Hi, so here is another chapter and I hope you enjoy this chapter. The next chapter will have a significant time jump so please keep that in mind.
Disclaimer-Nothing is mine.
Anything historically accurate-especially Australian Immigration in the 1930s-then I apologise. Please keep this in mind.
Please keep in mind some outdated language and events.
Please Read and Review.
A Sister's Love
Chapter 8-Australia
Finally Brigitta, Liesl and Jon end up in Australia and a new life is about to begin as the golden days of the 1930s finally draw to a close.
He woke up with a stiff neck and a stiff back but he was aware that all was going to change today. Last night the Captain had, had officers gather them to tell them that he was sure that today they would dock within the country and he woke up and took another sniff as if he was an old pack dog that could smell the change in the air.
Of course that meant everything else as well.
It was soon to be 1939 and Jon knew that 1939 would be the year that would define all years. He knew that this would be the end of a decade of utter uncertainly and the start of a decade that would see the world fight for itself. He thought that he would keep that opinion to himself but that didn't change the fact that whatever happened in the next few months would define the future of Europe.
And he was here, in a small room in his underclothes with his wife above him and her sister fast asleep in the next bunk and acknowledging the fact that now was when it changed.
When all of it changed.
He was going to have to go back to his grandmother and say that he failed. And present instead of the granddaughter she had been praying for two girls…and Christ they were still girls who had a father out there (and he was sure that whoever this Von Trapp father was he was not going to like Jon) and here he was going home. Regardless.
He burrowed himself into the pillow and breathed into the cotton.
God he wanted to sleep. He needed to sleep and to not see Helena staring at him as if he was the monster, the one with scum at the bottom of his shoe. There was nothing he could do to prevent that though. All he could do was to get to home. To get to the home that was keeping him alive. He had missed it he realised. All the way to Germany and all the way back he had missed Australia. He was Australian by birth and by blood—a hell of a lot more than he was German. Before now he had never even set foot in that country and judging by the state of it the only time he would go back was when he had a uniform on.
But God how he wanted to sleep and not see these possibilities play out in front of his eyes time and time again. He was tired, so bone achingly tired and not just the kind that came with lack of sleep.
He turned on his side and stared at the light that was streaming in through the door.
Perhaps when he got home everything would change.
He wasn't exactly holding out hope of that though.
He had a feeling that the nightmare that was 1930s right now was only going to continue.
In truth he only had an hour to himself to get that concept into his head. Liesl woke up first and she seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time watching out the small porthole as if she could see Australia from here. Jon watched her out of the corner of his eye as he dragged himself out of the thin bed and put on his boots. That was another thing he would not miss—sleeping in the same trousers most nights—he had done it for propriety's sake though he was pretty sure he had broken every rule in the book when it came to this illicit marriage that would soon be annulled. But he thought that it was a small thing to do.
An easy thing to do.
In an odd way he would miss having a wife. The world seemed so much easier and simpler when you had a wife by your side. Sometimes it was just as easy as walking around the deck with Liesl trying to acclimatise her to the waves below. People didn't bother you so much if they thought you were with your wife.
And they had developed an easy way to be with each other. There were things that they did not discuss. After he had told her about his father and his sister he never mentioned it again and neither did she. He had never spoken about her father or her mother or her siblings though he had cobbled together something that might resemble a past from Brigitta who could chat for days if you allowed her the opportunity.
They never spoke about her time in the nunnery either. The night where she and Brigitta had gone from being a family of nine to being just the two of them was so taboo not even Brigitta spoke about it.
If this was what they were like after two months of marriage then perhaps it was a good thing that an annulment was coming.
After all what would two years of marriage look like if they kept this much of their past hidden from the other?
Instead they talked about easy things. Brigitta had her heart set on going to school or learning again and Liesl too had an intelligent mind. They discussed everything from books to the ever growing worry that something was going to happen in Europe. It was nice to have someone to help with his fears. To understand that what he had seen happening in Germany—especially to the Jewish communities there—was terrifying. She had seen the Germans march into her own country as if they had been invited and her own government do nothing to stop them and she understood to the longing and the homesickness not for a place or a person (though he fully admitted that for her it might be different) but for the way the world had been just a few short months ago.
They found him on the deck just as they were coming into the harbour. Immigration waited for them below but they had hours before they fully docked and he watched cigarette in mouth as the captain tried to steer them as close to the docks as possible without ramming them into it.
As a general rule he left them both alone this morning only stopping to tell them not to bother making the bed. Indeed there was no point. However he gave them both the privacy they needed and had come up here his stomach to full of…something…for him to even attempt to eat anything.
"Are we here then?" Brigitta asked coming to stand next to him. Both sisters were dressed and had their suitcases with them. At his own feet was his rucksack.
"Yes" he said shortly. "This is Australia"
Brigitta looked through the rising sun.
