Ernst Beckman must have been close to ninety, but he rose from his chair to greet me as I followed Angela into the sitting room of his heritage cottage in Sydney’s north. It was a modest house, well-appointed with antiques and artwork, family photos on the mantelpiece and a pendulum wall clock whose quiet ticking instantly transported me back to my grandparents’ house. Ernst stood tall and straight, a thin man with thick white hair combed back off his forehead, his cardigan buttoned against the cold, despite the heat pumping from the gas fireplace.
‘I am honoured to meet you,’ he said, shaking my hand with a surprisingly firm grip, ‘and am so sorry for the loss of your beloved grandparents.’ He gestured for me to sit, and I perched on the impeccably preserved vintage leather sofa opposite his chair. ‘Angela.’ He said her name in the German way, with a hard ‘g’. ‘Please ask Millie to prepare Kaffee und Kuchen.’
I sat, watching this man who had known my grandfather in his youth, who had shared the journey to Australia with him, embarking on a new, unknown future. There was so much I wanted to know, so much I wanted to ask him, and unreasonably, I wanted to hug him, hug this man who was part of my grandfather’s history, as if in hugging him, I was hugging a part of my grandfather. Instead I clenched my hands nervously in my lap, like a girl on her first job interview, and smiled.
‘Thank you for seeing me.’
‘It is nothing,’ he said, waving away my thanks with a flick of his hand. ‘I was sorry to hear of Karl’s passing.’
‘Did you know him well?’
‘Well enough,’ said Ernst, studying me with surprisingly clear and astute eyes. ‘You have the look of him, your eyes and your smile.’
I’d been told this before, many times. ‘Oh, how you remind me of your Opa when he was young,’ Oma would say. ‘He was a quiet, handsome man, and cheerful, always smiling.’
The scrutiny became almost embarrassing and I cleared my throat. ‘I understand you travelled on the same ship as him to Australia.’
‘The Fairsea, yes,’ said Ernst, finally looking away. ‘I remember it well. It was a long journey, and not always an easy one. Those of us who had fought for Germany were few and, as you can imagine, there was more than a little animosity towards us. We had to stick together.’
‘Were there many Germans on board?’
‘No, only a handful. Hans Whemar, Wilhelm and Günter Schmidt, myself, and my wife, Helga, although we were Austrian, not German. It was a distinction most on board did not appreciate.’
‘My grandfather spoke of Hans, but not the others. Do you remember them?
‘I do, indeed.’
The smell of coffee filled the room as Angela returned with a tray laden with a silver coffee pot, creamer and sugar bowl, and china cups. We paused in the conversation as she arranged it on the coffee table and poured. A middle-aged woman in an apron brought a tray of cakes.
Ernst waited until everyone had been served and Angela was seated on the sofa at my side before taking a sip of his coffee, closing his eyes with pleasure. ‘Your grandfather talked to you, then, about the journey?’ he said.
‘Not a whole lot. But things have come up since he passed away and I’ve been trying to find out about his service during the war.’ I glanced at Angela. I wasn’t sure how much she’d told her father of my predicament.
‘A slanderous journalist has made accusations that Karl Weiss was a Nazi war criminal,’ Angela explained. ‘Juliet has been seeking evidence to clear his name.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Ernst. ‘It seems the hunt will go on until all of us who fought in the war are dead.’ He took another sip of coffee, swallowing thoughtfully, as if measuring his words. ‘No, rest assured, Karl Weiss was no friend of Hitler.’ My relief must have shown on my face, for he raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Surely you didn’t doubt it?’
‘No, of course not, but—’
He raised a hand, cutting off my excuses. ‘Karl wouldn’t harm a flea. He was the peacemaker among us. It was Hans Whemar who was the Nazi, and he made no attempt to hide it. He threw suspicion on us all.’ He frowned. ‘Yes, Hans was the troublemaker.’
‘Hans Whemar, a troublemaker?’ I said. ‘And yet my grandfather spoke so highly of him.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Ernst. ‘They were friends, comrades, and he wouldn’t hear a word against him.’
‘Hans died during the journey, isn’t that right?’
Ernst nodded. ‘He was killed in a knife fight.’
It wasn’t what I’d expected. Typhoid perhaps, cholera, pneumonia. But a knife fight? ‘Opa never mentioned anything about a fight. What happened?’
‘I wasn’t there, I don’t know. Just a fight.’ He glanced at me when I didn’t respond. ‘No one was charged, but everyone suspected that it was Aron Borkowski.’
‘Aron Borkowski?’
