had given her a book, a history of Irish heroes, when she had left the orphanage. ‘To Mary Pease, my most hopeful student,’ was written in a bold, upright hand on the flyleaf. Mary had modelled her handwriting on Sister Catherine’s too. Somehow, Sister Catherine’s teaching had made her believe that her father, whoever he was, must have been a gentleman.
With Mary Pease coaching him in the silvery Back Bay accents of Sister Catherine, Axel Jordache had learned to speak proper English very quickly. Even before they were married, he spoke so well that people were surprised when he told them that he had been born in Germany. There was no denying it, he was an intelligent man. But he used his intelligence to torment her, torment himself, torment everyone around him.
He hadn’t even kissed her before he proposed to her. She was nineteen at the time, her daughter Gretchen’s age, and a virgin.
He was unfailingly attentive, always cleanly bathed and shaved and he always brought her small gifts of candy and flowers
when he returned from his trips.
He had known her for two years before he proposed.. He hadn’t dared to speak earlier, he said, because he was afraid she would reject him because he was a foreigner and because he limped. How he must have laughed to himself as he saw the tears come to her eyes at his modesty and his lack of confidence in hiimself. He was a diabolical man. weaving lifetime plots.
She said yes, conditionally. Perhaps she thought she loved him. He was a good-looking man, with that Indian head of black hair and a sober, industrious, thin face and clear, brown eyes that seemed soft and considerate when they looked at her. When he touched her it was with the utmost deceptive gentleness, as though she were made of china. When she told him she had been born out of wedlock (her phrase) he said he already knew it, from the Muellers, and that it didn’t make any difference, in fact, it was a good thing, there wouldn’t be any in-laws to disapprove of him. He himself was cut off from what remained of his family. His father had been killed on the Russian front in 1915 and his mother had remarried a year later and moved to Berlin from Cologne. There was a younger brother he had never liked, who had married a rich German-American girl who had come to Berlin after the war to visit relatives. The brother now lived in Ohio, but Axel never saw him. His loneliness was apparent and it matched her own.
Her conditions were stringent. He was to give up his job on the Lakes. She didn’t want a husband who was away most of the time and who had a job that was no better than a common labourer’s. And they were not to live in Buffalo, where everyone knew about her birth and the orphanage and where at every turn she would meet people who had seen her working as a waitress. And they were to be married in church.
He had agreed to everything. Oh, diabolical, diabolical. He had some money saved up and through Mr Mueller he got in ouch with a man who had a bakery in Port Philip whose lease was for sale. She made him buy a straw hat for the trip to Port Philip to conclude the deal. He was not to go wearing his usual doth cap, that hangover from Europe. He was to look like a respectable American businessman.
Two weeks before the wedding, he took her to see the shop in which she was going to spend her life and the apartment above it in which she was going to conceive three children. It was a sunny day in May and the shop was freshly painted^ with a large, green awning to protect the plate-glass window, with its array of cakes and cookies, from the sun. The street was a dean, bright one, with other little shops, a hardware store, a dry-goods store, a pharmacy on the corner. There was even a milliner’s shop, with hats wreathed in artificial flowers on cands in the window. It was the shopping street for a quiet lential section that lay between it and the river. Large, unfortable houses behind green lawns. There were
With Mary Pease coaching him in the silvery Back Bay accents of Sister Catherine, Axel Jordache had learned to speak proper English very quickly. Even before they were married, he spoke so well that people were surprised when he told them that he had been born in Germany. There was no denying it, he was an intelligent man. But he used his intelligence to torment her, torment himself, torment everyone around him.
He hadn’t even kissed her before he proposed to her. She was nineteen at the time, her daughter Gretchen’s age, and a virgin.
He was unfailingly attentive, always cleanly bathed and shaved and he always brought her small gifts of candy and flowers
when he returned from his trips.
He had known her for two years before he proposed.. He hadn’t dared to speak earlier, he said, because he was afraid she would reject him because he was a foreigner and because he limped. How he must have laughed to himself as he saw the tears come to her eyes at his modesty and his lack of confidence in hiimself. He was a diabolical man. weaving lifetime plots.
She said yes, conditionally. Perhaps she thought she loved him. He was a good-looking man, with that Indian head of black hair and a sober, industrious, thin face and clear, brown eyes that seemed soft and considerate when they looked at her. When he touched her it was with the utmost deceptive gentleness, as though she were made of china. When she told him she had been born out of wedlock (her phrase) he said he already knew it, from the Muellers, and that it didn’t make any difference, in fact, it was a good thing, there wouldn’t be any in-laws to disapprove of him. He himself was cut off from what remained of his family. His father had been killed on the Russian front in 1915 and his mother had remarried a year later and moved to Berlin from Cologne. There was a younger brother he had never liked, who had married a rich German-American girl who had come to Berlin after the war to visit relatives. The brother now lived in Ohio, but Axel never saw him. His loneliness was apparent and it matched her own.
Her conditions were stringent. He was to give up his job on the Lakes. She didn’t want a husband who was away most of the time and who had a job that was no better than a common labourer’s. And they were not to live in Buffalo, where everyone knew about her birth and the orphanage and where at every turn she would meet people who had seen her working as a waitress. And they were to be married in church.
He had agreed to everything. Oh, diabolical, diabolical. He had some money saved up and through Mr Mueller he got in ouch with a man who had a bakery in Port Philip whose lease was for sale. She made him buy a straw hat for the trip to Port Philip to conclude the deal. He was not to go wearing his usual doth cap, that hangover from Europe. He was to look like a respectable American businessman.
Two weeks before the wedding, he took her to see the shop in which she was going to spend her life and the apartment above it in which she was going to conceive three children. It was a sunny day in May and the shop was freshly painted^ with a large, green awning to protect the plate-glass window, with its array of cakes and cookies, from the sun. The street was a dean, bright one, with other little shops, a hardware store, a dry-goods store, a pharmacy on the corner. There was even a milliner’s shop, with hats wreathed in artificial flowers on cands in the window. It was the shopping street for a quiet lential section that lay between it and the river. Large, unfortable houses behind green lawns. There were
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