Chapter 18
Summer, 1921
Gassmann homestead
Renate lay in bed that night beside her sleeping husband – on that night when she and Ulrich discussed Hans’ seeming jealously toward Viktor. Not yet able to sleep, she was recalling the upheaval that the arrival and subsequent permanent presence of Ulrich’s step-mother, Claudia, had caused in the Gassmann household. She reflected on how delicate is the harmony in any household, and how vulnerable to destruction by the introduction of a new inhabitant, even one whose intentions seem nothing but positive. You can never predict, she thought, what cascade of events will be set in motion with just one shift in the cast of characters: one coming, another leaving. For this reason, the prospect of upheaval here on the Gassmann homestead due to another new arrival – Viktor – weighed heavily on Renate, whose main focus in the household was maintaining peace and harmony amongst the members of her family. Her protective instincts were no less keen than Hans’. It was just that she expressed them differently.
Hans’ concerns were, in Renate’s view, most centered on protecting his own position – although, Renate herself realized, maybe she wasn’t being fair to him in thinking this. Renate, on the other hand, had always been one to take in the whole, big, family-wide picture. She held this large-scale view in her mind every moment of each day. It was this orientation that led her to always act in what she felt in her heart was the best way to subtly guide the people around her so that peace and love would be maintained. But for all her ability to sense the motives and inner desires of those around her, Renate was greatly mistaken about something equally important. She believed – in error – that she possessed within her the power to shift how people felt, to pull them out of despair, or to gently nudge them away from action that could have a destabilizing effect. Again, it came down to this: Renate was sure she knew best, simply by virtue of her love and affection for those around her.
Renate believed in God, but she’d have been hard pressed to explain how God actually affected the way everything in their lives played out. If you pushed her on this, she would claim that when she tried to bring about all of these adjustments, she was in some way enacting God’s will. Not that she felt she was God’s conduit. No. It was more like this: God’s will, as she interpreted it, was for all people to be happy and to live in peace. It wasn’t clear to her where she had gotten this idea. From Mama and Papa? No. From church? Perhaps… but I don’t recall the priest ever saying that straight out … But no matter. The point is, that she’d carried this assumption around in her head and her heart for so long, that she’d never questioned it in her four decades of life.
Maybe her conviction came about this way: First, as a little girl, she asked herself, “Doesn’t everyone want to be happy and live in peace?” Adopting this as a starting point was easy: the thought was quite natural. How could you deny such a thing? Then, since this seemed an obvious conclusion to draw about human beings, somewhere along the line, Renate asked herself another question: Wouldn’t God want this for all of us? And she concluded, He would! From here, she proceeded to the logical next step and told herself, It’s God’s will for all human beings to be happy. This conclusion comforted and pleased Renate, and at some point in her adolescence – especially when she and Ulrich began courting – she began to feel that it was fully within her rights to help God out. She wanted the same thing God wanted. So why not do whatever I can to guide people toward happiness?
The hitch here was, that Renate didn’t really act as God’s helper. Being his helper might imply that God would give her some direction which she would then carry out. But Renate didn’t seek out any divine guidance. Rather, in her late teens, she began to notice that ideas would come to her about how to help a state of happiness manifest for those around her. Where did those ideas come from? Were they from God? Or from Renate’s own mind or heart? Was there a difference? Renate didn’t give this question more than cursory consideration. She just assumed that she had come up with these thoughts she heard. If you’d asked her, she would have replied, “Of course they were inspired by God’s own wish for people to be happy, but they formed in my own head, didn’t they?” Perhaps Renate started out framing this process in a modest, unassuming way: The ideas just came to her, good ideas about how to keep the atmosphere in the Gassmann household calm and positive, which would, of course, lead to happiness for everyone concerned. She would certainly never have told anyone that the thoughts came from God. She might have had an easier time of it if she had viewed things that way, because as it was, Renate ended up taking upon herself the entire burden of deciding what was needed in any given situation. And a burden it was! What it all came down to was that it was all on her to make everyone around her happy.
We can see how Renate could have drawn the conclusion she drew about God’s will: Being at her core a loving and kind person, she naturally had a deep belief in God’s goodness, too. She firmly believed that He, in his infinite and unconditional love for all of His children, would place them only in situations that would bring them joy and love and peace. But if she truly believed this, deep down in her heart, then why did she feel the need to direct the people around her? Why not simply trust that all would be well, and allow life to play out?