‘A Polish man, travelling with his family. He and Hans had been at odds since before the ship left Naples and would have come to blows many times if it were not for Karl. That and the fact that Hans was lame. Aron taunted him with that repeatedly, which only infuriated Hans further, as it was meant to do. It was December 1949, just after we’d crossed the equator, and we’d all had far too much to drink. Most of the passengers had retired to bed or passed out in their cups, and Aron took the opportunity to exact his revenge once and for all. Or so the story goes.’ He nodded, as if confirming it for himself. ‘Karl found Hans just before dawn, but it was too late. He died the next day.’
‘Why didn’t they arrest him? Aron, I mean.’
‘I don’t know for sure, of course, but I suspect it was just too much trouble. No one saw the fight, or at least no one would admit to seeing it. And the knife was never recovered. It was probably thrown overboard. Not enough evidence to convict, so why bother with the arrest? Besides, people got away with all sorts of things back then and it was known that Hans was involved in some black-market trading with the crew, so perhaps they preferred to hush everything up.’
‘And why the logs went missing,’ I said, more to myself than to him.
Ernst’s gaze darted to Angela and back to me, his eyes suddenly sharp. ‘How do you know that?’
‘A friend of mine – he’s a journalist – he was looking for a record of Hans’s death, but he couldn’t find it. He couldn’t find the Fairsea’s logs for that voyage at all.’ I smiled, hoping to release the tension that had suddenly sprung to life. ‘He’s usually able to get access to just about anything.’
‘And he was investigating Hans Whemar?’
‘I – it’s rather complicated.’
‘What’s complicated?’ said Ernst, growing red in the face. ‘Hans Whemar was a Nazi, and he was murdered for it by Aron Borkowski. I have told you this, and it is true.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’
‘Vati, beruhige dich,’ said Angela. ‘Juliet wasn’t questioning your story. Remember your blood pressure.’
Ernst glared at her for a moment, and she dropped her gaze. After a moment the redness in his face receded. ‘Forgive my outburst,’ he said. ‘I forget, sometimes, who I’m talking to.’ He appeared calm now, almost serene. ‘Tell me what you know about Hans.’
I related as much as I could remember from our research and he nodded as if none of it was news.
‘Yes, yes, the facts fit. Always a patriot, our Hans. Germany this and Germany that; he wouldn’t let anyone find fault with his country, or even with Hitler. He wouldn’t admit that the Nazis had done anything wrong, and this in the presence of the very people Hitler had been intent on annihilating. We tried to tell him he was asking for trouble, but he wouldn’t listen. He just would not listen.’ His hands balled into fists, as if he would still shake sense into Hans if he could. He stared blankly, lost in thought. ‘The night he died, he gave something to Karl,’ he said, finally. ‘And I have always wondered about it.’
‘Yes, he gave him his signet ring. How did you know?’
‘We all saw that Karl had the ring after Hans died,’ he said, ‘as was right, they were friends long before we met on the Fairsea. But there was something else, a brown leather satchel that he kept with him always. After his death the satchel disappeared. Perhaps he gave that to Karl as well?’
‘My grandfather never mentioned a satchel.’
‘Are you sure? Perhaps you’ve forgotten. He may have stored it in a special place where children wouldn’t find it. In the attic maybe or a locked cabinet? A safe deposit box?’
Angela laughed. ‘She said she doesn’t know, Vati. What does it matter?’
A pause while he studied my face, then a shrug of the thin shoulders. ‘It is curiosity, nothing more,’ he said. ‘I always wondered what was in that bag that Hans couldn’t leave it alone for a minute.’
‘The ring is the reason my grandfather was accused of being a Nazi criminal,’ I said. ‘It initially belonged to a Walter Kubel, who is wanted for war crimes.’
‘The name is not familiar to me,’ said Ernst. ‘I didn’t know Hans Whemar or Walter Kubel during the war. I was a medic in the navy.’
‘Yes, I know.’
The piercing gaze turned on me again. ‘How do you know this? Did your friend do research on me too?’
‘No, no,’ I quickly jumped to reassure him. ‘Angela told me.’
The tension in his body eased and he sat back in his chair. ‘Well then, it has nothing to do with me, as you see. I’m sure Hans Whemar was hiding something though. He had something in that bag that he didn’t want anyone to see. The only person he might have shared it with was Karl.’
‘Vati, enough about the bag.’ Angela turned to me and said quietly. ‘He becomes obsessed with things sometimes. He won’t leave it alone until he gets the answer he wants.’
‘Do you have something to say, Angela?’ Ernst said sharply. ‘Speak up.’
‘It was nothing, Vati,’ she said. ‘More coffee?’
Just then Millie returned with a glass of water and a small cup. ‘Mr Beckman, time for your medication.’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t need the medication,’ he grumbled.
‘But you do,’ she said firmly. ‘Doctor’s orders.’ He reached out to push her hand away and the tablets spilled on the floor.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ he said.
Angela rose purposefully from her seat. ‘Vati, we’ll leave you to rest.’
I hesitated before following her to the door. Ernst still looked rather agitated, but I had one last question that I needed to ask.
