Bloodline

‘It’s all you’re getting. Count yourself lucky.’

‘I do,’ Walther said. ‘If you want to know the truth, I think I am very lucky. Thank you.’ He put the money in his pocket with a careless gesture and a moment later was walking out of the door.

Anton Roffe was relieved. He experienced a slight sense of guilt and distaste for what he had done and yet he knew it had been the only solution. Anna would be unhappy at being deserted by her groom, but it was better to have it happen now than later. He would try to see to it that she met some eligible men of her own age, who would at least respect her if not love her. Someone who would be interested in her and not her money or her name. Someone who would not be bought for twenty thousand marks.

When Anton Roffe arrived home, Anna ran up to greet him, tears in her eyes. He took her in his arms and hugged her, and said, ‘Anna, liebchen, it’s going to be all right. You’ll get over him –’

And Anton looked over her shoulder, and standing in the doorway was Walther Gassner. Anna was holding up her finger, saying, ‘Look what Walther bought me! Isn’t it the most beautiful ring you’ve ever seen? It cost twenty thousand marks.’

In the end, Anna’s parents were forced to accept Walther Gassner. As a wedding gift they bought them a lovely Schinkel manor-house in Wannsee, with French furniture mixed with antiques, comfortable couches and easy chairs, a Roentgen desk in the library, and bookcases lining the walls. The upstairs was furnished with elegant eighteenth-century pieces from Denmark and Sweden.

‘It’s too much,’ Walther told Anna. ‘I don’t want anything from them or from you. I want to be able to buy you beautiful things, liebchen.’ He gave her that boyish grin and said, ‘But I have no money.’

‘Of course you do,’ Anna replied. ‘Everything I have belongs to you.’

Walther smiled at her sweetly and said, ‘Does it?’

At Anna’s insistence – for Walther seemed reluctant to discuss money – she explained her financial situation to him. She had a trust fund that was enough for her to live on comfortably, but the bulk of her fortune was in shares of Roffe and Sons. The shares could not be sold without the unanimous approval of the board of directors.

Anna told him. Walther could not believe it. He made her repeat the sum.

‘And you can’t sell the stock?’

‘No. My cousin Sam won’t let it be sold. He holds the controlling shares. One day …’

Walther expressed an interest in working in the family business. Anton was against it.

‘What can a ski bum contribute to Roffe and Sons?’ he asked.

But in the end he gave in to his daughter, and Walther was given a job in administration with the company. He proved to be excellent at it and advanced rapidly. When Anna’s father died two years later, Walther Gassner was made a member of the board. Anna was so proud of him. He was the perfect husband and lover. He was always bringing her flowers and little gifts, and he seemed content to stay at home with her in the evening, just the two of them. Anna’s happiness was almost too much for her to bear. Ach, danke, lieber Gott, she would say silently.

Anna learned to cook, so that she could make Walther’s favourite dishes. She made choucroute, a bed of crunchy sauerkraut and creamy mashed potatoes heaped with a smoked pork chop, a frankfurter and a Nuremberg sausage. She prepared fillet of pork cooked in beer and flavoured with cumin, and served it with a fat baked apple, cored and peeled, the centre filled with airelles, the little red berries.

‘You’re the best cook in the world, liebchen,’ Walther would say, and Anna would blush with pride.

In the third year of their marriage, Anna became pregnant.

There was a great deal of pain during the first eight months of her pregnancy, but Anna bore that happily. It was something else that worried her.

It started one day after lunch. She had been knitting a sweater for Walther, day-dreaming, and suddenly she heard Walther’s voice, saying, ‘My God, Anna, what are you doing, sitting here in the dark?’

The afternoon had turned to dusk, and she looked down at the sweater in her lap and she had not touched it. Where had the day gone? Where had her mind been? After that, Anna had other similar experiences, and she began to wonder whether this sliding away into nothingness was a portent, an omen that she was going to die. She did not think she was afraid of death, but she could not bear the thought of leaving Walther.