The reason she was unable to do this lay most clearly in what Renate saw going on at Ulrich’s house. Although the Walters had their own share of ups and downs in their family interactions, Renate and her relatives were all pretty much content. Conflicts arose, but were easily worked out. There was an air of mutual love and respect – it was this mutual affection that had so affected and attracted Ulrich. Of course, various relatives and members of other families had passed away, and Renate had heard tell of family conflicts, but without experiencing them in any intense way herself. And the Great War was still years away. So, it was when she encountered Ulrich’s aunt-mother Claudia that Renate truly understood, for the first time, some of the various forms human unhappiness could take.
It was at this point – when Renate was on the cusp of adulthood, and already nearly in love – that she moved, unconsciously, into the mode of actively helping God bring about happiness. As she learned from her time spent in Ulrich’s house, some people were, in fact, desperately unhappy. Thus, God must need her presence and help in this household, to turn things around. Motivated by her pure and deep love for Ulrich and a pure and deep desire for him and his family to be as happy as hers, Renate set out to help the Gassmanns. The basic ideas would come swiftly, and then Renate would apply the power of her logical mind to fine-tune them. It was up to her. She could do it!
It never occurred to Renate that there might be some fault in her logic. Without a doubt, she did everything she did with a heart full of love for her future husband. But she also very quickly gained the conviction that she, Renate, knew just what needed to be done so that people could be happy. This might have been fine, had she seen this whole process as a collaboration with God. But she didn’t – beyond the idea that she and God shared the same ultimate goal. She lacked the crucial understanding that if she was to be God’s instrument, then she’d need a way to communicate with God: That way she’d know what would actually help the people around her gain happiness, and be able to avoid taking action that would not help.
This is the approach you’d take if you firmly believed that God knows something you don’t, i.e., that God knows what’s best for you and everyone else, because He can see the genuinely larger picture, the entirety of everyone’s lives. If you genuinely believed this, and if you also genuinely believed that God does want us all to be happy, then it seems natural that you’d seek a way to communicate with Him, so you could learn his views on everyone’s needs.
But Renate was working freelance, just as she’d been doing since her adolescence. Did she operate this way because she felt that she herself knew everything she needed to know, all on her own? Is that why she never consciously sought to connect with God for guidance? Or was it because, deep down, Renate didn’t trust God to achieve the all-important goal of family happiness? Did seeing others’ great unhappiness plant a tiny seed of doubt in her soul, a doubt which prompted her to act on her own hook, without consulting this God who failed to step in when people were hurt and hurting? Or, perhaps she assumed, without investigating the question at all, that the feelings themselves in her heart constituted God’s instruction to her. The thoughts and feelings that arose in her might be the score that God was providing for her to play on her own, personal instrument.
We don’t know which of these scenarios is most accurate, because Renate herself never engaged in thoughts about this question. She just observed, and felt, and acted. So, it’s best not to be hard on her in regard to this. After all, one could say that our intent is the major determinant of what result our actions will bring. And Renate’s intention was very good. Even so, the fact that she didn’t seek direct communication with God came together with her firm trust in the correctness of what she felt inside her, and this led to Renate being a bit arrogant about her own abilities.
Another result was that she spent her whole life in a kind of herding action: deftly and gently guiding others in the directions she felt were best for them. She never noticed that she gradually shifted from a professed faith in God’s ability and wish to provide everyone with a happy life, to a deep fear that chaos and despair would descend and envelop her loved ones, unless she took matters into her own hands. Which she did. And how much happiness did this approach bring, whether to her or to those she loved?
At the present moment, in 1921, Renate had not yet received – and might never receive, in fact – the insight that would come to her granddaughter Lina on that day in 1949, when she slammed her hand down onto the big kitchen table and announced, “Enough! I’ve had enough!” This revelation consisted of Lina’s sudden openness to the possibility that God placed His children in situations where they would suffer, and be unhappy, so that they could grow, and learn, and find a way out of the suffering. And that this they would do together with God, and not on their own, not by trying to manipulate every person and every situation around them. This thought had never occurred to Renate the way it would occur to Lina: Lina, whose unhappiness and physical suffering would be nearly more than Renate could bear, and whose paralysis drove her grandmother to ask every day Why did it happen?
