Almost a Great Escape Page 13
Now, My Goodbye Mother, you are committed to your choice. You have dropped out of McGill. You are married. You will carry The Jens Album with you all over the world as you follow Ted to the oil fields of South America, Egypt, Ecuador, California, Canada, and Australia.
Your last letter from Jens is tucked into a corner of the Album’s back cover. He must be on good terms with Big Marjorie, now that you are married and in Venezuela! And even he is using dashes. I bet he learned that from you.
August 3, 1944
Dear Alice,
This is my first letter to you since you left. By the time you receive it you will be married; so I wish you all the happiness in the world Alice. —
How was your trip to Trinidad? I bet you enjoyed every minute of it, as only you can.
Your father told me you had a spot of trouble with the weather on the way to New York. However judging by your mother’s report on how you spent the fourteen days there, the rough trip could not have affected you much. —
Remember I am anxiously looking forward to hearing from you soon please, yes?? —
Oil Field Life, California. No matter how often Alice moved the family with Ted, from Egypt to Ecuador, she never lost track of her Jens Album.
Photo courtesy of the author
Please excuse the pencil, You see it is too late to get hold of some ink and I want to get this letter off tomorrow morning. —
I am now busily occupied at learning my future profession: Teaching (pilot training)! — I still don’t smoke. (pretty good, eh?) I still visit the Inn although I don’t like it as well as I did before. I spent three days there about a week ago before starting work. During which three days my boudoir was No. 3 at the Golf Club and my room mates were drunk most of the time. Great life. However, my attitude towards mankind is always friendly when I am at the Inn; so nothing happened. Next time I go North I’ll avail myself of your mother’s invitation to stay in John’s house.
Write soon as you promised.
Jens.
FAMILY HISTORY
A CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION
I talked this week with a friend of yours. “G.” I’d often seen her name in your notes. Your circling handwriting on the calendar. Initials on a New Yorker cover. In the intermittent fragments of your diaries. I told her how puzzling your life was to me. I am working on understanding it. Still. Two years after the funeral.
We sat in her study. She had a glass of wine. Her husband had a Scotch. She knew you a lot better than I suspected. You were a difficult friend especially with women. I could name your women friends on one hand. Helen. Hildegard. Judy. Virginia. Betty. And now I add G.
I began by telling her about The Jens Album and my visit to Montreal. I wanted to be clear about what I had learned so far. Like your friends and your brother, G. didn’t recognize Jens’s name. But you had told her that there had been somebody you had loved before Ted. A lot. The Album didn’t surprise her. Everyone she says has a secret love in their life. Someone they left behind. (Her husband looked up for a moment when she said this.) Then they get married and the past love fades away. The letters and photos fade. There’s no reason to keep them.
So why did Alice hide The Jens Album for 60 years? Why did she give it to me without an explanation?
G. held her face in her hands. Thinking. She’s a graceful woman. I remember her movie star gorgeous as a young woman. Today she is a handsome grandmother. In control of her emotions. Behind her hands this evening I wonder if the control is there. She sits up. Straight. Elegant. She glances at her husband then begins.
Alice and Ted were in love when they came to Calgary. Alice looked at Ted with stars in her eyes. She adored him. Everybody could see it. Alice was so full of life. Doing everything for Ted and her children. The perfect family.
We noticed Ted didn’t help her. He liked to sit in the living room with the guests while Alice fed the children and made dinner. Lots of men were like that in those days. Alice kept having babies. She always seemed to be pregnant or feeding one. Ted was charming and popular. He didn’t seem to enjoy having the children around. Alice would be on the floor laughing and playing with the children and Ted would be annoyed.
Then we saw Ted out with a young lady. It was so wrong. Alice was at home taking care of the family and he was out with this girl spending money. We knew they didn’t have a lot of money.
That was when Alice and I began to talk. It was terrible for her. Always pregnant. Losing at least two. And she knew about Ted. We would go riding together. Or she would come here and let the children play in the yard while we talked. I don’t know how many women were involved with him. All their friends gossiped.
