The Butler(19)

Chapter 5


“I have to go back to the beginning,” Liese said to Joachim as they sat at her kitchen table at the end of dinner, their plates still in front of them. She looked into the distance as she thought about it, and her son watched her intently. He had never seen that look on her face before, of pain, of joy, of longing, and history remembered. “I was five years old when we came to Buenos Aires from Germany, at the end of the war. I remember that my papa, your grandfather, made it sound very exciting, and said we were going to a wonderful place. My mother had died in the bombing when I was two years old. I didn’t remember her at all. I remember how frightened I was during the bombing of Berlin, and at the end. It seemed like a good place to get away from. My papa said there were no bombs where we were going, and it was very beautiful with nice people and lots of flowers.

“We moved into a big house, not a palace, but a very big house, and there were lots of people to help take care of me. They were all very good to me. My father was happy and it seemed like a perfect life for a long time.

    “I remember how much he loved his art. He had brought some very fine paintings with him. He had them hung very proudly in our home. He always showed them to me, and explained them. He knew more about art than anyone I’d ever met. I suppose we had quite a lot of money, or maybe life wasn’t expensive then. We had a country house too. He entertained a lot, and I had many pretty dresses. My father was a very handsome man, like you.” She smiled at Joachim. “There were women in his life, but I think he loved his paintings more. Maybe even more than he loved me. He was always excited about new art he bought, and he had an important collection. Looking back on it, I’m not sure how he brought the ones that came with us from Germany. I suppose he smuggled them in. He never told me, and I never asked him when I was older. He was my hero and I thought he could do no wrong.

“I didn’t know then, but he changed his name when we came to Argentina. Von Hartmann was my paternal grandmother’s maiden name. He wanted no association with his own name, the one that he had used during the war. I only learned that later. He was from a noble family on both sides. His own name, the one he grew up with, was von Walther.” A shadow crossed her eyes as she said the words and went on.

“My father was at the center of society in Buenos Aires, greatly respected and admired and very popular. There were many Germans in Argentina then, newly arrived ones, not just those who had been there for generations. Many people went to Argentina from Germany during and after the war. There were questions one didn’t ask. But how we got there and why was never questioned, not by me anyway. For much of it, I was a child. And then I married Alejandro Canal, your father. He was from one of the most social, important families in Buenos Aires. They were related to Spanish royalty, and very aristocratic.

    “We were happy and went to every party we were invited to. There had been five hundred people at our wedding. He worked at his family’s bank. We had ten happy, carefree, easy years together. And it took a long time for you and Javier to come along.” Her eyes filled with tears at the remembered joy. “It was the happiest time of my life when you and Javier were born, and your father was so proud of both of you. We were doubly blessed, and you completed our already seemingly perfect life.” She paused for a moment. “And then everything went terribly wrong, all at once.” Joachim knew that both his grandfather and his own father had died within months of each other, fortunes had been lost, and their lives had changed radically while he was still an infant.

“There was a famous hunter of war criminals who was very active then. He combed South America for important Nazis, with great success. It was roughly thirty-five years after the war by then, and they were still looking for Nazis from the High Command. Many were still in hiding. Some had covered their tracks well and were living out in the open. I had heard of it, but never paid any attention. It had nothing to do with my life or my father’s. Until the hunter in question found my father.

“The man’s skills were extraordinary. He had been looking for Papa for years but had had misleading information. Once he realized he had found my father, everything happened very quickly. My father didn’t die suddenly, he was kidnapped, taken back to Germany, where he was charged with heinous war crimes, and stood trial. The testimony against him was horrendous. I read it all,” she said, with tears still welling up in her eyes. It was hard to admit this to him now, but she thought he should know. “He was tried and found guilty. He was sentenced to hang, but they commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. He was seventy-three years old when they took him from Buenos Aires, and they took everything he owned. He had quite a lot of money, which the war crimes tribunal in Germany demanded as restitution to the victims. His art collection, our houses, everything he had, gone. It was the right thing to do, but it took away everything he had and that I would have inherited one day. I wouldn’t have wanted it anyway, once I knew how he got it, but it changed everything for me.

    “Once my father was convicted, your father’s family demanded that he separate from me. We’d been married for ten years and had four-month-old twins. I begged him not to leave. It was an ugly time. He was a good person, but he was close to his family, and he saw me differently after what happened. I’m not sure he believed that I hadn’t known about my father’s past because we were so close, and apparently he thought I’d hidden it from him. I think he felt terrible about it, but he followed his family’s wishes, and he left me very quickly. The governor and a judge they knew granted him a divorce almost immediately. They gave me a small amount of money to live on for a short time, until I could find a job, and for you. And according to his family’s demands, your father renounced all rights to you and Javier. They wanted no connection to the bloodline of a criminal. He refused to see me or speak to me after he left, and he never saw you and Javier again.” Joachim stopped her then, with a look of shock and horror on his face as he grabbed her arm.