Continued from Trouble in Paradise
Yry launched her story by describing how distraught she was as her 30th birthday approached. Since graduating from high school she’d enjoyed some fine adventures, but she longed for a family—something so many of her friends had. Instead, she was an unmarried, rootless woman, living off the largesse of her parents. She spoke of her father’s disappointment in her lack of direction and disinterest in his business.
“Yeah . . . Fatheh was always off on a buying trip. That’s where our unusual bobbles came from: the Hindu prayer wheel, the Japanese tapestries, the silver figurines. He knew seven languages, you know. . . all self-taught.”
And I can’t even get my mouth around German, I thought, as I swigged another swallow of wine.
“He was a driven man. And he expected everyone around him to be just as driven. Yeah, I’d have enjoyed the travel, but not the dickering and wheeling and dealing. And besides, I knew he’d no intention of sending me out to do the buying. He wanted me in the office to type lettehs and answer the phone and keep the books. Plghhh.”
“A bit sexist, was he?” The waiter had removed my salad plate, and chin propped on hands, elbows on the table, I watched her eat. Mom was so involved in her memories and her salad that she didn’t even comment on this infraction.
“Well, to be fair,” she continued, “that’s the way things were. It was a man’s world. No one expected a woman to travel alone to India or China—though I’d have dearly loved to go to China. I even studied Chinese for a while. Actually, I’m enrolled in a Chinese course at the university this fall. You never know, I may get there yet.” She grinned around her last mouthful of salad.
Then she mentioned the straw that broke her father’s back.
“Heinrich?” This was the first I’d heard about him. The waiter returned with steaming, elegantly dressed plates: a slab of prime rib swimming in bloody juice for mom and garlic-bathed scampi for me.
“Heinrich . . . oh, I fell for him.” By now she could chuckle about her youthful passion. “He was the superintendent of the stables, the head riding instructah. He was Austrian, in his 40’s, never married, handsome . . . mmmmm.” It was unclear if she was appreciating her first bite of meat or her memory of Heinrich. “He had smooth, tan featuhes, black hair and a neatly trimmed black goatee,” she added. “Much to my fatheh’s dismay, I moved into Heinrich’s flat. I was young, hungry for love. He was older, stronger . . . mysterious . . .” She sampled the grilled Brussels Sprouts artfully stacked beside the beef.
“You didn’t get married? Wow. That must have been pretty rad in those days!”
“My poor fatheh. I put him through some hell in those days,” she agreed somewhat wistfully. “But I was so in love with Heinrich. He had this dark corner in his soul that pulled me in. I was sure something terrible had happened to him during the war and I thought with enough love and patience, I could heal that wound.” She paused, her eyes focused on the window as she savored her meal.
“You’ve never talked about any of this. What happened?” I prodded.
“Well, some things aren’t meant for little ears, you know!” Her eyes danced with a hint of suppressed mirth. “Actually, fatheh was right in this case. Heinrich was ratheh a fraud. He had a dark spot of melancholy all right, but I don’t think it had much to do with the war. I think . . . I think it just masked a selfish, dictatorial natuhe. I thought he really believed in me as a human—as an equal. But all he wanted was someone to . . . wash his clothes, cook his meals, and warm his sheets. It didn’t take me too long to wise up.”
Rangewriter 
So the father traveled to several Asian countries and knew seven languages. Iry, being a single woman, not even thirty yet, was not supposed to travel alone. She could not live the way her father had lived. Young women were rather restricted in those days in what they could do on their own. It makes me think how things have changed so much in Western societies in just one or two generations!
Ah, and this Heinrich must have been quite a disappointment for her. It was probably quite common in those days that a lot of men thought that to live with a woman meant they had a housekeeper who could do everything for them, including warming their beds! I am not surprised that Iry expected to be appreciated in a different way in a relationship.
Great, Linda, that you want to publish more about her life story. Very much looking forward to that!