Alice would always tell me she wouldn’t break up the family. Her children were more important than anything else to her. The family had to stay together.
Alice was committed to the marriage and the family. She was going to see it through. I think Alice was mentally the strongest person I have ever known. She would not give up. She would not quit. She had opportunities to get her own back. She could have had men and done what she wanted but she didn’t. She didn’t think that way.
The drinking was a gradual thing. Sometimes she had too much to drink. It might have been in the early 1960s that we noticed it was a problem.
G. pauses as I stand 13 years old on the railway platform. Early 1960s.
G. smiles at me. But Alice was fun. She could make us laugh. What a sense of humour. We wanted to see her but it got to be too difficult. I wish now I had gone to see her more often.
When she was diagnosed with cancer and was in pain she never complained. Never. Not once. She just took it. That was how strong she was.
She never complained. Not about your father. Not about money. Not about the cancer. She loved her family and nothing could change that.
What about Jens and the Album?
What do you think Tyler?
I answer, I think she kept the Album as a memory. Not something she was going to do anything about. As a memory that at one time in her life somebody loved her. Loved her for herself. Jens didn’t want anything. Not the Tyler family money. Not the Alpine Inn. Not her looks. He just loved her.
She agrees. You’re right she says.
And why did she leave it to me without an explanation?
G. puts her face in her hands again. Composing her thoughts. Then her eyes holding me, she says: “She wanted you to understand. She didn’t care if anybody else did. But she wanted you to know. Showing it to you or giving you an explanation would have taken away its meaning for you. You had to find all this out for yourself to really understand her.”
I say goodbye. Not much else to say. Small talk. I drive half a block and stop.
My face is wet. I’m sorry Mum. I wanted too much from you. I wanted you to always be the way you were. I wanted that forever. I could never endure pain the way you did.
AN ALICE STORY
ON THE WAY TO TRINIDAD
Here’s a writing the way you talk letter of yours that I enjoyed. You sent it from New York, on your way to be married in Trinidad. It’s full of random thoughts. I can hear you in every phrase. By the way, I still have the voice recording we made just before you died. It’s full of dashes, too. And truths I can’t delete.
July 13, 1944
Dearest Mum,
Just a short note before I go out shopping — Last night we got tickets for Oklahoma! Can you believe it? The show was marvellous — we enjoyed every minute in spite of our fears that it couldn’t possibly come up to expectation — It was better!
Yesterday Dad and I managed to see everything from the Police Department to the oldest church in town — Trinity Church. There were tombstones in the yard dating as far back as 1732! And probably even further — a lot of them were half buried and you couldn’t read the blurred inscriptions. The Venezuelan Counsel was something! Wait till Dad tells you about it. To top everything they had to be bribed to do the job. The police cost us $4.00! — Imagine!
After the show last night we went to the Stork Club. Mrs. Orr was there — remember her from Holts? I don’t know what or who they thought we were, but all evening they kept bringing drinks to our table: “On the house” — we’re going back!
I meant to tell you yesterday that after we came out of “Leon and Eddies” we walked back to our hotel — and on the way we wandered through St. Patrick’s Church.
By the way it was very fitting for us to see Oklahoma — there was a wedding for the climax! Put us in the mood — or me at least — for what’s coming — my goodness I am happy. Poor dad. I think I talked both his ears off last night — you know me and my philosophies!
All my love darling to you and the kids,
Alice
P.S. Can you read my poor excuse for writing! — something eh?
As I transcribed your letters between you and your parents I noticed one of your many punctuation idiosyncrasies that I had long forgotten. The dash — you and your parents use it like a pause in your thoughts — as if you can’t slow down — and suddenly here’s another thought. The dash must have been embedded in me because for years I would get copy back from editors with dozens of my dashes replaced by conventional punctuation — like periods and semicolons, eh.
