Winter of the World

‘Percy Hicks is a kind man. He has a frumpy wife back in Boston and I’m the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. He’s nice and quick about intercourse and always uses a condom.’

‘You should stop,’ Carla said.

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Carla confessed. ‘And that’s the worst part. I feel so guilty. I am guilty.’

‘You’re not. It’s my choice. German women have to make hard choices. We’re paying for the easy choices German men made fifteen years ago. Men such as my father, who thought Hitler would be good for business; and Heinrich’s father, who voted for the Enabling Act. The sins of the fathers are visited on the daughters.’

There was a loud knock at the front door. A moment later they heard scampering steps as Rebecca hurried upstairs to hide, just in case it was the Red Army.

Then Ada’s voice said: ‘Oh! Sir! Good morning!’ She sounded surprised and a bit worried, though not scared. Carla wondered who would induce that particular mixture of reactions in the maid.

There was a heavy masculine tread on the stairs, then Werner walked in.

He was dirty and ragged and thin as a rail, but there was a broad smile on his handsome face. ‘It’s me!’ he said ebulliently. ‘I’m back!’

Then he saw the baby. His jaw dropped and the happy smile disappeared. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘What . . . who . . . whose baby is that?’

‘Mine, my darling,’ said Carla. ‘Let me explain.’

‘Explain?’ he said angrily. ‘What explanation is necessary? You’ve had someone else’s baby!’ He turned to go.

Frieda said: ‘Werner! In this room are two women who love you. Don’t walk out without listening to us. You don’t understand.’

‘I think I understand everything.’

‘Carla was raped.’

He went pale. ‘Raped? Who by?’

Carla said: ‘I never knew their names.’

‘Names?’ Werner swallowed. ‘There . . . there was more than one?’

‘Five Red Army soldiers.’

His voice fell to a whisper. ‘Five?’

Carla nodded.

‘But . . . couldn’t you . . . I mean . . .’

Frieda said: ‘I was raped, too, Werner. And so was Mother.’

‘Dear God, what has been going on here?’

‘Hell,’ said Frieda.

Werner sat down heavily in a worn leather chair. ‘I thought hell was where I’ve been,’ he said. He buried his face in his hands.

Carla crossed the room, still holding Walli, and stood in front of Werner’s chair. ‘Look at me, Werner,’ she said. ‘Please.’

He looked up, his face twisted with emotion.

‘Hell is over,’ she said.

‘Is it?’

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Life is hard, but the Nazis have gone, the war is finished, Hitler is dead, and the Red Army rapists have been brought under control, more or less. The nightmare has ended. And we’re both alive, and together.’

He reached out and took her hand. ‘You’re right.’

‘We’ve got Walli, and in a minute you’ll meet a fifteen-year-old girl called Rebecca who has somehow become my child. We have to make a new family out of what the war has left us, just as we have to build new houses with the rubble in the streets.’

He nodded acceptance.

‘I need your love,’ she said. ‘So do Rebecca and Walli.’

He stood up slowly. She looked at him expectantly. He said nothing but, after a long moment, he put his arms around her and the baby, gently embracing them both.

(iv)

Under wartime regulations still in force, the British government had a right to open a coal mine anywhere, regardless of the wishes of the owner of the land. Compensation was paid only for loss of earnings on farmland or commercial property.

Billy Williams, as Minister for Coal, authorized an open-cast mine in the grounds of Tŷ Gwyn, the palatial residence of Earl Fitzherbert on the outskirts of Aberowen.

No compensation was payable as the land was not commercial.

There was uproar on the Conservative benches in the House of Commons. ‘Your slag heap will be right under the bedroom windows of the countess!’ said one indignant Tory.

Billy Williams smiled. ‘The earl’s slag heap has been under my mother’s window for fifty years,’ he said.

Lloyd Williams and Ethel both travelled to Aberowen with Billy the day before the engineers began to dig the hole. Lloyd was reluctant to leave Daisy, who was due to give birth in two weeks, but it was a historic moment, and he wanted to be there.

Both his grandparents were now in their late seventies. Granda was almost blind despite his pebble-lensed glasses, and Grandmam was bent-backed. ‘This is nice,’ Grandmam said when they all sat around the old kitchen table. ‘Both my children here.’ She served stewed beef with mashed turnips and thick slices of home-made bread spread with the butcher’s fat called dripping. She poured large mugs of sweetened milky tea to go with it.

Lloyd had eaten like this frequently as a child, but now he found it coarse. He knew that even in hard times French and Spanish women managed to serve up tasty dishes delicately flavoured with garlic and garnished with herbs. He was ashamed of his fastidiousness, and pretended to eat and drink with relish.

‘Pity about the gardens at Tŷ Gwyn,’ Grandmam said tactlessly.

Billy was stung. ‘What do you mean? Britain needs the coal.’