Even so, Renate’s particular Why? never led her as far as Lina’s Why? led her: To the realization that she phrased as a question, on that day back in 1949: “What if the swallow on the riverbank and God were working together to put God’s plan into action?” From that moment on, Lina began seeking to learn just how she could work together with God to grasp and fulfill His plan for her. She, unlike her grandmother, realized right away that if God was striving to talk to her – and Lina was certain He was – then it was crucial to find a way to perceive what He was striving to tell her.
Perhaps Lina began actually seeking communication with God because she was able to trust that He not only had something to say to her, but also did want them all to be happy. That He did know, and that it could only benefit them to do their best to hear His advice. Lina understood this. How could He not be trying to guide me?
But right now, late in the summer of 1921, Lina was not even on the horizon of the Gassmann homestead’s near future – she would be born only in 1928. At this point, her future grandmother, Renate, firmly believed that some adjustments were in order in young Viktor Bunke’s interactions with her daughter (Lina’s future mother) Ethel. Ever true to her understanding view of God’s plan for her, Renate set about herding, focused and diligent as any sheepdog. Although Renate had spoken to Ulrich only about the effect that the young man’s presence was having on Hans, without mentioning Ethel, she was no less concerned by Ethel’s response to the subtle, yet powerful, change that was taking place in Viktor.
* * *
Ethel wasn’t thinking at all about what God’s plan might be for her. The war was over, and there were hints that life might be regaining some normalcy. For Ethel, this meant that she was beginning to have access to fabrics – and not mere scraps – to use to make her quilts. At seventeen, she was delighted to once more have the luxury of creating in a less constrained manner than during the years of uncertainty and deprivation of all types. To her, being able to walk to Bockhorn and actually choose from a variety of fabrics, felt like both a miracle and a gift. Suddenly, even more than before the war, Ethel felt great gratitude when she beheld the bolts of fabrics stacked up on the shelves of the general store. She noticed herself growing giddy as she ran her fingers along the edges of the bolts, as if touching them could help her decide which fabrics to have cut and folded to take home with her. This sense of lightness she was experiencing… It occurred to her that this must be why Hans said he often felt he had to hold her very tightly by the hand when she was little, so that she wouldn’t just float off, up into the sky, to hover amongst the clouds.
The Kropps (clearly engaged in beautifying their home on a number of fronts) commissioned Ethel to make a quilt for their daughter’s bed, and she was excited at the prospect of picking out just the right fabrics that would suit nine-year-old Hannah. The girl’s tastes ran to flowers and butterflies – or at least that’s what she told Ethel the previous week. Who knew whether Hannah would have moved on from flowers to birds by the time Ethel produced the quilt, but for now, this was what she had to go on. And so, she headed to Bockhorn to start the process.
Later that afternoon, when Ethel walked back into the yard, buoyed by creative thoughts, and flushed by her walk in the summer heat, she encountered Viktor. He had just come out of the woods. He was wiping his forehead with his bandanna and, it seemed, heading to toward the pump for a drink of water.
“What have you got there?” he asked Ethel, nodding at the package wrapped in brown paper that she held tucked under her left arm.
“Oh, I’m going to make a quilt for the postmaster’s little girl Hannah,” she replied with a smile.
“One of your pictures?” Viktor inquired, with a smile and a tone that was joking, but kind.
“I guess so!”
He walked closer to her and touched the brown paper. “What’ll this one be?”
Ethel playfully covered the package with her other hand, lightly brushing Viktor’s away as she did so. “Never you mind,” she laughed, her ebullient laughter filling the air around her. “Maybe I’ll tell you later on. Once I’ve decided for sure.”
“Fair enough,” he said, tipping his head respectfully toward her, and smiling again.
He watched as Ethel turned and headed into the house. He heard the swish of her skirt and the slight rustle of the paper wrapping as she shifted the package in her hands. But most of all, what he heard – and certainly what he remembered all the rest of the day – was the sound of her laughter. It seemed to him even lighter and clearer than the laughs he had heard from her before.
For her part, Ethel would remember the intensity of Viktor’s gaze, which was both fully focused on her, but not intrusive, despite the motion of his hand toward her package. There was a certain calm about him, a freedom of movement that she glimpsed as he walked from the woods and into the yard. It seemed like… happiness. Joy. Wonder, even. Ethel had certainly guessed that Viktor had taken an interest in her. Even so, she didn’t automatically assume that she could necessarily assume that what she was noticing in him right then, as he emerged from amongst the trees, was necessarily related to any attraction he might have toward her. Well, she wanted to assume that it was. Over the past few weeks, she had begun paying attention to how he looked at her. Actually, she’d been paying attention to that from the very beginning, since that day in the workshop when they spoke about his carving and her embroidery. She was quite sure then that he was taking an interest in her. She didn’t think she had imagined it… She had felt it, after all, too.
