The Empress of Weehawken: A Novel - Softcover

Dische, Irene

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312427956 ISBN 13: 9780312427955

Publisher: Picador, 2008

Synopsis

At the end of what is (she cannot help observing) an extraordinary life, Elisabeth Rother has decided to write her memoirs. She recounts her narrow escape with her Jewish husband from the Nazis, and the perilous voyage to the New World of New Jersey, but those, for her, are mere facts of life. For Elisabeth, bighearted and obstinate, the most bothersome and consuming subjects are the unconventional paths and waywardness of her daughter, Renate, and her granddaughter, Irene.

The Empress of Weehawken is a curiously touching love letter to the difficult but sustaining love of mothers and daughters. Written in the voice of the author's very real grandmother, it is "superb . . . razor-sharp, desert-dry, and luxuriantly ironic" (The San Diego Union-Tribune).

About this title

About the Author:

Irene Dische is a novelist and journalist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker. Her books, published in twenty-two countries, have included international bestsellers. She divides her time between Berlin and Rhinebeck, NY.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Excerpt Much of what went kaput, as the Americans say, in the generations after mine can be blamed on Carl’s low sperm count. He had murdered his men with heroism, the exact details later. As a result, he only managed one child. And that was the wrong sex. We tried and tried for another. He would plant himself inside me and till away. He worked hard, grunting and sweating—he was not a lazybones. Afterward, I remained on my back, hoisting my legs in the air over my head, the soles of my feet touching in prayer. God did not hear my prayers. When nothing had come of our efforts for more than five years, and our child was already in school, I said, “Carl, according to the laws of the Church, one does this to make children. According to the Church, if it’s not to make children, then you Must Not.” Carl had arguments up his sleeve about procreation as a form, with or without content, developed by God along with prayer as a ritual to be repeated as often as possible. His faith was deep and I loved him, and believed him, although my body didn’t. Then one day, when I showed reluctance, he said, “The ancient Jews were commanded to lie with each other on the Sabbath, because the high point brought them closest to God.” “Jews!” I snorted. “Not everything about the Jews is bad,” he said. He was apologetic, a rare occurrence. I sulked for a while, and allowed him to take me again, it was my duty. I was gaining weight. Soon there was so much of me that it was hard to say where I began or ended, and he became discouraged, and left me alone. Even a surgeon can be surprised by the human body. The fact is that when we met, I was beautiful. I was the pinnacle of female beauty in our family; after that, it was downhill. Do not laugh at my conceit—I am being objective. In the first place, everyone always remarked about me and my favorite brother Otto that we were the most beautiful children. Adolescence did not alter this generally held opinion. In the second place I am not blind: we looked like German gods; we both had thick yellow hair, chiseled noses, eyes blue and commanding as planets, and almost perfectly fleshless lips. One could see plainly that our family had ties to the aristocracy. Nowadays this doesn’t count for much, especially in the less civilized world, like New Jersey. But it should matter. Because aristocracy is a chain of people passing along a sense of worth, handling it cautiously, so as not to lose any, from one generation to the next. My great-great-uncle was Joseph von Görres. I will not bother to explain who he was. In my youth, those syllables belonged to the syllabus of general education, not to mention countless streets and public squares, and anyone who knew us, knew as well that we were connected to Görres. Not a direct descendant, I admit: he married a distant aunt, who was a von Lassaulx, also a name of distinction. Generations followed, of doctors, lawyers, engineers, prelates. They weren’t all Germans—some were Dutch, others French—but they were all Catholic. Over generations, my family, the Gierlichs, took one turn after another that led it into the middle class, but we never sank below that. Of course this was thanks to the women, who made sure there was no monkey business. It is up to the women to keep up a family standard, men are not strong enough. Women must keep them in line, including lineage. I learned this from my grandmother, who instructed me that my very presence must influence, that when I enter a room the men must unconsciously move their hands to their trousers, to make sure they have not forgotten to button up; I was about seven years old. The women were groomed to choose their husbands prudently. My grandmother turned down a rich aristocrat because he was lazy. He had a castle, but not a position. Instead, she married an energetic engineer, who soon rewarded her by building the railroad from Berlin to Petersburg. Czar Alexander was so grateful that he presented my grandmother with a set of onyx and diamonds, big pieces that really qualify one to say “family jewelry.” I don’t like the first syllable of that word, but this substance is one thing that I really enjoyed in my life: I inherited and was given a lot of it, and I took excellent care of it. Many decades later, I risked my life to smuggle Czar Alexander’s generous gifts to safe shores—only to have my granddaughter auction them for a pittance at Christie’s, under circumstances so demeaning they make our flight from Germany look like a Sunday excursion to Chadwick Beach. I will return to that later. Because this gory little narrative concerns my granddaughter, the hows and whys of her, a kind of True Confession I have decided to write for her since she has just reached a spot that is as lonely as a vacuum. Her conscience is in there with her. She has A Lot on it. She is not entirely to blame. She had terrible role models: her mother and her father. And she was, by nature, not well equipped morally. Really, all the bad qualities that could be cooked up in the family genes were served to Irene. I will get to these, but not as an excuse. Because one can overcome, make the best of what one has. In any case, her background must be recounted, to make sense of the foreground. But where was I? My appearance. In our engagement photograph I look like a martyr about to be thrown to a lion. My future husband holds me in his arms, his wild creature poking at the barriers between us: our layers of clothing, the weeks until the wedding ceremony. Soon it would be released. Carl’s eyes were even larger than mine, but black. His nose was large too, and beaked. His bones were large. His creature would not be small. I am not suggesting that Carl was ever anything but honorable. He wore his military uniform to our wedding. With his medals for heroism, and his sword at his belt, he looked like the perfect German gentleman. His moral credentials were impeccable. But of course I was doing the Wrong Thing by marrying him. I aimed the family downward. I crash-landed the family. Love makes one careless. I argued with my parents that since he converted to my faith, just the way Gustav Mahler and countless other important people had, and was twice as Good as me, since goodness came to him without effort, whereas I always had to work at it (my parents nodded vigorously in agreement), he was a perfectly respectable choice in a husband. The alternative was no husband at all. This had been my sworn objective until I met him, Dr. Carl Rother. We had met over a limb amputation, in an army field hospital. I was one of the nurses, in a sterile gown, my hair hidden under a conical surgical cap. He was even more covered up. He wore a mask. I did not see the size of this nose until later. I saw his black eyes. And his quick, graceful hands, handling the saw with such familiarity. He cut and trimmed and sewed, all at great speed. His palm was square and muscular, his fingers long and tapering to small tips with round, neat fingernails. When the stump was all cleaned up and lay on the operating table looking like a giant salami, he sighed, stood back, and gazed over at me. For a while, I would have none of him. I had already turned down all the eligible boys back in the Rhineland, where I belonged. But I allowed him to kiss me. It wasn’t so bad. He was very clean. He gave me a ring. I gave it back. He gave me anothe

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0312427956
• ISBN 13: 9780312427955
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320