‘Have you kept in contact with any others from the ship? The Schmidt brothers perhaps, or the Polish man?’
‘What, you want to validate my story or something?’ he said. ‘You don’t believe me?’
‘That’s not what I meant—’
‘Aron Borkowski is a murderer. You think I am friends with murderers now?’
Angela pulled me away. ‘Come, Juliet, leave him be. Millie will settle him soon enough.’
I followed her out into the sunshine. It was not the most gracious way to end the interview and I regretted upsetting him.
~
‘He has always been difficult.’
It was close to dusk and the sun was setting over the shops and apartments at Manly Beach. Despite the chill in the air, Angela and I waded through the shallows, shoes in hand, waves lapping at our ankles. The visit with Ernst had unsettled me. So much of him had reminded me of my grandfather, and yet he was so different, moody, volatile, suspicious.
‘You have to understand, life wasn’t kind to my father when he first immigrated here to Australia. It was supposed to be a new life, a new start for him and his wife and their unborn child. He had cousins up near Grafton, and had intended to establish himself there; however, his son, who would have been my half-brother, was born prematurely at Bathurst Migrant Camp shortly after they arrived, and died a few days later. Helga, his wife, was not well enough to travel, so he took work on the hydro-electric dam on the Snowy River, and she stayed at the camp. It was a difficult time, and Helga never fully recovered from the loss of her child. He thinks she blamed him, that had they stayed in Salzburg things would’ve been different, the child would have lived. They had no other children and Helga died in 1959. It was a long while before my father married again.’
‘To your mother.’
‘Yes.’
‘And he shared all this with you?’
‘Not at first. When I was a child, he was hard to get close to. He was fifty when I was born, and set in his ways. He abhorred noise and disruption, was a firm believer in discipline. No matter what I did, it never seemed enough. I couldn’t please him.’ She smiled, but it was more of a grimace. ‘To be honest, I always thought he’d hoped for a boy. I both loved him and feared him. He had a small stroke in 1998, though, and I took time off work to care for him. It was before I moved to Adelaide, when I was still living here. We became much closer then, and he told me stories of his past.’ She glanced at me. ‘This is not the first time he’s mentioned the satchel. He obsesses about it at times. I don’t like to ask, but if, when you’re packing away your grandparents’ things, you should come across it . . .’
‘Of course, I’ll let you know.’ I laughed. ‘I would be glad to help solve that mystery.’
As we dried our feet before walking back to get the ferry into the city, my phone vibrated in my bag. It was Ellis. There were four missed calls from him and a text from Jason asking when I was coming up to the city. I hadn’t spoken to Jason since I’d found out he’d told Detective Norton about my visit to Ellis’s apartment, hadn’t even told him I was coming to Sydney. I looked back at the beach where a few walkers still strolled in the shallows. It was the first time in a long time I’d felt at ease like this, able, perhaps for an hour or so, to forget what had happened to my grandparents and enjoy the evening. I switched the phone off. Ellis and Jason could wait.
~
We dined at an Italian place, snuggled in among the cafés and boutiques at The Rocks, a favourite of Angela’s from her years in Sydney. I had fresh-made fettuccini, with portobello mushrooms and a white wine sauce. Winding the pasta around my fork, I was reminded of Opa; he’d loved his pasta. Afterwards we walked to a nearby bar overlooking the harbour, watched the ferries chugging back and forth out of Circular Quay, dwarfed by a cruise ship docked at the international passenger terminal.
Despite my intentions, I was melancholy, thinking of my grandfather, who’d arrived in Australia at this very port. What had he thought when he first landed here? Had Sydney met his expectations? Had he been wowed by the city, the beautiful harbour and its iconic bridge? Or did it pale in comparison to the centuries old cities of Germany where he’d grown up? It was a new city by world-wide standards. Had he considered that opportunistic? A chance to build and grow? Or seen the harsh landscape and wondered how he would survive? And what had made him choose to make his way on his own, travelling on to Adelaide as soon as he arrived instead of going to Bathurst with the others, where he would have had support in finding work and housing? I wished I had asked him about it while I still could.
‘I hope the interview with my father has helped to ease your mind,’ said Angela, interrupting my thoughts. She took a sip of her chardonnay, watching me over the rim of her glass.
‘It has. Not that I had any doubts about my grandfather, but hearing it from someone who knew him back then is reassuring.’
‘He didn’t speak about the war then? Or his journey here?’
I sat back in my chair, swirled the wine around in my glass, a shiraz that was disappearing far too quickly. ‘Very little. Mostly he spoke about how much he missed my grandmother during those years. They wrote to each other all the time – until they were finally able to reunite. He always said there was no excuse for losing touch with someone you care about, especially not with today’s technology.’ And yet somehow he’d lost touch with my mother. And Lily . . .
