by Anna Ellory
I am imprisoned in this body. The nurses gave me something. The taste so strong, like peppermint, cherries and bitter too. Everything grew wobbly and flat. I was back on the bed, Axel had left and I knew I needed to tell Miriam.
But I had no way of doing so.
Miriam grew up so fast, I’m not sure I realised this until I was sitting in a too-loose tux, in a freezing cold church. Miriam at the altar in a white taffeta dress, violets in her long, dark hair. My little girl had grown up and I hadn’t noticed.
She left the house in silence, and Emilie and I both pined for our most precious daughter in different ways. Emilie was always at Miriam’s house, but I couldn’t go. I saw the look in Axel’s eye and I wanted to take her and run away. Emilie thought differently, and Miriam’s relationship grew with her and stagnated with me. So that when I did see her I could see the change. Her downcast eyes, checking with Axel before opening her mouth. I saw it all too clearly, but when I spoke to her about it, she wouldn’t listen to me.
Emilie didn’t see it, Miriam didn’t see it, but I did.
After years of living down the road and after Miriam lost the baby, they moved to Wolfsburg.
Axel and Miriam were moving away, together. I hoped that I could go and see them. I offered to help, but all my approaches were denied. It was the move that stopped Emilie talking to Miriam. She went there once, unannounced, and was turned away. She required an invitation, but none came. The phone calls became less and less.
Miriam had been in Wolfsburg a year when Emilie got sick.
Miriam didn’t come home, she stayed away. I hadn’t heard from her, not once. In the whole time Emilie was ill, then when she was dying. I sent letters, I called, but I was just as powerless at keeping Emilie alive as I was at finding Frieda. And Miriam wasn’t there.
She missed the church service for Emilie.
At the wake, I saw her across the busy room. I went to go to her, but Axel stood in my way.
‘Don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?’ he said, and I don’t remember what I had thought, just that my daughter was in pain. I was in pain and with only one wing each, crippled by the loss of Emilie, I thought we might hold each other up.
Axel placed a hand on my shoulder and steered me to a bar and ordered me a drink. A glass with a small amount of brown liquid was presented to me.
‘I don’t drink,’ I had protested, but he insisted and he was hard to refuse. I cannot remember why or what he said, but it was like a trance. I did what he said and regretted it later.
The threat of unknown consequences enough to drive you to actions that are not your own. I knew Miriam was in a lot of trouble, but I couldn’t find my way around Axel to her.
‘She’s struggling, obviously,’ he said, close to my ear, and I turned to see her sitting looking lost, pulling at the sleeves of her clothes. ‘You have to admit you weren’t close.’ He was probably right, I thought.
‘She’s a bit upset with you, to be honest?’ he said, placing a hand on my shoulder.
‘Why?’
‘I think she has it in her head that you . . . well, the stress of Emilie always working so hard, and looking after you when you were . . . indisposed.’ He raised an eyebrow as if I should know what he meant.
Then something shifted into place and everything came ratcheting down on me.
Axel continued, ‘I think Miriam is upset because Emilie, well, maybe she could have had an easier life?’
‘Miriam blames me?’
‘Blame is a strong word. Give her time and if she wants to, she’ll come to you. A bit of time,’ he repeated.
The alcohol was rushing through my head and of course I was to blame, I had caused Emilie so much hurt and pain. I could never take any of that back and Miriam knew that too. I watched Miriam over Axel’s shoulder as he talked. I couldn’t turn away from the wilting flower my child had become. Axel talked nonsensically then about grandchildren for me in my dotage, but I couldn’t imagine a future where my daughter would want to be in the same room as me. And then they were gone. I hadn’t even spoken to her.
My daughter.
After that when I tried to call it rung out, and the post was returned, unopened, to sender.
MIRIAM
She goes home to pack a bag.
She feels the release as her teeth break the skin and the blood oozes across the white nail bed.
She places her white gloves over her ripped fingers, then goes to the letters, only five remain.
