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She kicked off with my family. In the countryside, where my uncle and aunt, my cousins and my mother lived close to Luneburg, Martha was first welcomed with open arms. She ingratiated herself and gladdened the family with her direct, lively, and unconventional manner.
Then she accused my uncle of sexual harassment - when they sat alone for a moment - at the fireplace. An absurd accusation, if you were to know my uncle. The same paranoid idea she would often use with the most diverse men who belonged to my closer circle. Only Alex, whom she met once briefly, was not dragged into that.
She was strangely afraid of him: he had from the first moment seen through her and then broken off his contact with me, not because of a quarrel, but for the sake of our friendship and Martha saw this as a threat to her plans. After this she turned against my mother, accused her of stirring up trouble behind Martha’s back and trying to turn everybody against her, and she demanded that I take sides, for her or for my mother. That was the first polarization with which she directly challenged me. I did not take sides: I failed to do what would have been the right thing: telling Martha off. The matter was nevertheless disposed of in a most unfortunate way in that Martha wrote to my mother such an insulting letter that my mother broke off all further contact, including myself. Much later I became painfully conscious of this outrages incident and I was ashamed of my passivity to this day and I wonder what closed my eyes at the time. After Martha was dispelled from the family she understood how to twist my cousin Caroline around her finger and turn her into an instrument, with female cunning to befriend her, and to convince her with a subtle form of pressure to conform directly and indirectly with her wishes and to ignore the words of warning from others - just as I did. Martha needed an ally. Once Caroline was in Martha’s web she was emotionally abused for years without escaping from Martha’s orbit. When finally she managed to free herself, she described Martha as the incarnation of evil.
She did not save my business associates from her scheming, when I had made the mistake of taking Martha to London a couple of times. There we were meeting, with my partners at Lloyd’s, Brokers and Underwriters with their wives and myself and Martha. We went together to shows playing in London’s West End at the time, such like SONG AND DANCE and thereafter to dinner - in the finest hotels, like the Ritz or the Connaught - of course, as money was not an issue and not an evening passed that Martha did not push her way into the limelight, treating other women haughtily and giving their men attention that was quite ambiguous, stirring up violent jealousy and quarrels. Her lust to be the centre of attention and her vanity was compulsive, and whoever did not accept that was immediately categorized as an enemy. Much to the displeasure of the wives their husbands fawned over Martha beyond measure - she was attractive and amusing at will.
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