But since then, he had seemed reserved in her presence, although he did send a smile her way now and then. More than now and then, in fact. And he directed questions to her at meals, and acted so very considerate of her. But maybe he’s just that way? She asked herself this from time to time. She’d been doing so more frequently in the past few weeks, now that she found her gaze drawn to him at each meal and noticed her eyes searching for him when she was out in the yard, or walking through the woods. Is he there somewhere?
She wondered how she could tell whether he liked her. Liked her, in the way that young men liked girls they might someday fall in love with. If they hadn’t already. And so, on this afternoon, once she was inside the house, in her bedroom on the second floor, as she laid the package on her bed and opened it up, she paused. Gently, thoughtfully even, her heart seeming to beat a little more strongly than usual, and a little higher in her chest, she touched her finger to the spot on the paper that she imagined was the very spot Viktor had touched with his fingers. She let it rest there, her eyes closed, imagining her hand brushing his once again. Now what? she whispered softly to herself.
Renate witnessed the whole scene from the kitchen window. Although she did not clearly hear the words the two young people exchanged, she did clearly understand what passed between them, perhaps even more fully than they themselves did. She had gone through this once herself, after all, on the very same spot in the Gassmanns’ yard. So, although Ethel didn’t approach her mother to ask her any questions, or to confide in her about Viktor – what was there to confide about at this point, anyway? – Renate took it upon herself to go to Ethel in her room and discuss the topic.
She began by inquiring about how the trip to Bockhorn had gone, and by asking Ethel to show her the fabrics she’d picked out for Hannah’s quilt. Renate was genuinely interested in Ethel’s design, and so the conversation about it flowed quite naturally, although Ethel’s creative strivings, as Renate referred to them, tended in different directions. She was happy to see Ethel excited to once again be making a quilt, but perhaps even more, she was glad that this quilt would bring some extra money into the household.
“Now,” she said, watching her daughter’s face as she refolded the quilt fabric into the paper, “what was Viktor talking with you about out there?”
Ethel looked up at her with bright eyes – showing excitement– and replied, “He was passing the time of day, Mama. And he asked what I picked up in town.” She smiled, a smile that Renate recognized through her memory of her own face at roughly the same age.
“And what else?” Renate asked her, a slight edge to her voice.
Ethel shrugged. “Just about what I was going to do for the quilt design.”
“And did you tell him?”
Ethel smiled now and shook her head. Then she leaned toward her mother and half-whispered, in a conspiratorial one, “I told him that maybe I’d tell him later on, once I decide.” She looked both pleased and a bit surprised at herself, for teasing him this way.
“I see,” Renate replied, nodding her head and reaching out absently (or so it seemed) to touch the paper. “Well, my dear,” she said, “I wouldn’t spend too much time talking with our Mr. Bunke.”
Ethel blushed. “But why not, Mama? He seems like a very nice young man.”
“Seems, yes, Ethel, dear,” Renate agreed. “Seems. But how do we know? What do we know about him, really?”
Ethel proceeded to rattle off the information she had gleaned – and committed to memory – from amongst the details Ulrich had shared before Viktor’s arrival, and what he himself had mentioned in the course of their mealtime conversations since then.
“I see you’ve been paying close attention,” Renate said, her stern tone softened by a smile. “Even so, dear one, these are times when not everyone may be what they seem.”
“What do you mean, Mama?” Ethel asked, smoothing her dress with her hands.
“I mean,” Renate told her, “that it’s not good to trust strangers. Especially when you’re a beautiful young woman, and any young man worth his salt would want to court you.”
Ethel suddenly took her mother’s hand. “Then why not let him, if he wants to?” she asked, the softness of her voice failing to mask her emotion.
“I just don’t know about him,” Renate told her, quite sincerely. She’d come up intending to forbid Ethel to even talk to Viktor again. But, surprisingly, she found herself speaking her truest thoughts. “He could be lying to us about anything, about everything. He could be married to someone already back in Schweiburg. He could be a criminal looking for a family and an employer to take advantage of.”
