None of my mother’s immediate family had survived the war. Her brother Mihály, who already had a wife and child by the time the war broke out, was conscripted into the Wehrmacht in 1936. He was killed during manoeuvres in France. Mutti died of heart failure in 1940. Elek, who had remained at home to help his father run the estate rather than joining the military the way most boys his age had done, was shot by German soldiers in 1942. Popi, distraught and alone, had gone up to Tante Elfie’s in Dresden to search for information about my mother. He and Tante Elfie were killed in the 1945 Allied bombings. My mother never located Birgitta.
In September 1946 my father was posted to an army base in southern England. After discharge the following spring, he and my mother had remained in Great Britain, eventually moving to Wales. Most of the following ten years were spent living in a cottage on a Welsh mountainside. Mama told Megan and me beautifully elaborate stories about that period of their lives. The cottage where they lived had been derelict, and the farmer Dad worked for had told them they could live in it rent free, if they wanted to fix it up. He’d felt sorry for Mama, who was still in poor health, and he said the mountain air would help speed her recovery. The cottage was way up in the hills without even a road to it. They had to walk up a steep trail through a forest and over a footbridge to get there. Chiselled in slate above the door was the name of the cottage in Welsh. It meant Forest of Flowers. Mama said when they came the whole back garden of the cottage was overgrown with sunflowers. Mama took that to be a good omen, since sunflowers didn’t normally do well in Wales because of the rain. But at Forest of Flowers they thrived. My parents lived there until the late fifties. Then there was a cold winter, followed by a wet summer, and the sunflowers didn’t bloom. Mama and Daddy moved.
I waited until my father had finished his supper that Saturday evening and had gone up to his study. At night after a meal he liked to go there to sit among his things and listen to the radio. Occasionally he would read or write letters, but usually he did nothing more than push back the lounger, put the music station on and listen.
‘Dad?’ I said, opening the door slightly. ‘May I talk to you?’
He had the lounger fully reclined and his eyes were closed. He opened them. ‘Yes, of course, Lessie, come in.’
I shut the door carefully behind me and came over to sit on the footstool beside the chair. I touched the arm of the lounger with one finger to feel the rough, knobby threads in the upholstery.
‘Are we going to move, Dad?’
He had his eyes closed again. The radio was playing quite loudly. It was classical music. In all honesty I don’t believe my father knew up from down about such music. My mother did. She knew the titles, who composed what when, which type of music it was and who the performing artist was. But Dad neither knew nor particularly cared. He liked to listen because that was the only radio station with almost no commercials.
He didn’t answer my question.
‘I hear Mama beginning to talk,’ I said. ‘She’s thinking about it.’
‘She hasn’t said anything to me.’
‘No. She hasn’t said anything to me either. But I can hear it nonetheless.’
He didn’t stir.
‘So? Are we?’ I asked.
‘Your mama needs a warmer climate, Lessie,’ he said at last and opened his eyes again. ‘It’s too cold for her here.’
‘We’ve been to warmer climates before, Dad, and she didn’t like any of them either. Face it. She doesn’t really like it anywhere.’
I could see the pupils of his eyes dilate. They grew larger for a moment and then shrank back.
‘Your mama hasn’t said a thing to me,’ he said. ‘So don’t go thinking up problems you haven’t got.’
I felt the upholstery again with my finger.
‘And another thing. I don’t like to hear you talk like that. The cold bothers her. You know that. It aggravates her back. So it’s through no fault of her own.’
‘She’s got pills for her back, Dad.’
He was still watching me. ‘Well, there’s no need for her to suffer with the cold when there are plenty of warmer places.’
‘It’s not the cold,’ I replied. ‘It’s the flowers.’
He pushed the lounger up into a sitting position. ‘What?’
‘I said, it’s the flowers. It’s not the cold or her back or anything else. It’s the stupid flowers. She wants to be somewhere with flowers. Even in January.’
My father didn’t say anything. It grew noticeably quiet, even with the music playing.
I studied him. My father couldn’t exactly be called a handsome man. He was of Irish descent, short and wiry, with masses of curly black hair, greying by his ears. His face had a well-lived-in look, especially around the eyes, as if he’d had a lifetime of bad nights’ sleep. But it was a cheerful face. He had a very ruddy complexion that gave him Santa Claus cheeks, and he was always betting Megs and me that we couldn’t look at him for five minutes without smiling. Neither of us could. Yet he was an unexpected choice to complement my mother’s rather awesome appearance.
‘It isn’t fair, you know,’ I said. ‘As soon as we really get settled somewhere, you guys want to up and leave. And frankly, Dad, I just don’t want to go anywhere right now. I’m a senior this year. I’m going to graduate and I want to do it here where I got some friends. I know kids here.’ I looked at him. ‘What I really want is to go to my senior prom. I want to get asked out by some guy and go on a date and be like every other girl in the senior class. I don’t want to be the only one not invited. The only one who doesn’t have anywhere to go. And if we move now, that’s what’s going to happen.’
He smiled gently and reached a hand over to touch me. ‘I know it’s been hard sometimes,’ he said, and I could tell from his voice that if it came to a showdown between Mama and me over moving, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
I sighed. Then once again, heavily. ‘I feel like I’m going to be a million years old before I even have a date. I feel like I’m probably going to be a toothless old granny, and when I get my first kiss, he’ll suck my dentures right out.’
He grinned.
‘It’s not funny, Dad.’
‘I know, sweetie,’ he said and chortled anyway.
‘Look, if Mama decides to move—’
‘Lesley, she has said absolutely nothing about it. You’re creating problems that don’t exist.’
‘If Mama decides to move, I want to stay with Brianna. I’ve already talked to her. I told her we might be moving, and she said she’d ask her mom to see if I could stay with them until the school year ends. It’d only be until June.’
‘You shouldn’t be talking to people about family matters, Les. This is strictly our personal business. I don’t think you ought to be sharing it with strangers.’
‘Daddy, Brianna’s no stranger. She’s my very best friend. Besides, I wasn’t specific. I was just sounding her out.’
‘The cold bothers your mother,’ he replied flatly. ‘If she wants to move, then I think we ought to move. We owe her that much.’
I said nothing. I put my head down and braced it between my hands. I gazed at the floor. The music coming from the radio was Rachmaninov’s. One of his concertos. I couldn’t remember which one.
‘Dad?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Do you think I’m ugly or anything? I mean, being really honest with me.’