Four weeks before the baby was due, Anna lapsed into one of her day-dreams, missed a step and fell down an entire flight of stairs.

She awakened in the hospital.

Walther was seated on the edge of the bed, holding her hand. ‘You gave me a terrible scare.’

In a sudden panic she thought, The baby! I can’t feel the baby. She reached down. Her stomach was flat. ‘Where is my baby?’

And Walther held her close and hugged her.

The doctor said, ‘You had twins, Mrs Gassner.’

Anna turned to Walther, and his eyes were filled with tears. ‘A boy and a girl, liebchen.’

And she could have died right then of happiness. She felt a sudden, irresistible longing to have them in her arms. She had to see them, feel them, hold them.

‘We’ll talk about that when you’re stronger,’ the doctor said. ‘Not until you’re stronger.’

They assured Anna that she was getting better every day, but she was becoming frightened. Something was happening to her that she did not understand. Walther would arrive and take her hand and say goodbye, and she would look at him in surprise and start to say, ‘But you just got here …’ And then she would see the clock, and three or four hours would have passed.

She had no idea where they had gone.

She had a vague recollection that they had brought the children to her in the night and that she had fallen asleep. She could not remember too clearly, and she was afraid to ask. It did not matter. She would have them to herself when Walther took her home.

The wonderful day finally arrived. Anna left the hospital room in a wheelchair, even though she insisted she was strong enough to walk. She actually felt very weak, but she was so excited that nothing mattered except the fact that she was going to see her babies. Walther carried her into the house, and he started to take her upstairs to their bedroom.

‘No, no!’ she said. ‘Take me to the nursery.’

‘You must rest now, darling. You’re not strong enough to –’

She did not listen to the rest of what he was saying. She slipped out of his arms and ran into the nursery.

The blinds were drawn and the room was dark and it took Anna’s eyes a moment to adjust. She was filled with such excitement that it made her dizzy. She was afraid she was going to faint.

Walther had come in behind her. He was talking to her, trying to explain something, but whatever it was was unimportant.

For there they were. They were both asleep in their cribs, and Anna moved towards them softly, so as not to disturb them, and stood there, staring down at them. They were the most beautiful children she had ever seen. Even now, she could see that the boy would have Walther’s handsome features and his thick blond hair. The girl was like an exquisite doll, with soft, golden hair and a small, triangular face.

Anna turned to Walther and said, her voice choked, ‘They’re beautiful. I – I’m so happy.’

‘Come, Anna,’ Walther whispered. He put his arms around Anna, and held her close, and there was a fierce hunger in him, and she began to feel a stirring within her. They had not made love for such a long time. Walther was right. There would be plenty of time for the children later.

The boy she named Peter and the girl Birgitta. They were two beautiful miracles that she and Walther had made, and Anna would spend hour after hour in the nursery, playing with them, talking to them. Even though they could not understand her yet she knew they could feel her love. Sometimes, in the middle of play, she would turn and Walther would be standing in the doorway, home from the office, and Anna would realize that somehow the whole day had slipped by.

‘Come and join us,’ she would say. ‘We’re playing a game.’

‘Have you fixed dinner yet?’ Walther would ask, and she would suddenly feel guilty. She would resolve to pay more attention to Walther, and less to the children, but the next day the same thing would happen. The twins were like an irresistible magnet that drew her to them. Anna still loved Walther very much, and she tried to assuage her guilt by telling herself that the children were a part of him. Every night, as soon as Walther was asleep, Anna would slip out of bed and creep into the nursery, and sit and stare at the children until dawn started filtering into the room. Then she would turn and hurry back to bed before Walther awoke.

Once, in the middle of the night, Walther walked into the nursery and caught her. ‘What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?’ he said.

‘Nothing, darling. I was just –’

‘Go back to bed!’

He had never spoken to her like that before.