Winter of the World

‘A temptation? You mean a longing, a yearning, a desperate desire!’ She began to cry. ‘Carla has nightmares about Brownshirts, and Erik puts on that shit-coloured uniform every chance he gets.’ Lloyd was startled by her fervour. He had never heard a respectable woman say ‘shit’. She went on: ‘Of course I want to take them away.’ Lloyd could see how torn she was. She rubbed her hands together as if washing them, turned her head from side to side in distraction, and spoke in a voice that shook violently with her inner conflict. ‘But it’s the wrong thing to do, for them as well as for us. I will not give in to it! Better to suffer evil than to stand by and do nothing.’

Ethel touched Maud’s arm. ‘I’m sorry I asked. Perhaps it was silly of me. I might have known you wouldn’t run away.’

‘I’m glad you asked,’ Walter said. He reached out and took Maud’s slim hands in his own. ‘The question has been hanging in the air between Maud and me, unspoken. It was time we faced it.’ Their joined hands rested on the café table. Lloyd rarely thought about the emotional lives of his mother’s generation – they were middle-aged and married, and that seemed to say it all – but now he saw that between Walter and Maud there was a powerful connection that was much more than the familiar habit of a mature marriage. They were under no illusions: they knew that by staying here they were risking their lives and the lives of their children. But they had a shared commitment that defied death.

Lloyd wondered whether he would ever have such a love.

Ethel looked at the clock. ‘Oh, my goodness!’ she said. ‘We’re going to miss the train!’

Lloyd picked up their bags and they hurried across the platform. A whistle blew. They boarded the train just in time. They both leaned out of the window as it pulled out of the station.

Walter and Maud stood on the platform, waving, getting smaller and smaller in the distance, until finally they disappeared.

2

1935

‘Two things you need to know about girls in Buffalo,’ said Daisy Peshkov. ‘They drink like fish, and they’re all snobs.’

Eva Rothmann giggled. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. Her German accent had almost completely vanished.

‘Oh, it’s true,’ said Daisy. They were in her pink-and-white bedroom, trying on clothes in front of a full-length three-way mirror. ‘Navy and white might look good on you,’ Daisy said. ‘What do you think?’ She held a blouse up to Eva’s face and studied the effect. The contrasting colours seemed to suit her.

Daisy was looking through her closet for an outfit Eva could wear to the beach picnic. Eva was not a pretty girl, and the frills and bows that decorated many of Daisy’s clothes only made Eva look frumpy. Stripes better suited her strong features.

Eva’s hair was dark, and her eyes deep brown. ‘You can wear bright colours,’ Daisy told her.

Eva had few clothes of her own. Her father, a Jewish doctor in Berlin, had spent his life savings to send her to America, and she had arrived a year ago with nothing. A charity paid for her to go to Daisy’s boarding school – they were the same age, nineteen. But Eva had nowhere to go in the summer vacation, so Daisy had impulsively invited her home.

At first Daisy’s mother, Olga, had resisted. ‘Oh, but you’re away at school all year – I so look forward to having you to myself in the summer.’

‘She’s really great, Mother,’ Daisy had said. ‘She’s charming and easygoing and a loyal friend.’

‘I suppose you feel sorry for her because she’s a refugee from the Nazis.’

‘I don’t care about the Nazis, I just like her.’

‘That’s fine, but does she have to live with us?’

‘Mother, she has nowhere else to go!’

As usual, Olga let Daisy have her way in the end.

Now Eva said: ‘Snobs? No one would be snobby to you!’

‘Oh, yes, they would.’

‘But you’re so pretty and vivacious.’

Daisy did not bother to deny it. ‘They hate that about me.’

‘And you’re rich.’

It was true. Daisy’s father was wealthy, her mother had inherited a fortune, and Daisy herself would come into money when she was twenty-one. ‘It doesn’t mean a thing. In this town it’s about how long you’ve been rich. You’re nobody if you work. The superior people are those who live on the millions left by their great-grandparents.’ She spoke in a tone of gay mockery to hide the resentment she felt.

Eva said: ‘And your father is famous!’

‘They think he’s a gangster.’

Daisy’s grandfather, Josef Vyalov, had owned bars and hotels. Her father, Lev Peshkov, had used the profits to buy ailing vaudeville theatres and convert them into cinemas. Now he owned a Hollywood studio, too.

Eva was indignant on Daisy’s behalf. ‘How can they say such a thing?’

‘They believe he was a bootlegger. They’re probably right. I can’t see how else he made money out of bars during Prohibition. Anyway, that’s why Mother will never be invited to join the Buffalo Ladies’ Society.’