“But do you really believe that, Mama?” Ethel asked her.
“I don’t know what to think. But I want to be cautious. You’re my only daughter, and when you do marry, I want it to be to just the right man.”
“You and Hans!” Ethel said, laughing again now. “If the two of you have your way, I’ll never marry and sit in the kitchen under guard until you find someone you decide is right.”
Renate put her arms round her daughter. “Yes, I think that would be the best way to go about everything.” Ethel could feel her smiling, and when they were done hugging, Ethel could see that her mother had softened.
“Do you want him to?” Renate asked her. “Court you?”
Ethel paused and looked down at the paper-wrapped package. “I think I do, Mama. I do.
Renate hugged her once more. “When he was first here,” she said, “and I overheard you talking in the workshop, I told him to concentrate on his work. I didn’t want him thinking about you. But now I can see he does anyway. Guess it won’t do to try to put a wall between you, seeing as how there’s nothing bad that’s come to light about him so far.”
Ethel smiled and took her mother’s hands in hers.
“But,” Renate told her, wagging one finger before Ethel’s face, “don’t go telling him I’ve given him my blessing to court you. I haven’t. All I’m saying here is that, at least for now, I’m not going to run him out of the yard for talking to you.”
“Fair enough, Mama,” Ethel said. “Fair enough.”
Now what? Ethel wondered, as her mother turned and walked slowly back down the stairs to the kitchen.
* * *
What have I done? Renate wondered. When she saw Viktor and Ethel in the yard, she realized, to her surprise, that she felt not only unease about his motives and his past, but also the hint of something positive toward him. Thinking about it now, as she chopped some onions to be fried up with the potatoes at dinner, she was finding it difficult to sort out these feelings and determine which of them were “true”. This lack of certainty was unusual for her. Typically, she would have a strong and clear sense inside her of what was right, and what it was right to do in a given situation. That was what had happened the day she warned Viktor to stay away from Ethel: she just knew that was what she should do.
So, she asked herself now, what accounted for her words to Ethel upstairs. Good God! I as much as told her to marry him! Renate thought back to their conversation and to the hug she and Ethel shared. That was the moment when something shifted in her, Renate concluded. She had felt Ethel’s heart, felt what was in her dear daughter’s heart. Love. Or at least a feeling that might become love, for Viktor. As well as Ethel’s genuine love for her mother. And in her own heart, Renate had felt her own love. For Ethel. For Ulrich. For Hans. And that moment of shared love, Renate concluded now, washed away her fear and skepticism about Viktor.
Not that this made any sense to her, because when she started thinking about it again now, logically, the same concerns she’d mentioned to Ethel popped into her head again. This was the first time Renate experienced having her inner conviction about a person or situation shift from negative to positive under the influence of love. Now, she’d had enough experience with knowing what to do, based solely on the feeling inside her, to recognize that this was a new way of feeling for her. She thought back over her life: Was there ever a time when she first had a bad feeling about something, and then it eventually turned around? No, she decided after a while.
The case she was using to answer this question was her brother Ewald’s decision to move to America. She had that negative intuition about it from the start, and that never changed for her, despite Ewald’s excitement, despite her love for him. Nor did her conviction that it was wrong to come live in the Gassmann household while Claudia was still in residence ever shift under the influence of some more positive feeling. She simply never had a more positive feeling associated with Claudia. No. It seemed that what had happened just now with Ethel was a unique instance. And it got Renate thinking and wondering: What was this new feeling that came in and filled me with such lightness? With such love that I suddenly felt that maybe it would be a positive thing for Ethel to come together with Viktor?
As Renate tried, with her mind, to answer this question, to explain and even justify this sprout of a positive feeling for the young man, she was able to point to certain changes she had taken note of in his behavior, and in the air he had about him. Whereas he had at first seemed to her calculating – using his ability to “pick up on things” to curry favor with the clients, and with Ulrich, too – now, since he had been spending time with Ulrich in the forest and learning about the trees, he had begun to seem, to Renate, much more sincere and open. His new-found and growing love of the forest was clearly genuine, and although he never spoke to her about what he felt when he was among the trees, she could see in his eyes that the time he spent there was having a profoundly positive effect on him. And, indeed, Ulrich had shared bits and pieces with her of what Viktor was experiencing as a budding forester. Perhaps Renate was seeing Ulrich in Viktor. She recognized that to do so was, perhaps, dangerous, and so, in her conscious mind, she guarded against it. On the other hand, she reasoned, if Viktor could gain the connection to God through the trees the way Ulrich had, then how could that be harmful?