Miriam plans on packing them, but instead she is drawn in to reading just one more letter.
Henryk,
The transports happen more and more frequently, lists calling people up in the morning who are gone by the afternoon. No one knows where. Everyone fears the lists. We are all treated the same, so many women, a collective. Yet when they select we are individuals, one number means nothing, another death.
Hani and Bunny have sewn all my letters into Wanda’s spare uniform. They did this as a gift to me and I am never more relieved that I write to you in French and German so they do not know what I have written. But they are hidden in a dress now, where once they were stuffed under the mattress. Hani and I share the spare dress, for it keeps away the cold.
The weather has turned.
A knock disturbs Miriam and she opens the door, hoping to see Eva. The intercom buzzes. Momentarily distracted by the noise she glances to the phone. A foot blocks the opening and a push from the other side pulls the chain to its maximum with a ‘ching’. Miriam pushes against the door, but it won’t close. She takes a few steps back and watches the chain, so bright and new, as it grips to the door. A foot leaves the gap and she moves forward to try and shut it.
The chain slackens and the door bursts open with force as Axel propels himself into the flat. She’s off-balance and falls back against the wall. His smell washes over her in waves and she breathes through her mouth, trying not to taste his warmth. He closes and then bolts the door. The carpet thick under her feet she steps back, her toes sinking into the thick pile trying to find some leverage, something that will keep her rooted to the spot.
‘Divorce?’ he laughs. ‘You want a divorce?’
She knows fighting makes things worse. She knows he loves it when she says no, when she fights, but she cannot just roll over. Those days are gone, she hopes. Her body starts quivering like a drop of water poised to fall.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I am divorcing you.’
‘Oh, no Mim, you are going into the hospital.’ He moves closer to her, but she stands upright, as tall as it is possible for her to be.
‘As soon as I can get you there. I chose you, of all the women that were available to me, I chose you. You belong to me. See this?’ He lifts his hand and the movement makes her flinch back as if hit. His wedding ring, gold and worn, catches her eye. ‘This means you are mine.’
‘No, Axel. I’m not.’ And she takes a step towards him to try to make him move out of her way, but he remains static and she has just walked closer to him. She doesn’t move and neither does he. He has a smile on his lips. A smile that doesn’t touch his eyes, a smile that is as dangerous as a threat.
‘Please leave,’ she says. He lowers his head, then bends his face into her neck, he breathes into her ear, long and slow, like a whisper, a promise. She tries not to flinch.
‘Leave,’ she says again, but the quiver in her body shakes her voice too.
‘No,’ is all he says. ‘You can leave, of course, I won’t stop you.’ Then he bites her earlobe hard, she jumps as if electricity runs through her veins and he laughs. ‘But where would you go? You have no one now.’
And the truth of the statement hurts Miriam more than she thought it could. ‘The fun I’m going to have with you before you get shipped off.’
‘I’m not going anywhere, the doctors . . .’
‘Will be lining up to sign the forms themselves.’
‘I’m not mad.’
‘Not yet, but see these?’ He holds
a bag with a few jars of something in his hand, it wobbles around so she cannot get a good look at it. ‘You’ll be in such a comatose state, not one doctor in the country will disagree with me.’
‘What is that?’
‘Your father’s medications, from the hospice,’ he says with pride.
‘You want to drug me?’
‘As if this is a new thing to you?’
She waits, hoping she’ll comprehend what he is saying soon.
‘I wasn’t ill in the first place, was I? Why? What did I do?’ she says.
‘I did what any loving husband would do,’ he says with such loathing she recoils. ‘Come on, Mim.’ He nudges her shoulder. ‘Fight me.’ She stands still and looks at the skirting board in the kitchen, focusing on the dust that has accumulated on it. ‘Come on, you whore, you want it, that’s what it is, right? Let’s play, just like we did before you left.’ She shudders, ‘Ah, you liked that, right?’ He gently guides her into the lounge.
‘Leave,’ she repeats.
