The Last Perfect Summer

Michael Graeme

Bewildered, Kurt looked up from the map. Everything was confused now - the dots, the lines, the crinkly details of the coast. None of it made sense any more! Friedrich saw him turn away in defeat. They'd been searching all day and he could see the weariness in Uncle's eyes. It was enough, he thought. They should return to the hotel and look again in the morning.

Kurt watched the coastline slipping by as they drove back to town. His nephew was a good man, he thought; Stephan would have been about his age now; fifty eight, fifty nine. Stephan! It was strange how memories had begun to surface lately and with such startling detail - sights, sounds - even the warmth of Ava's hand and the softness of Stephan's baby arms around his neck...

That evening he sat in O'Brian's bar. He was feeling brighter now as he listened to the good-natured banter of the youthful crowds gathered at the tables around him.

"Is your uncle all right then?" he heard a young woman say. It was Maeve, ordering drinks at the bar with Friedrich. She worked at the small hotel where he was staying. She looked so pretty tonight, he thought, in her summer dress.

"My uncle is a little tired," Friedrich replied. "We have been looking for a place.... a place my uncle once... er visited, when he was younger..."

Kurt smiled; Friedrich was always so discreet. "A farm by the sea," he heard him say. "Somewhere around here..."

He began to drift slowly, the memories gathering him up as he felt once more the warm squeeze of Stephan's tiny hand around his finger - so real he almost expected to see Stephan at his knee. Then he heard those words - words he hadn't heard nor even thought of since that last night in Hamburg: "Da-da...!" It was as if the memory itself had sought him out. He shook himself free to find Maeve sitting opposite, smiling. Friedrich was with her. He seemed excited.

"Maeve knows where it is, Uncle," he said.

"Sounds like Mary Donnel's place," said Maeve. "It isn't far. I can show you in the morning, if you like."

He looked at her, the floral print of her dress reminding him of one Ava had once worn. It was strange how fashions came around, he thought. Then in his slow, halting English, he thanked her. "You are very kind," he said.

Later he sat alone on the balcony, listening to the softness of passing voices on the pavement below his room. Friedrich was still in O'Brian's having been cornered by a host of inquisitive souls, bent on coaxing the story from him. Kurt didn't blame them. He and Friedrich were, after all, a couple of foreigners behaving strangely, searching with maps, asking questions. He'd used his age as an excuse to retire, knowing Friedrich would be helpless now without him and that by morning the story would probably be all over town.

He looked up at the stars, reading them like old friends. Orion was slipping east while the misty Pliedes rode high. It was the same sky, he thought, as on that night in nineteen forty... He remembered, then, stepping out on deck beneath those same stars, so sharp so bright, the air unimaginably fresh after weeks locked below.

Gerhart, the first officer had been quick to follow. Then the others had swarmed behind him, their well drilled footsteps making hardly a sound on the ladder as they'd climbed from the depths of the submarine. They'd been at sea for ever it seemed, limping home with a damaged propeller, and now, still many days from a friendly port, they had run out of fresh water. So Kurt had volunteered to sneak ashore with Gerhart.

As the inflatable was made ready, he had a few moments to contemplate the coastline. This was not a hostile country but capture would mean internment. Then it might be many years before he saw home or Ava, or baby Stephan again. He remembered the long, back breaking row ashore and the silence between him and Gerhart as they took their cans and picked their way along the beach in almost total darkness.

They'd been watching the little farmhouse all day through the periscope, waiting, planning.... Kurt could see it even now, like a white pebble washed up against the green hills. He saw the hand pump, dripping tiny sunbeams into a stone trough. He imagined the splash of the drops, pictured ripples spreading on the cool surface...

As they came within a whisper of the warm glow from the window, Kurt heard the sounds of a fiddle playing inside - a jig, sprightly, but somehow always just a breath away from sadness. With hearts pounding, they set about smothering the pump with grease in case it should squeak and give them away. He remembered the heavy, oily smell and the stickiness upon his hands. Then there was that first timid pull at the handle.

They worked slowly, filling their cans with barely a sound. Then they crept away, struggling with their loads to return again, and again - he couldn't say how many trips exactly only that by the last trip, they'd grown confident, pumping the water with daring speed. Then Kurt realised the fiddle had stopped and he remembered looking up to see a young woman standing in the doorway, the fiddle by her side, her black hair long and loose, her face pale in the lamplight. She could have been no more than sixteen.

"Father," he heard her say, "There are men at the pump...."