Renate also noticed that, now that Viktor was spending more time in the forest, he seemed less on edge, less eager to prove himself by asserting his abilities as a cabinet maker. Certainly, he still suggested creative touches for the furniture orders their clients placed, but he was somehow gentler about it. Even so, Renate could see that Hans still resented what he saw as Viktor’s interference in “their” way of doing things, even though Ulrich encouraged it. Indeed, Renate realized, this was the heart of the matter: Hans was jealous of Ulrich’s approval of Viktor. Naturally, then, Viktor’s growing connection to the forest and to Ulrich, didn’t sit well with Hans. His skepticism had not faded, and had, perhaps, even intensified, as Viktor grew more comfortable in the family and work setting of the Gassmann household.
Viktor himself would have agreed with Renate’s assessment. At least, he was experiencing what she noticed, even if he might not have been able to put it all into words. But it was true that he felt different than he had when he’d arrived a few months earlier. There might be several explanations for that: having found steady work; a master carpenter who was actually interested in helping him improve his skills, instead of just benefiting from what he did know; living amongst people who were kind and who valued the work he did; Ethel; the way he felt when he was working in the forest. Maybe all of these contributed to the fact that he now felt happy, happier than he had ever felt in his whole life. Not that that’s so surprising. He’d tell himself this as he lay in his bed at night, as he recalled his day before drifting off to sleep in a kind of daze induced by a combination of physical fatigue and joy. I mean, given what I grew up with – Mama’s death, and then Papa’s, and Hannelore’s getting crippled… No wonder I feel good here. In other words, Viktor didn’t spend his time reflecting seriously on his current state. He noted that he was happy, and he preferred to enjoy that state, rather than analyze it.
But when Viktor was unhappy or discontent, then he did spend time reflecting. He’d done so all his life. Scheming may be a better word for it. He learned to do this at his father’s side at such an early age, that it became second nature to him. He no longer did it consciously. He just naturally shifted into this mode when he began to feel discontent or unhappy about some situation in his life. Here was his basic process: Figure out what you want. Use your intuition to “pick up” what other people – the other people who can give you what you want – want. Figure out a way to give them what they want. Then they’ll be very likely to also give you what you want.
Viktor became very, very good at all parts of this process. That’s the way he liked to see it, anyway. There was only one problem: This approach to life had never secured him real happiness. Sure, in the course of his life, he had had food, a place to live, grown-ups to take care of him – until they weren’t around anymore – and then work that kept him fed and alive, once he survived the war. But that was it. No big moments of joy. Up until now, it seemed that the most happiness Viktor had felt had been the fragile satisfaction of simply surviving. He himself recognized that this was not equal to true happiness.
The question then arises: Was Viktor actually not skilled at manipulating those around him to get the true happiness he wanted? Or maybe he just set too low a bar for the level of happiness he felt able to achieve in his own life, i.e., a life without extreme hardship or emotional pain? This was a step forward for him, of course. But did he really feel he had to just settle for this most bare-bones version of happiness, and learn to live with this feeling that something was missing in his life? He saw other people who looked happier… But maybe he lacked the belief that more was possible for him?
Viktor certainly recognized that he was not happy, but he never consciously entertained the thought that he was not worthy of being truly happy. He sought other explanations for the way things were. Sometimes he wondered whether he hadn’t worked hard enough so far, hadn’t “picked up” enough about those around him. This despite the fact that he did consider himself good at doing so. Here’s another thought – one related to both his unhappiness and the use he made of his intuition – that Viktor did not consider: Maybe there was a cause-and-effect relationship between his approach to living and the state of his life. In other words, maybe he was unhappy because his way of interacting with people wasn’t quite honest. If he had reflected on this possibility, he might have come to this conclusion: If he hoped to have a more than subsistence-level life, he might have to change the way he treated people. But he didn’t reflect on any of this. When he set out from Varel for the Gassmann homestead in May of 1921, then, he did so with a feeling of dissatisfaction with his life, but also without any particular hope in his heart that a big happiness might actually come his way.