‘Look.’ He reaches into his pocket and pulls out some polaroid photos.
She looks away.
‘This is my favourite one, do you want to see?’ He moves her head, holding her by the chin. ‘Look at you beg for me.’
She can see the image of herself and she tastes bile in her mouth. She turns her gaze away as he examines her in the flesh against the picture. ‘Hmm, things seem to have changed a bit.’
He takes a step away and puts the picture back in his pocket. Placing his jars of drugs on the table he pulls out a dining-room chair and sits on it backwards. Resting his arms over the back.
‘Wife,’ he says quietly, then gets up and moves the chair around. ‘You look so very sad, come to me and tell me what’s wrong.’
She doesn’t move.
‘Now.’ He shoots spittle and words together and without wanting to step forward, she does.
‘Sorry, Mim, you have to know how hard this has been for me, with you so unwell and me alone, day and night. Well, you know what I get like. It has really been the lowest ebb for me without you. Do you forget so easily?’ His face softens and he rests his head on his arms.
She considers his face, like looking at oneself in the mirror: at a glance the reflection holds familiarity, but the closer she gets, the more she can see the changes, until he becomes a blur.
Abstract shapes of light and dark.
When she refocuses on him, his eyes are almost kind, open and damp at the edges. But it is an illusion, this kindness, caught like a freeze-frame in a flash of lightning, and in its wake, the thunder.
‘Forget who was there with Michael.’
At his name, she stops. Stops thinking entirely, blank.
‘You forget who cared for you, who brushed your hair for you, who dressed you, who stopped the “counsellors” from sinking their teeth into you. You forget so much. You forget him too, do you?’
She shakes her head, no. No, she doesn’t forget him at all. Axel takes her hand in his, it’s clammy and warm and he pulls her into him. He tries to get her to sit on his lap, but she pulls back so he leaves her to stand.
‘You remember his face? What we called him? You remember?’
He gives her a few minutes, and she loses herself in the memories of her son. The day she buried him. His tiny body.
He lets go of her hand and claps his together. ‘I have a proposition.’
Miriam is reeling at the change of tempo and cannot comprehend where his bright spirit came from, how he changes so fast.
‘I will sign your divorce papers now.’ He lifts the envelope she hadn’t seen in his hand and takes out the papers. ‘But you must sign yourself into the hospital, voluntarily. What do you say? That way you get treatment and I know you are safe. Compromise? That’s how all the best marriages work, right?’ He finds the right page, his pen poised. She watches him, about to give her freedom, and she cannot want him to sign it more. Please, she thinks, just sign.
‘So.’ He is quieter now. ‘What do you say?’
She goes to say something, although she’s unsure what it will be, and when she opens her mouth to speak, ‘Why?’ is all that comes out.
‘Well, let me tell you a little secret.’ He pulls on her arm again, but she withstands it. ‘Fine,’ he says as she won’t move closer. ‘I am getting tired of the caring husband ditty, think I’d do better as the husband to the mad woman in the asylum. It’s worked out all right for a lot of people before now.’
‘You are mad,’ she says so quietly it is almost to herself.
‘I could always be the grieving widower.’ He tilts his head to the side. ‘That might suit me pretty well too.’
And then, suddenly, as Miriam is trying to understand what he is saying, her heart and mind are drawn way too far into the past, to the smell of rain on fresh earth.
He continues at a completely different tempo again, enough to give her whiplash.
‘You know when I first met you I was mesmerised. Mesmerised.’
She sways and he grabs her hand, and this time the pull brings her into his lap.
‘What do you see when you look in the mirror now?’ he asks.
‘I don’t look in the mirror,’ she says honestly.
‘Why?’
‘Because I hear your voice, I hear your words.’
‘And what do I say?’
‘You say . . .’ She doesn’t need to hear the words, she knows them, she feels them. She cannot get away from the sound of rain on the umbrella and she feels completely disorientated. ‘Michael,’ she whispers.