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Thanks for the encouragement, Auntyuta! You really connect with parts of this story in a way other, younger women might not. Although, I must confess, I’ve run into a near-version of Heinrich, myself. Some men have simply not evolved from their basic egocentricity.
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That’s, right, Linda. Maybe this is still their basic nature. We still have a more or less male dominated culture. Men that show a bit more the female side of their nature are frequently put down by their male counterparts. How many males for instance are happily sharing in looking after the children and sharing equally in housework? Even if the woman has a highly paid and responsible job, a lot of men would still regard it more the woman’s job to do everything at home and caring for the children most of the time! Men that share in the work equally are still the exception, or not?
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I agree wholeheartedly. We’ve come so far, and yet not so far. Just as with the racial bias that is erupting after many of us thought we had put that behind us. 😦 There are some really fine men who are comfortable in their own skins and unafraid of domesticity. But they are still the minority.
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This reply came via email from Robert Brownbridge from Love, War, and the Meaning of Life (brownbridgeexpress.wordpress.com )
“Some men have simply not evolved from their basic egocentricity.” …
This sentence is huge and is the seed that grew/grows to make up the Patriarchy that has led/is leading us to the possible destruction of the world and its inhabitants
BUT, some might say that Patriarchy is beginning to crumble, at least losing some of it domination/power/influence. Could Trump and his buddies be it’s last champions (in this country, at least)? Is the MeToo! movement a sign of its beginning demise? (If I think about this a while and find some interested ears to listen and talk with, maybe I can make a dent in my boredom and lonesomeness.) When I “preach” to people sometimes, here’s what I tell them: That Awareness, Awareness, Awareness are the first 3 steps to change. Without it, nothing ever changes ….unless there’s a monster eruption, or explosion or disaster of some kind: EG, the Big Bang? Or the meteor(s) that knocked out the dinosaurs? Are Trump or Weinstein monster meteors?
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Oh, Linda. On this Mother’s Day, I wish my mother had stayed on this earth long enough for her to share stories like this with me! I missed so much of the layers beneath due to her far-too-early departure from this world.
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Yes, you are correct, Doreen. Daughters need to be of a certain age before their mothers can afford to confide in them. I’m lucky to have a lot of artifacts, like letters and photos to support (and sometimes confuse) the issues. And then there are the different tales that I heard from friends she had confided in later in life. It’s all rather confusing, actually. Cheers to our mothers. Without them, we wouldn’t be here today.
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If single long enough, most women will encounter a Heinrich!
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
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Ya could have stolen those words right out of Yry’s mouth, Karen!
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I love that you are sharing some of the interesting and surprising secrets you heard from Yri. She was indeed quite a complex woman!
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Thanks, Glenda. It’s a harrowing road to release a person’s secrets to the world. But here’s the thing, the older she got, the more people she shared “intimacies” with, and I’m convinced she told different versions of the same story to different people. I’d love to hear more of those versions. I’ve caught snippets from various people like Ursula and Vivian. I suspect she shared some things with you, too.
Also, I figure, if she didn’t want these things to have wings, she’d have made sure to get rid of the incriminating evidence before she died. She had to know that prying little eyes would find her letters and journals and whatnot.
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Oh yes I knew a Heinrich. Hope I learned my lesson. I like how Yri opens up, I remember times like that with my mother, but those times were rare.
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I suppose we’ve all (or most of us) have had a Heinrich or two in our closets. There are plenty of them out there.
My mother was actually better at opening up, in her later years anyway, than I ever was with her. I never felt we had a close relationship, but I see now, that much of that is on my shoulders because I shut her out of any personal thoughts and feelings I had.
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I enjoy your use of dialogue. The accents and differences in speech patterns bring the characters to life. And it’s so clean. The language is crisp and direct.
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Oh Robert, thanks for this really great feedback. I’m inexperienced at writing dialogue, but I think it really brings characters to life, if done properly. Thanks again. Hugs.
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You’re welcome. A well placed exchange of dialogue is a great way to reveal a character’s inner life.
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