‘How touching that they managed to stay in contact through letters, despite the chaos of the war. They must have loved each other very much.’
‘They did.’ I took a sip of my wine, images of Oma and Opa coming to mind. ‘They were always affectionate. Not overtly, of course, or in public, but at home, definitely. They never slept apart.’
She nodded. ‘How long were they separated?’
‘Almost ten years.’
Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘And they never gave up on their dream of being together.’
I’d wondered that many times. How two people could stay so close when they were apart for so long. ‘Oma said it was the only thing that kept her sane during the years after the war, when the Soviets took over. That she knew there would be an end to it; that she would get out eventually, and be with Opa. Those letters were like a lifeline for her. They shared everything in those letters.’
Angela studied her glass for a moment. ‘The letter you told me about – the one that made reference to my father – that was one of those letters?’
‘Yes, I found all the letters Oma wrote – at least I think that’s all of them. But not the ones from my grandfather.’
‘Do you think your grandmother kept them?’
‘I’m sure she did. She spoke of them a number of times. She wouldn’t have thrown them out.’
‘No, something like that – personal letters – they’re irreplaceable. Perhaps she stored them with other important papers?’
‘No, I’ve found those. They weren’t there.’
‘With your grandmother’s jewellery perhaps?’ she insisted. ‘Or a treasured spot she considered her own?’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve looked everywhere I could think of where she might have put them. There were a few mementos from Germany in her linen chest – a ring of her mother’s and an old photo of her with her father when she was a baby. The letters weren’t there.’
Angela pursed her lips. ‘Perhaps she didn’t bring them with her when she escaped from East Germany. I can’t imagine she was able to bring much with her.’
‘No, she couldn’t.’ That thought hadn’t occurred to me. Oma had always spoken of the letters as if she still had them.
‘I’m sure I’m wrong,’ Angela said, quickly. ‘You’ll find them.’
‘Yeah, sure,’ I said, with a weak smile.
She paused while I finished the last of my wine. ‘Let me get us another drink,’ she said, although her glass was still half-full. Before I could protest, she rose and moved towards the bar. I watched her talking to the barman, leaning in close over the bar, her easy mannerisms. He said something and she laughed. I motioned to her that I was going to the toilet and she nodded.
In the bathroom, I wet a paper towel and dabbed it on my brow. My face was hot, my head aching. I took some paracetamol from my handbag and leaned over the sink to cup water in my hand to wash them down. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, tried to see Opa there, as Oma always had. Could the letters really be gone? Left in some run-down boarding house in East Germany? Surely not. Oma wouldn’t have left them there. They meant too much to her. She would have found a way to bring them. But if she had, where were they?
Angela was back at the table with the drinks when I returned. She raised her glass. ‘Prost!’
‘Prost,’ I said, and drank deeply.
I lost track of the time as we chatted. Angela was curious about my grandparents, especially Opa, and I was happy to talk. The wine seemed to have loosened my tongue and released my inhibitions. It was also making me very tired. I found myself struggling to pay attention; me eyes were having trouble focusing. Angela’s face drifted in and out as she leaned towards me.
We ordered coffee and dessert, a delicate cheesecake with a raspberry coulis that we shared, dipping in with two forks like I did with Lily. Where was Lily? I needed to find Lily. I added a spoon of sugar to my coffee, took a sip.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ Angela asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t seem to work up the energy for words. Out on the harbour, the boats looked like toys, powered around in a bath by invisible hands.
She said something else and I smiled like I’d understood. Her face was out of focus, softened, like the heroine in an old film. I took another sip of my coffee, added more sugar and sipped again. A band was setting up in the corner. There would be music.
‘Juliet, listen to me.’
Angela’s voice was insistent and I tried my best to listen. She was saying something about Ernst, and about Karl and their voyage to Australia.
‘I met Ernst once,’ I said. ‘He was a very nice man.’
This didn’t seem to make her happy. I wanted to make her happy. ‘My grandfather’s name was Karl,’ I said. ‘He came to Australia on a ship. With Hans. Only Hans died.’
This seemed to please her more. I didn’t know why she would be pleased that Hans had died. Hans was a nice man. Like Ernst.
There was a small bit of cheesecake left on the plate and I picked up my fork. Angela continued talking. She might have been asking questions, but I wasn’t quite sure. It was very noisy. Someone was tuning a guitar. The cheesecake was very sweet. It had one raspberry on top, just one. I plucked it off and popped it into my mouth.
‘Juliet.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, looking up at her. ‘Did you say something?’
She leaned back in her chair. I’d never seen her slump before. ‘Is everything okay?’ I asked.
‘Just fine,’ she said, although she didn’t look fine. I looked out the window again. I didn’t know how to make her fine.
‘Finish your coffee,’ she said. ‘Time to go back to the hotel.’