He speaks clearly and firmly. Monotonous. ‘No, I do not say Michael, my love. You have faded away again.’ Then softly, ‘Yet I love you anyway. Can you remember how you had such bright, black hair, so long and dark? How I used to wrap my hands in it?’
She remembers the pull on her hair and on her neck.
‘It’s falling out now, Mim. You have less hair than your dad.’
And it’s true, she puts her hand to her head.
‘Do you hear anything else when you look in the mirror, any other voices?’
She shakes her head, stands and turns her back to him.
‘Turn around, my love, let me look at you.’
She does.
‘When I met you, you were perfectly slight and immaculate. Beautiful. Take off your top,’ he demands and his shift in tone has her trying hard to focus on what he is saying.
She is still under an umbrella, the rain hammering on its fabric, the white casket being placed into cold, wet, soggy earth. She cannot free herself from the image. She tries to remain with Axel.
‘You still there? Seeing him, how blue he was. They say new babies are pink, but I just can’t see it; he was almost purple, wasn’t he?’ He comes over to her and unbuttons her blouse.
‘He had eyelashes,’ she says quietly, ‘and fingernails.’ He had slipped from her body; she had never heard his heart beat.
‘It’s a shame you couldn’t have kept him longer. You know, to “term”. I think that’s what they mean when they talk about guilt.’ And he pulls her blouse over her shoulders and down her arms, the fabric feels like ice cubes and her skin goose-pimples at its touch.
‘You liked my little present, then?’ he asks, lifting her arm in his and examining the large plaster.
He kisses her on the cheek. ‘I am pleased,’ he says, dangerously quiet. He has a slight stubble, but it doesn’t scratch, or she cannot feel it if it does. Then he steps away and says louder and buoyant, ‘At least we knew I worked.’ She’s heard that before and covers her breasts with her arm. ‘But you. You couldn’t keep him, could you?’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, Axel.’
‘I know you are.’
Her tears don’t fall, the sorrow is too deep. With dry eyes her tears fall from her heart.
32
MIRIAM
Axel walks away from her, leaving her adrift like a buoy without an anchor.
She l
ooks down at her half-nakedness. And places her hands on her stomach, the way she did when she was growing a child. The way she did when it was empty again, and her hands were full of grief that her arms were not heavy.
She remains standing as she hears him bashing around. Waiting for his return with acceptance, he’ll tell her what to do, she’ll do it and then he’ll leave.
When he returns, he sits in front of her and eats nuts, he offers the bowl out to her, she declines. And bends to collect her blouse.
‘Just remember, Miriam . . .’ He picks up the pen and takes it over to the papers hovering over what Miriam can see is a dotted line.
She can endure this, she thinks, for freedom. She thinks of Eugenia and Wanda, both in agony, carrying Bunny on a chair, the guards watching and laughing. They did it one step at a time, she can do this. Just let him do what he wants, then it’ll be over, then he will leave. He folds the paper up and places it with the pen in his breast pocket.
‘You used to be so beautiful. But now look.’ He points to his lap. ‘I can’t seem to get it up for you, keep it up, I’m not sure what you’ve done. I’d never hurt you, old girl, you know that, right?’ She nods. ‘But at the hospital, well, it’s the only way, you see.’
She doesn’t see.
‘I’m sorry, love. Miriam!’ he shouts and she flicks back to him. ‘Sorry it has to come to this.’ He takes an envelope out of his trouser pocket.
‘Turn around,’ he says.
‘Axel . . .’
‘On your knees. Lie down.’
She does.
She hears a zip undoing, his belt unbuckling, she waits for him.
Just as she always has. Just as she always will.
The night she left him, he had made her pay for asking to go to her father. After getting the call that he was in hospital.
Axel had made her beg and he took another polaroid, another damn picture to prove to her she was weak and disgusting and a whore. Begging him just so it would be over.
She knew it was the end, that moment of knowing, it would end. He would kill her, and if he didn’t she would do it herself.
