“I always wondered if you’d ask me. You never have before,” she said softly in her deep, smooth voice, like silk on a cheek.
“I guess I never wondered how you started. We get more interested in our parents as we get older, and they become real people to us, not just our parents.” She nodded, knowing that was true. She had been curious about her own father too, and the mother who had died when she was two, whom she never knew. “And we have more time now, since I’m here with you, we’re not in a hurry, and I’m not rushing back to England.” They were both enjoying that, and it seemed like the right time to her to seize the opportunity.
“It’s a long story,” she said thoughtfully, wondering how much to tell him. But he was old enough now to hear the whole truth. He was a man, not a boy, and he deserved to know who his family was. She had been hiding it for years.
“We have time. I’m not going anywhere,” Joachim said, and stretched out his long legs, as Liese looked at her son differently. And as he saw her eyes, he could see that something important was about to happen, and he sensed that neither of them might ever be the same again.
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.