take you back to Hannah’s. I have to get to work soon and we both need to be off the streets before midnight. There’s still a curfew in place because of the putsch and the general strike.’

When Tiney asked for her suitcase at the pension’s reception, she found the lock on it had been broken and the contents rifled through. Paul cursed the porter but Tiney didn’t want to make a fuss. She was glad she’d carried all her cash and papers in her handbag.

Back out in the street, a group of women called out angrily to Tiney and Paul.

‘What did they say?’ asked Tiney, confused by their heavy accents.

‘They think I’m your pimp and we’re encroaching on their territory,’ said Paul.

‘They’re women of the night?’ asked Tiney, her voice squeaky with surprise. ‘They think I’m one too? Me?’

‘There are tens of thousands trying to sell themselves. How else can they feed their children?’

As they came to the next corner, a tall man stepped out of the darkness and Paul attempted to cross the road to avoid him. But the tall man quickened his pace and began to follow them. Tiney heard Paul mutter a curse under his breath.

‘Walk faster and don’t look back,’ said Paul. But they could hear the man’s footsteps drawing nearer. Tiney glanced over her shoulder and saw the man gesturing them to slow down.

‘Don’t look back!’ said Paul.

Finally, in exasperation, Paul turned to face the man and spoke to him roughly in German. Tiney kept her head down.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ said the man in English. ‘I thought . . .’

As his voice trailed off, Tiney looked up in disbelief.

‘Martin?’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Tiney! It is you!’ said Martin, his face awash with relief.

Tiney quickly introduced Paul to Martin, stumbling as she tried to explain their complicated connection, until Martin intervened.

‘Your cousin wrote and told me she was coming to Berlin,’ he said to Paul. Then he turned to Tiney. ‘As soon as I got your letter, I set out from Geneva. They told me you’d checked in at Hotel Elvira so I waited for you to come back. I didn’t mean to startle you.’

Paul tapped his foot and glanced at his wristwatch, and Tiney realise this was not the right place, not the right time, to explain. Tiney arranged to meet Martin the next day and set off again with Paul.

Suddenly Paul laughed. ‘You know, little cousin,’ he said, ‘I have always underestimated you. Our whole family has underestimated you. We should have known that surprising things can come in quite small packages.’

Tiney was dreaming. A butterfly had landed on her face and its soft wings were kissing her cheek. She opened her eyes to see early-morning light filtering through the window of Hannah’s apartment. Little Louis, who had slept between her and Hannah, was sitting up in bed and staring at her. His small hand stroked her cheek.

‘Guten Morgen, meine süße winzige kleine Tante,’ he said.

Tiney smiled. No one had ever called her their darling, tiny little aunt before. She sat up and gazed at him, this elfin boy she almost felt she’d dreamt into being.

‘Guten Morgen, mein hübscher Neffe,’ she said, touching his small chin gently. Louis grinned and flung his arms around her neck.

She lifted him out of bed and tiptoed across the room with the boy in her arms. Paul had returned at dawn and was asleep on the divan. Louis and Tiney sat at the small table by the window, talking in whispers so as not to wake the others. Tiney told him about Australia, about his cousins in Adelaide and his grandparents in the Barossa Valley. Louis told her of his friends from the lane, of the games they played and his favourite things to eat. Before Paul and Hannah woke, Tiney and Louis crept out of the apartment and wandered into the Berlin morning to buy Frühstück for their family: Schrippen with golden crusts as well as dark, seedy rolls, a lump of salty butter, some jam, a hunk of cheese and a pot of fresh Kräuterquark. Louis laughed and peered into the brown-paper bag.

‘Danke, kleine Tante,’ he said.

Holding hands, they climbed the narrow stairs of the tenement.