He remembered the mad scramble to his feet and how he tore his shirt open on the pump handle. As he ran, he remembered glancing behind to see her by the pump. She was kneeling, picking something up - it shone like silver. But he'd no time to dwell upon it. Moments later he and Gerhart were plunging waist-deep into the sea, dragging the inflatable and its precious cargo after them. He recalled looking back once more as they rowed away.

There were men on the beach now, milling, uncertain but they could do nothing - he and Gerhart were safe. It was later, on board the submarine, Kurt realised he was missing his old tobacco-tin. He must have dropped it in the panic. It was where he'd kept his pocket watch but also there had been photographs of Ava and Stephan, taken that last summer before the war. He cursed himself. Now he would have to face the rest of the voyage without them.

Maeve was quiet as she served him breakfast next morning. He'd left Friedrich in his room, shaving. Friedrich had also been quiet, a little hung over he'd suspected but also there'd been a sheepishness about him. So! The story was out - Friedrich had told them...

They knew about the triumphant homecoming and how Kurt had walked that last mile up the street in Hamburg... to find only rubble and scorched earth. He recalled it himself now, while Maeve poured out his tea. And as he stared into the cup, drawn by the swirling bubbles, he recalled the bewilderment, the feeling that tomorrow he would wake and things would be as they had always been, that perfect summer, that last summer, before the war.

But time passed and still the truth remained: Ava and Stephan, were gone.

Maeve led them down the bumpy track, towards the sea. "Such a terrible thing," she said. "If only we'd known, we wouldn't have badgered poor Friedrich so..."

Kurt patted her arm as they walked. "You must not blame yourself," he said. "And nor must you, Friedrich. It was never a secret.... only something I rarely speak of."

Soon, they came upon the cottage. It seemed little changed, he thought. Even the pump was still there, though it was more for ornament now, sitting in a rockery, ablaze with summer blooms. There was a woman waiting in the doorway. She was in her seventies, tall and upright with silver hair tied back in a loose bun. And as they approached, he saw she was holding a fiddle by her side.

"You'll be Kurt, then," she said.

He stepped forward, awkwardly. He'd not thought to find her still living here. "Yes. I am Kurt," he replied. "...I have to thank you.... for the water." He tried to laugh but the joke failed on his lips.

Mary Donnel sensed his unease. She'd heard the tale from Maeve on the telephone. It was the talk of the county, everyone wondering what the old German might mean by coming back after all this time. She tried to put him at ease with a smile. "You caused quite a stir that night," she told him.

He seemed embarrassed. "I am sorry," he replied.

She sighed. This wasn't going to be easy. "Aye, well... You'd better be coming in. You'll take some tea?"

They sat in the living room, Mary watching from her rocking chair as they waited for the kettle to boil. There was silence. All eyes were on Kurt.

"The bombing was very heavy," he began, eventually. "There was nothing left.... you understand? The house, the street... all gone... nothing to remember my loved one's by.

"Sometimes, I have looked back and it seems as if they never existed - only in my mind." He paused. How could he explain he'd come searching for something within himself, something he'd hoped might be brought out by seeing this place again? For though he was not a sentimental man, it was here he always felt he had lost them. "I needed to touch them once more," he said,"in my heart. As if only then could I accept their loss...." He paused, uncertain. What must they think of him? A sad, silly old man, dwelling on things he should have forgotten long ago. Then he looked up to see Mary holding something. It sparkled as she turned it in her fingers. It was his old tobacco tin! Slowly, she handed it to him. Kurt was astonished to feel it in his hands again. Then he prized it open expecting to see his watch but finding himself gazing instead upon the faces of Ava and Stephan, exactly as he had remembered them, that last perfect summer, so long ago...

"You dropped it by the well that night," said Mary. "We had to sell the watch. I'm sorry - times were very difficult. But I've always kept the pictures, for some reason, often gazing at them over the years and wondering... such a pretty girl.... and such a lovely child... You must have been very proud...."

Kurt nodded. Yes he had been very proud - he still was. He felt them reaching out to him now, touching him. And there was something else. The tears were beginning to swell his throat, so long in coming... the acceptance, the release at last.

Quietly, Mary beckoned the others to follow.... "That'll be the kettle," she said.

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~ First Published July 1996 ~

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~ The story behind the story ~

In a remote corner of the British Isles, there is a little farm overlooking the sea. Not so long ago, the owner, who had farmed there all his life, was approached by an elderly German tourist who came up to him and said. "I have to thank you,... for the water."

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