Thus, Viktor walked into the Gassmanns’ yard armed with the same approach to life that he’d developed in the first eighteen years of his life. However, once he started to settle in there, he did begin allowing himself to imagine something different for himself, a new way of being. Those imaginings, unconscious at first, began the moment he stepped into the Gassmanns’ yard and felt that joyful energy. Something inside him opened up when he felt it, and at that moment, the quiet wishes of his heart and soul immediately perceived that opening and began making their way through it and into Viktor’s mind. They moved more firmly into his consciousness when he met Ethel and recognized her as the source of the joy he’d noticed. But at first, all that was present inside him was an awareness: He noticed the joy and was pleasantly struck by it; he connected it to Ethel and was drawn to talk with her. In these early days, though, he didn’t make the leap from, “how wonderful it feels here, with her”, to “I can imagine a future for myself with her as my wife”. Although that tiny wish slipped out of his heart and moved toward his brain, it remained, for now, unexpressed in conscious thoughts. He wouldn’t allow himself that as of yet. He wasn’t, you see, in the habit of imagining that he could live permanently in proximity to such happiness, or alongside a person who embodied it.
It wasn’t until that first day in the forest, when Ulrich spoke of Renate and his love for her, of their happiness together, that Viktor’s heart’s wishes took the form of thoughts. That day, Viktor allowed himself to recognize this desire in himself: the desire for a happiness like Ulrich’s and Renate’s. Until this day, he had never allowed himself to think such thoughts. That is how inured he had become, at an early age, to a life of unsatisfactoriness and dissatisfaction, to subconscious beliefs in his unworthiness.
Now, here he was, in the forest, on this day when he felt, for the first time, the divine energy Ulrich spoke of. At that point, he didn’t connect these two moments in his mind, didn’t see how being surrounded by the divine might have helped him feel free to inwardly express his deepest heart’s wish. But it happened all the same: allowing the divine to touch him somehow gave him the strength to wish for true happiness, and to begin to imagine a life for himself that would be infused with joy every day. In other words: a life with Ethel, whom he correctly perceived as a strong source of pure joy.
As Viktor began spending more and more time in the forest, and taking in more and more of the divine energy he felt there, he also made the decision to put his thought of a life of joy into action. I’ll get it! he told himself. The problem was, he wasn’t quite sure how to go about getting it, and his indecision about this slowed him down a bit. He was aware enough to sense that he lacked the tools this particular “project” required. This in itself was a big step forward. Did he somehow grasp that he had spent his whole life manipulating others (“herding”, as Renate called her own approach), but that this new situation was not a simple game of emotional chess? Because, in fact, it wasn’t a game to him at all.
He could tell that by the tenderness he felt in his heart: in the forest, when he was around Ethel, and even when he and Ulrich were working with the trees in the woods. This was a new sensation for him. Although, in fact, it wasn’t precisely that it was new. It had always been there, but at some point amidst the difficulties of his young life, Viktor stopped allowing himself to feel it, out of sheer terror that he would lose whoever inspired that tenderness in him. (Once again, he didn’t understand this with his mind.) But now, this sensation resurfaced, and the depth of this tenderness that he could now feel in his heart sometimes brought him to tears. Not just at night, as he sat on the edge of his bed, thinking of Ethel and this new life he was living, but even out amongst the trees, as their strengthening leaves and branches waved to him of a morning or afternoon. He felt that a powerful opening had come about in him, and he wanted to be very careful with his new tender feelings, and with the people and other living things that inspired them. One could say that by taking in the diving energy of the forest, Viktor had naturally begun acting in a different way.
His new desire to be careful with others was the exact opposite of the need, based in fear – which had driven him for most of his life – to be careful of others. Viktor’s new approach began to show itself in the way he talked, not just with the Gassmanns, but also in conversations with clients. Here’s what was going on in those encounters: He still “picked up” what others felt and wanted, but something in the way he then responded to his insights changed. Again, he would have found it hard to put into words, but instead of simply understanding how he could get something for himself from others by giving them what they wanted, he began to experience a small amount of pleasure at offering to people what he knew they would like.