FAMILY HISTORY
TEA WITH DAD
I’m trying to understand you and Dad. Understand the “what happened” of your marriage. The consequences. I’ll have to ask him about 1944 and that’s bothering me. I’m still stuck at you marrying him and with my always wondering what he’s planning next for me. I can’t remember the last time we agreed on anything, other than to be polite.
He’s 89 and as healthy as ever. He lives alone. He doesn’t read because his eyes are bad — macular degeneration. He wants to live the last years of his life in the condo of your last years. Nursing homes and hospitals frighten him. Rather than give in to his poor eyesight he’s learned his way through corridors by constantly touching familiar corners of tables, stairs, chairs, railings, and countertops. He knows where everything is in the kitchen. He can cook and take care of himself.
Did he know about your engagement to Jens? Maybe it’s not a polite question.
I phoned earlier to say I would be dropping by. I didn’t give a reason and he didn’t ask. When you’re 89 you probably look forward to any company. Even that difficult Tyler. I wonder what he wants.
As I walk up the steps, I haven’t decided if I’ll ask about Jens. I push the doorbell. He opens the door and I see him for the first time as an old man. He waits for me to speak, so he’ll know it’s me by my voice. There’s no squeeze left in his handshake. He’s slightly stooped but steady on his feet. Every thought I’ve had about him in the past 44 years drifts away. Every thought but one. Sadness.
The only question I want to ask, I can’t — Do you know the wonder of Mum’s truly big fish?
Or are you a tourist idly curious about the high finned backbone swaying in the harbour shallows. Of no consequence.
Or are you one of the sharks?
That’s all I want answered. But we have this truce and I’m not going to break it. I’ll be polite and see where conversation leads us. He says: I’ll put the kettle on the hob. He’s very British these days. As he makes the tea he asks about my family. Judy. Our children Nicolas and Sharnee Alice. His grandchildren. Our granddaughter Bailey. His first great-grandchild.
We talk on faded velvet armchairs. His black leather slippers have shuffled a path of safe familiarity through toast crumbs and carpet threads. The phone ringing upstairs not heard. He cups his palm behind his hearing aid offering me a biscuit. I hadn’t noticed the tremor in his hand before. His gold family ring loose on his thin finger.
Strange to me this faded velvet conversation. He talks of working in Venezuela during the war as a petroleum engineer for Shell. His mother Sya and father, also named Edward/Ted, living in Trinidad.
He says: My father was in charge of an oil field. He had hoped to stay on a family farm in South Africa but couldn’t. Fortunately some military friends had given him this job in Trinidad. My parents never even owned their own home. They had no security. I remember his hard facts letter to you when he wrote that his parents were comfortably well off. I had some time off work and I chose the Laurentians for a holiday and I invited my mother. My brother, John, had been missing in action since the Battle of El Alamein (Egypt) in September 1942.
He talks about his mother’s search for John, the letters, the not knowing. It reminds me of Ottar Malm’s shot down letter to you. Grief everywhere. The shrapnel scars of loved ones lost. Second Lieutenant E.J. Trafford. (Same rank as Jens.) Last seen running toward a truckload of mines. Presumed dead after one of Rommel’s shells hit the truck. Buried as an unknown. Or is he a POW?
He says: My parents spent almost everything they had on our education. My brother and I were their only hope for their future. (No wonder Sya and Big Marjorie got along so well, I think but do not say.) My brother and I left South Africa when we were boys to go to boarding school in England. My brother and I went to Cambridge. My brother and I were engineers. He joined the army as an engineer and went overseas. I joined Shell.
When my brother was reported missing in Egypt my mother was in despair. She never really recovered from not knowing what had happened to him. I was all she had left. That’s why I brought her with me to the Laurentians. That was March 1944. My brother’s grave wasn’t found until 1945.