"Where are the…what did you call them? Kangaroo's"
Jon had to swallow down his laughter.
"They aren't in Melbourne. You need to go into the forests to see them."
He caught a look at her disheartened expression.
"But there should be one in the zoo."
"Really?"
"Was when I left" he muttered though he hardly needed to point out that that didn't change anything. A lot of things had been different when he had left.
"Are you excited to see your grandmother again?" she asked and Jon looked down at her and thought that despite all she had been through and despite how she acted sometimes she really was still just a little girl.
"It's going to be an interesting visit" he said shortly not sure how diplomatic to be in this instance.
"Because she doesn't know about us?"
"That and she doesn't really know where I've been for the last three months"
They both stared at him as if he was mad. Which…yes he probably was all things considering.
"Do you mean to say that you went to Germany" Liesl hissed as though it was a disgusting swear word "And didn't tell your grandmother why?"
"She's not stupid" Jon assured her. "She knew what I was thinking of doing she just thought it was too dangerous. Which all things considering she was probably right."
Actually she had been completely right but he was not going to admit that.
He turned and smiled at them though it felt a little forced.
If Liesl picked up on it then she didn't comment and Jon found that he was more relieved and grateful about that than he was about anything else.
Immigration was mostly easy. He joined the que and the man glanced at his marriage certificate raised an eyebrow as if to say that he didn't believe it for a second and then waved all three of them through. At the main office Liesl and Brigitta were given temporary passes to stay with the stern warning to fill out the paperwork to become citizens and then they were done.
"That was shockingly easy" Liesl muttered to him as they stepped out into the bright Melbourne sunshine.
Jon shrugged.
"Helps when you speak English" was all he said. "And they believed our marriage certificate. Plus…helps you married a citizen, gives you some immunity. We can fill out the paperwork when we get home and then that gives you some cover at least until we can figure out which way the wind blows"
"Or until the Red Cross locate our father"
He nodded. She had been nothing but kind to him and she had put an extraordinary amount of trust in him so far and would for the foreseeable future. And though he was a bastard (and he could admit it to himself) he was not a heartless bastard.
He did not have the heart to look this young woman in the eye and tell her the reality was the Red Cross would work slower than molasses (if they even did process her claim for information) and that the chances of her reuniting with her father would be extremely slim.
"Either way" he said glossing over that topic. "It gives you and Brigitta some kind of protection. Especially If things continue to go south. So let's not tarry. I'll grab us a taxi"
The ride to his grandmother's house was short and thank mercy they didn't have a driver that wanted to talk a lot. He helped them out of the cab with their stuff and stared up at the big brick house with it's red balconies and the garden where he and his sister had played just as early as Christmas.
"This looks lovely" Liesl said finally.
"Yes" he said tearing his eyes away from the garden.
"Come on"
He pushed open the gate and then dithered. He was not entirely sure if he should knock or not.
In the end he didn't have to. The door was opened for him and his grandmother was there.
"In" was all she said shortly and then as soon as the three of them were in the hallway she shut the door behind them. Jon knew this meant she wanted to bollock him in private and that was never a good sign.
The Honourable Edith Webster still looked like the same woman she had always been. She had the same short dark greying hair (not that you mentioned it unless you wanted your ears boxed) and she was dressed in modern clothes being a rather nice blue suit.
She had not come from money his grandmother but had inherited when the Great War had wiped out nearly all of her male relatives especially the titled ones back in England and with the money had come the title of Honourable more money than either she or her daughter had known what to do with. His grandmother had been a living legend growing up simply because she had said and done exactly what she wanted from copious younger lovers to letting people stay in her house from unwed mothers to homosexual lovers and for supporting rather controversial initiatives from Family Planning to the abolishment of the death penalty.
That being said she was totally uncaring of what people thought of her and had a circle of friends loyal to her whose husbands managed to hold enviable positions. If he had wanted to keep Liesl and Brigitta wrapped in enough security to ensure immigration never went looking for them then this was the woman to do it.
However right now her wide blue eyes (the same blue as his mother and his sister) stared at him with concern.
"You have got some explaining to do my boy. What happened?"
Jon opened his mouth to tell her conscious of the two girls watching him but suddenly he couldn't speak. There was an endless amount of things to tell her from their father's friendship with Hitler, to the worsening situation in Europe, to the terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that told him it was only going to get worse from now on, to his wife and the other girl behind him who he had promised to protect and above all his failure to get his sister, her granddaughter, the girl that resembled her dead daughter so much out of the clutches of the worst kind of evil imaginable.
He thought about how to form all of that into words and then he did something else that took even him by surprise.
He burst into tears.
And there you go. I hope you enjoy this chapter and I will do my best to bring you the next one soon.
Next Chapter-Time goes on as it always does. It's 1939 and the world is on the brink of war and Liesl and Brigitta must find a way to carry on. regardless.