Taking refuge but little comfort
Molly Keane
THE ROAD AHEAD by Christabel Bielenberg Bantam, £14.99, pp. 195 The Road Ahead, sequel to The Past is Myself, is written in the same deceptively quiet style as the first book — a style that could domesticate a public hanging. Inti- mate as a quiet talk round a kitchen table, her wonderful story-book writing leaves its readers the more vulnerable to the terrors she exposes. In her previous book, she tells the fasci- nating and frightening story of life for a German anti-Nazi family, with an English mother, during Hitler's regime. The lasting importances of daily and domestic difficul- ties resolved are set against the background of her husband awaiting his certain arrest and very probable death. The Road Ahead is devoid of the horrors of concentration and death camps, but this account of the occupation of Germany by waves of French, Russian and English victors has tensions and excitements of its own. Christabel Bielenberg found herself in an uneasy position, being English, yet with the total confidence of the German villagers who had never failed her in supremely perilous times. The ugliness of life for the natives of a conquered country under occupation is chillingly evoked; to the incoming forces all Germans, even those who had risked their lives in the Resistance, were 'sales Boches'. The occupation was a black shadowland of dislocated authority with nowhere to turn for restitution of an injustice inflicted or threatened.
When, after superhuman effort, Christa- bel Bielenberg contrives to get herself and children safely back to England, we expect the Happy Ending, but no, we have instead the seeds of a wonderful novel on depen- dent relationships within a loving family. Her deep concern that such a return should be `starcrossed' makes heartbreak inevitable, but she survives the travails of guilt that beset her as she accepts the loving hospitality that means inconvenience for the elderly and generous parents who have lived through a very different war from her own. Such guilt is combined with anxieties about her sons, who must learn to forget the 'sales Boches' status they endured dur- ing the Occupation and still remember that
Germany is their country and the place where their father lives, in safety but with- out his exit permit. Friends are over- generous with good advice but the cruel decision whether to stay with the children or join her husband must be hers alone. At the same time, clothes and edu- cation have to be organised for three Ger- man children about to face the hostile world of English boys' schools immediately after the war. Such intense anxieties are accepted with the courage and fortitude that have supported her through previous dangers and constant adversity. Through- out this time of working, in English safety, for her husband's release, we are aware of the stringencies of dependence even on one's nearest and dearest.
The final chapter tells of later years spent resident in southern Ireland with neglected acres of farmland for husband Peter Bielenberg to bring back to prosperi- ty, and a half-ruined house for her to recreate. Patiently, she takes in hand this dismantled Regency shell with rooks flying in and out through the empty windows, and restores it to its 18th-century quality, with the addition of every possible up-to-date luxury. The dangerous politics of North and South lend her something of the adventure she cannot live without.
The closing paragraphs show us a woman on the eve of her 83rd birthday, wonderful- ly happy and contented, as husband, children and grandchildren prepare the celebrations. We feel and hope that her strength will support her through many more years and allow her to continue to share with us, through her writing, her wide view of the human prospect.
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