He says: We had only been at the Alpine Inn for a day or two when I met Alice. We danced. Her ankle was in a cast. A skiing accident. We fell in love and decided to get married. Our mothers thought we should wait before the wedding date was announced. I had to go back to Venezuela.
We each have another biscuit. I am my own witness to his circuitous memories of you and him. What was Alice’s mother like? I ask. Big Marjorie I think but do not say.
Marjorie? Wonderful. Very helpful to me. I loved her. I needed to shop in Montreal for underwear and socks before I left and asked her to suggest a store. She said the Tylers didn’t shop. The stores sent everything to the Tyler house. The next day Morgan’s Department Store sent a man around with a selection of underwear and socks for me to choose from.
He talks of Bert’s plans to share his businesses with you some day. He says Bert had hopes for you. The marriage changed those plans. His half smile acknowledges the possibility things might have been different.
“We only knew each other a few weeks,” he says acknowledging other possibilities.
Teddy was born in Trinidad. Ted Jr.
Then a second pregnancy he recalls you sweating in the Venezuelan jungle and saying there is no need to call a plane. Just a stomach ache. Delaying until the superintendent insists you need more than field diagnosis and home remedies. The short runway and long operation in Maracaibo. Almost died. An ectopic pregnancy. Long years afterwards you make the oil company rounds of London New York Montreal Cairo doctors. Always the same news. Don’t expect more children. Consequences of choices. Alice made choices. I made choices. We both made mistakes. That was our marriage. That was our life together.
He brushes his hand over his eyes forgetting he is wearing glasses.
Awkward. The tears I don’t see. Tremors tap his ring against the table.
Strange to me to see how gently he holds your experience. The continuum of your life together has merged all his instances smooth as a silk globe of time and place. The whole of your marriage is all his thin gold ringed fingers can safely support. No emerald details to slip through his tremors. No good times. No bad times. No ruby shining specifics. No need to fix askew glasses. That was our life together.
Even though we only knew each other for a few weeks our marriage outlasted many others. That’s something I’m proud of. We both did some silly things but we stayed married until the end.
He looks me in the eye. My look replies I won’t break the truce over silly things.
More tea? he asks.
The kettle is on the hob the next month when I come back to continue the conversation.
I’ve been reading some of the letters and notes Mum left me. I wish I had more. I’d like to know more about her.
He passes me the biscuits. There are a couple of filing boxes you could look through.
Oh. Where?
They’re locked in the storage room in the basement.
Could I get them out?
I’d have to make a special arrangement with the front desk of the condo.
I’d like to see what’s in the boxes.
There’s not much.
Is there anything about Mum’s family?
I don’t think so. I can’t remember.
I phone him later in the week. No. He hasn’t had time to talk to the front desk. It’s coming up to the Calgary Stampede. The staff at the front desk are too busy to take you to the storage room.
The tea is on the hob after Stampede and we talk again about my family. Then I say I’ve found something interesting in the things Mum left me. Did she ever mention Jens Müller to you?
No.
He was a Norwegian she knew at the Alpine Inn.
Must have been before she met me.
That might be true. Or a lie. I have no trust in his words. I say, Jens was one of the men who escaped from Stalag Luft III.
I phone Dad a week later. He’s glad I called. He says it would be a good idea if I had a look in your boxes. He suggests I might like to write something about you and your family. Like the research he did on the Trafford family.
The next day he gives me the keys to the storage room. Down I go. There has to be fifty Trafford inheritance boxes in the vault. He loves his Magna Carta genealogy. It gives an aristocratic tone to crested silver spoons and diamond wedding rings and the Anne Boleyn’s ring nonsense story told to frighten sleepy children. Taken from her finger before her beheading ordered by the King. Not so sleepy children then. Truce I tell myself as I take out the two boxes of Tyler family history. Be polite. Quiet.
Some folders look promising. Alpine Inn. Papers from Little Marjorie’s apartment. Flanagan family photographs. My heart bounces. This is where The Jens Album should have been. Why did you give it to me?