He first noticed this unfamiliar feeling when he and Hans delivered the sideboard to the Kropps. The two of them pulled up in front of the postmaster’s house and unloaded the sideboard – wrapped in a protective layer of blankets, which rendered it mysterious and created the sense that a marvelous surprise was soon to be revealed – from the wagon. They carried it through the entranceway with its well-organized clothing hanging neatly on the pegs, and into the dining room. The whole family was there, eager for the unveiling. Mr. Kropp indicated the spot where the sideboard was to stand, and Hans and Viktor carefully stood it there and began removing the blankets. As the sideboard came more and more fully into view, Mr. and Mrs. Kropp and their daughter all crowded around. Both Hans and Viktor later told each other and the rest of the Gassmanns that they were surprised by the excitement the Kropps showed: They seemed like such reserved people, but here they were, hovering around, as if the two cabinet makers were Saint Nicholas unwrapping a giant Christmas gift.
First Mrs. Kropp, and then her husband, and then their daughter, ooh-ed and aah-ed when they saw the sideboard in all its glory. They ran their hands over the smooth finish, praising what, they remarked, must have been endless hours of sanding and finishing. The color of the oak was just what they had had in mind, they told Hans. They opened and closed the various doors, examined the small drawers. They were delighted with all aspects of the piece. But they reserved their most effusive praised for the carving Viktor had done for the top edge of the back. They ran their fingers over this, too, and Mrs. Kropp noted that Viktor really had managed to create a design in the wood which called to mind the floral pattern in the lace valance above the window. She shook her head in amazement. Her husband, too, admitted that it was “quite striking”. He thanked Viktor for having suggested this embellishment.
Hans and Viktor left with full payment for the sideboard in hand, and their mood was light as they drove the wagon back home, allowing the horse to take a leisurely pace. Viktor felt happy, but he also noticed a new facet to this happiness. There was an unfamiliar warmth in his heart, and he was deeply at peace.
His mind kept drifting back to the smiles on the Kropps’ faces, to the way Mr. Kropp shook his and Hans’ hands with such great enthusiasm as they parted. Recalling this, a small, but contented smile came to Viktor’s face. He realized that he was happy not just because he’d finished a job and the client had paid them well for it. He was happy that they were happy. Simply that. He wasn’t trying to gauge how successfully he had manipulated the Kropps. He was simply riding along in peace, glad that something he had done had brought joy to these people. Does my heart good! he thought to himself, for perhaps the first time in his life.
He glanced over at Hans, who, buoyed by the Kropps’ appreciation for the sideboard, was going on about plans for future furniture designs and sales. Viktor smiled again and let Hans’ words pass through his ears, without responding, except to nod now and then. He was content to ride in peace and feel the words in his heart.
At home, when Hans and Viktor strode into the kitchen together, having heard Ethel’s voice ring out the call to dinner, Renate and Ethel both noticed the men’s ebullient mood.
“The Kropps were satisfied, then?” Ulrich inquired as they all ate their midday meal.
“A triumph!” Hans declared with a broad smile. He even reached over to Viktor, whose spot at the table was next to his own, and clapped the younger man noisily on the back. Viktor, whose mouth was full of potato salad at the moment, signaled his agreement by nodding and lifting his knife and waving it the way a vanquishing general might wave his sword.
“This guy,” Hans continued, looking at Ulrich while indicating Viktor with a tip of his head. “Turns out he has a good head for business after all. For what the clients want.”
“Seems you two make a good team,” Ulrich remarked, smiling. And, wanting to show his approval to his son, he put his hand on Hans’ shoulder and squeezed it lightly.
“Seems that way,” Viktor replied. He and Hans both smiled and exchanged warm, comradely glances.
Renate, seated at the end of the table nearest Viktor, felt her own heart grow warm as she saw the two men, who could have been brothers, given their ages, acting like brothers: relaxed, joshing each other, enjoying the good fruits of a joint venture. Yes, this is the way it can be between brothers. She thought back to Ulrich and Erich, to their relationship which foundered and never recovered from early wounds in the family.
Then she recalled the suspicious way Hans had treated Viktor since his arrival in May, and she wondered whether her prayers and the guidance she’d given Ulrich about helping Hans to feel loved as a son were finally beginning to make a difference. It certainly seemed that Hans was finally coming to accept Viktor. She gazed at Viktor, taking in his gestures. She saw that an almost carefree smile came to his lips as he swallowed a mouthful of food and reached for his glass of water. Following Viktor’s eyes, Renate saw – not at all to her surprise – that he was looking at Ethel, and she back at him. Renate knew that Viktor’s carefree smile was meant for her daughter, and that Ethel had warmly received it.
Sue Downing 