Library of Wales: Element of Water, The

Foreword by Kirsti Bohata ‘Truly extraordinary’ - A L Kennedy, The Guardian ‘Davies’s fusion of past and present is masterly. A revelation’ -Independent ‘A timely study of race, identity, prejudice and forgiveness’ -Big Issue ‘Resonating with poignant imagery, this outstanding novel examines the best and worst of human nature’ - The Times -- Publisher: Parthian Books
When regarding the aftermath of the Second World War in Germany, we have perhaps presumed that the German people, crushed and bowed by defeat, had felt an overwhelming relief that the nightmare was over and that their Führer was no more, whilst those complicit in the horror had either run or hastily rethought their views. Stevie Davies’s exploration of this era is a beautifully rendered picture of the strictures and distortions inflicted on ordinary people by the extremes of war and its aftermath. The Element of Water focuses in the main on two points in history: the last days of the German retreat to the shores of Lake Plӧn at the end of the Second World War, and the oddly petty world of 1958 where, at the same lakeside location, a boarding school for the children of British army personnel has been established in a former German Marine Academy. The lake gleams and ripples, its mirror surface hiding hundreds of iron crosses and other Nazi emblems and weapons, hastily thrown in by worried German troops as they awaited the inevitable arrival of the British. There are bodies in there too – some could not face what was about to descend on them all. In 1945, Michael Quantz is an officer in the embattled German army, under the command of Admiral Donitz, the man with the dubious honour of being named by Hitler as his successor. Michael can speak English fluently, and with his mild and helpful manner will secure himself a role with the British troops. He does not manage to slide so fortuitously into a rapprochement with his son, whom he rescues from the bombed-out ruins of Kiel, where the boy had been hiding for six weeks amongst the rubble, staying by his dead mother’s body. In 1958, Michael Quantz and his son Wolfi are still there at Lake Plӧn and Michael is teaching music at the school. The terrible distance between them exists not just because of Michael’s failings as a husband and father, but also because of the chasm between the generation that had a role in the Nazi regime and the younger generation, who grow up without its influence and see the guilt of their parents as unforgivably shameful. They observe the former SS officers who have transformed seamlessly into successful businessmen and dignitaries without any retribution being visited upon them. When the new teacher, Isolde Dahl, arrives at the school – escaping a small romantic debacle of her own – she awakens in Wolfi a desire and adoration he has never felt before. The symbolism of her mastery of swimming and command of the lake compared with Wolfi’s timid and splashy efforts are reflected in her ability to ask the questions that he is too wary to broach. Almost because of her ignorance she dives through the layers of unacknowledged prejudice that are present in both the British and German staff and the local dignitaries. However, Isolde’s own parents are German: her father unknown and her mother living in Wales. Their histories have been kept hidden from Isolde, and as she learns more she must cope with the knowledge of their complicity with the Nazi regime. Isolde sees that the children at the boarding school are treated with disdain and casual disregard by a staff certain of their own class superiority. An atmosphere of bullying and intolerance festers. But Isolde herself has many self-doubts and lacks the confidence to intercede at a crucial moment, with tragic consequences. Stevie Davies has, with her usual effortless prose, created a world where moral outrage and fear of impropriety overrule common human decency. Where a small child can be bullied beyond endurance, where anti-Semitism lurks under the shining surface of acceptable behaviour, and where the past is as full of secrets as the lake’s murky depths. -- Lucy Walter @ www.gwales.com