‘So, how was it?’ Frau Wittger shouts down the stairs, wanting to know how I’ve got on before she’s even seen me.
I leap up the stairs with excitement. ‘I’ve done it. I’ve done it,’ I shout. ‘I’m going to be an artist’s model.’ I can’t wait to see Mama’s face light up, if only a little, at the news and I bound into the bedroom. Olga and Frieda are asleep. Mama isn’t there.
For a moment I am worried until Frau Wittger calls out in a loud whisper, ‘She’s here with us in the kitchen.’ Frau Wittger and Mama are sitting around the kitchen table, a lit candle in the middle, shedding just enough light to reveal the pained look of anguish on my mother’s face. The flame flickers, accentuating the hollows of her already sunken cheeks, exaggerating her expression of self-sacrifice. Although it’s not herself she’s sacrificed. She says nothing.
‘So, girl,’ Frau Wittger asks, looking for details, ‘how was it at the studio?’ But as she pulls the tone up so my mother drags it down with her air of self-pity.
I can’t answer. The weight of expectation. The burden of disappointment. These are my mother’s gifts to me. I return home with news of a job but all she can do is sit and look sorry for herself. I’ve done it for her, all for her. Can’t she see how afraid I am of the cloven-hoofed, coarse-haired artist in the dirty smock? And to know that I’d brightened her life just a little, made her smile even for the briefest of moments, would make it all worthwhile.
‘What’s his name? What’s he like? Is he any good?’ Katya is still up. She should have gone to bed with Olga and Frieda three hours earlier, but she’s strong-willed, stronger-willed than our mother, and that’s why she’s sitting at the table asking the questions. Perhaps it’s my mother who should have gone to, or rather stayed in, bed. Katya is eleven years old, with light brown hair, her moon face a waxing, waning crescent as she shifts her head excitedly in the candlelight, waiting for my answers.
‘He’s the best artist in all of Vienna,’ Frau Wittger answers for me, trying to engage my mother. ‘His name is Gustav Klimt. Don’t you recall? I told you.’
‘Really?’ says Mother, vague. ‘I can’t remember.’ And distant.
‘You’ve heard of him,’ the older woman insists. And with that the licking flames from Frau Wittger’s tongue set about melting the frozen pinnacles of the iceberg that is my mother.
With burning promises and incandescent claims she makes me believe that I’m the luckiest girl in the world. ‘Vienna is plastered all over with his name … His work is everywhere. You’ve got to see his murals in the Burgtheater, the Beethoven Frieze in that new white building, then there’s the paintings he’s done for the university – although I think there’s been a little to-do over them. Anyway, he’s on his way to painting the entire city. Then there’s a list of society ladies as long as your arm all waiting to get done by him. Herr Bloch-Bauer, you know, the man who made his money in sugar – him – well he wants Klimt to do his wife an’ all. Not sure if he already has? But just think, our little Wally will be mixing with the likes of them!’
Mother pulls a face. I can tell she’s trying, though it’s not quite yet a smile.
‘Bottom line is – he’s famous,’ Frau Wittger concludes, sitting back and crossing her arms with finality.
‘Thank you for all that you’ve done for my family.’ Although it’s not pride, joy, happiness my mother expresses, I am touched by the gratitude she shows towards Frau Wittger. My kind mother is still in there somewhere behind the shattered pieces of herself.
Frau Wittger gently pats the back of my mother’s hand in quiet appreciation, acknowledging the effort it has taken for my broken mother to engage. Yes Frau Wittger has been far more than a landlady. She’s fed us, found work for us, kept us off the streets and out of the workhouse, but it’s not simply thanks she wants, it’s hope, for us to have the strength to cope and do something with our lives.
As I look at her illuminated in the candlelight, her every line shows a depth of understanding of a life well lived. The ugly, evil, old hag who opened the door of her home to us when we first arrived in Vienna, who I thought might push us in the oven, roast us, eat us, has vanished. She has been replaced by the woman whose light shines forth tonight, burning so brightly that I feel its warmth. She has done what I could not – got through to my poor, locked-in mother.
‘Aren’t you proud of your daughter?’ Frau Wittger asks her. I look at my mother. Her eyes are like watery pools. And she nods softly.
And I am overcome with joy.
‘Let’s have some hot chocolate to celebrate!’ Frau Wittger fetches her best cups, the ones with the elegant gold-painted handles, and sets about heating up the milk singing something in French as she goes. ‘I love this song. It’s by Gaby Deslys,’ she shouts.
‘Je cherche un millionnaire.
Un type chic qui voudrait bien de moi,
Au moins une fois par mois.
Je cherche un millionnaire
Qui me dirait froidement,
Tout ce que j’ai c’est à toi,
Je cherche un millionnaire.
C’est pour ça que je fais le boulevard …’
As I look at the back of her head, bobbing in time to the song, I know that I owe it all to her – staying off the streets, making my mother proud. And that’s all I ever want to do.
***
Mama hasn’t always been this way, withdrawn and weak. And I’ve not always done my best to help her. She annoys me, to show so little fight, but I know it’s not her fault.
Life’s changed her, changed me, pounded us like lumps of clay, soft matter, so that we’ve lost ourselves for now. For some, life may be for living, but, for me, the only thing it’s good for is for learning, as I have no choice, no power, to do the former. I may not go to school but I have a brain and know how to use it when I get the chance. And in the most extreme times, I’ve learnt the greatest lessons. That’s why I owe it to Mama, to you, to put a few things straight.
***
A time before Vienna
There was a time when we were happy: my father, my mother, my sisters, and me. A time before Vienna, in a village called Tattendorf, far, far away. My mother was a happy soul, always laughing, and she adored my father who was a much-loved teacher in our local school. Our lives were good and the only poverty we knew was the poverty of others. And every Christmas, rich factory owners from Vienna would come and make it go away. Or so it seemed.
Once a year they would arrive, compassionate, immaculate, god-like in demeanour, and they would shower upon the poorly dressed and damaged food and clothes, sweets and treats. And I would admire them.
The poor themselves, I admit to my eternal shame, I would regard with great disdain for no other reason than their poverty and what it had reduced them to: accepting cast-offs, begging for money, grovelling, having no self-respect. I did not understand, at the time, their agonizing humiliation at having to kiss the shoes of the very people who had made them poor in the first place. I suppose few of us ever do. Until it happens to us.
But Fate generously gave me that opportunity when Mama and I worked in the factories after we arrived in Vienna. Some of the owners were the very same rich men who used to visit the poor children in our village, arms laden with presents. They didn’t remember us, their benevolent smiles now replaced by demands and gripes for not coping with the twelve-hour days and a pittance of a wage.
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