A Small Person Far Away

by Judith Kerr

  “Seven years,” said Mama.

  “There you are. And this affair, whatever it was, meant nothing to him. He’s said so. And when people have had as good and as long a relationship as you two, you can survive a lot more troubles than that.”

  “We did have a good relationship,” said Mama. “We made a good team. Everybody said so.”

  “There you are, then.”

  “Did you know that we were runners-up in the bridge tournament? With lots of American and English couples competing, all very practised players. And we should really have tied with the couple who won, only there was a stupid rule—”

  “You’ve always been terribly good together.”

  “Yes,” said Mama. “For seven years.” She looked at Max. “How could he smash it all up? How could he?”

  “I think it was something that just happened.”

  But she was not listening. “The holidays we had together,” she said. “When we first got the car and went to Italy. He drove and I map read. And we found this lovely little place by the sea – I sent you photographs, didn’t I? We were so happy. And it wasn’t just me, it was him, at least as much. He told me so. He said, ‘Never in all my life have I been as happy as I am now.’ His wife was very dull, you see. They never did anything or went anywhere. All she ever wanted to do was to buy more furniture.”

  Max nodded, and Mama’s blue eyes, fixed on some distant memory, suddenly returned to him.

  “This girl,” she said. “The one he had an affair with. Did you know she was German?”

  “No,” said Max.

  “Well, she is. A little German secretary. Very little education, speaks very bad English, and she’s not even pretty. Only—” Mama’s eyes became wet again – “only younger.”

  “Oh, Mama, I’m sure that’s nothing to do with it.”

  “Well, what else is it to do with, then? It must have been something. You don’t smash up seven years of happiness just for no reason!”

  Max took her hand. “Look, Mama, there was no reason. It was just something that happened. It was never important to him, except for the way you reacted. Anyway, he’s been here. Didn’t he tell you so himself?”

  “Yes,” said Mama in a small voice. “But how do I know it’s true?”

  “I think it’s true,” said Anna. “I’ve been with him for two days, and I think it’s true.”

  Mama glanced at her briefly and then looked back at Max.

  “I think so too,” said Max. “And I’ll be seeing him tonight. I’ll talk to him and find out what he really thinks, and I promise I’ll tell you exactly what he said. But I’m sure it’ll be all right.”

  Mama, her eyes finally brimming over, sank back into the pillows.

  “Oh, Max,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Later, in the car, Anna stared out at the rubble and the half-made new buildings flying past in the light of the street lamps and wondered how it was all going to end. Konrad was driving, carefully and efficiently as usual, and she suddenly felt she had no idea what he was thinking. He seemed to be taking them on a tour of the city and, with Max on the front seat beside him, was pointing out various landmarks.

  “Kurfürsten Damm… Leibnitz Strasse… Gedächtnis Kirche… Potsdamer Platz…”

  She could see soldiers, some kind of a barrier and above it, carefully lit, a sign saying, “You are now leaving the American Sector”. It looked cold and dark. Some young people, gathered in a group, were flapping their arms and stamping their feet. Most of them were carrying placards and, as she watched, they suddenly moved closer to the barrier and all shouted together, “Russen raus! Russen raus! Russen raus!”

  Konrad caught her eyes in the driving mirror. “Supporters for Hungary,” he said. “I can’t see it having much effect, but it’s nice to see them try.”

  She nodded. “There are a lot of them in London, too.”

  The Potsdamer Platz faded behind them.

  “Do the Russians ever retaliate?” asked Max.

  “Not by shouting slogans. There are more effective ways, such as doubling the checks on the road in and out of Berlin. That means everything takes twice as long to get through.”

  The shouts of “Russen raus!” could still be faintly heard in the distance. A group of American soldiers marching in step, steel-helmeted and armed, flickered momentarily into vision, to disappear again into the darkness.

  “Doesn’t it ever bother you, being surrounded like this? I mean,” said Anna, “suppose the Russians attacked?” She tried to sound detached, without success.

  Max grinned at her over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, little man. I promise they won’t get you.”

  “If the Russians attacked,” said Konrad, “they could take Berlin in ten minutes. Everyone who lives here knows this. The reason they don’t attack is because they know that if they did, they would find themselves at war with the Americans.”

  “I see.”

  “And even to get you, little man,” said Max, “they won’t risk starting a third world war.”

  She laughed half-heartedly. It was cold in the back of the car and as Konrad turned a corner, she suddenly felt queasy. Not again! she thought.

  Konrad was watching her in the driving mirror.

  “Supper,” he said. “About three streets from here. I’ve booked at a restaurant you’ve been to before – I hope you don’t mind, but you enjoyed it last time.”

  It turned out to be the place where they had celebrated her and Richard’s decision to get married, and as soon as she recognized it – the warm, smoky atmosphere, the tables covered with red cloths and separated from each other by high-backed wooden benches – she felt better.

  “Etwas zu trinken?” asked the fat proprietress.

  (Last time, Mama having proudly told her what was being celebrated, she had given them schnapps on the house.)

  Konrad ordered whisky, and when she brought it she smiled and said in German, “A family reunion?”

  “You could call it that,” said Konrad and, ridiculous though it was, that was exactly what it felt like.

  Konrad sat between them and, like a fond and generous uncle, helped them choose their food from the menu, consulted Max about the wine, worried about their comfort and refilled their glasses. Meanwhile he talked about impersonal subjects – the dubious Russian promise to leave Hungary if the Hungarians laid down their arms, the trouble in Suez, where the Israelis had finally attacked Egypt. (“I hope Wendy won’t be too worried,” said Max. “After all, Greece isn’t very far away.”) Then, when they had finished the main course, Konrad sat back as far as it was possible for such a large man to sit back on a narrow wooden bench, and turned to Max.

  “Your sister will have given you some idea of what has been happening,” he said. “But I expect you’d like to know exactly.”

  “Yes,” said Max. “I would.”

  “Of course.” He placed his knife and fork neatly side by side on his plate. “I don’t know if your mother happened to mention it in her letters, but she recently went to Hanover for a few days. It was a special assignment and rather a compliment to her. While she was away I – became involved with someone else.”

  They both looked at him. There seemed nothing suitable to say.

  “This – temporary involvement was not serious. It is now over and done with. I told your mother about it, so that she should not hear about it from anyone else. I thought she would be mature enough to see it in its proper perspective…”

  (Hold on, thought Anna. Up to now she had been with him, but if he really believed that… How could he possibly believe that Mama would take it calmly?)

  “… After all, we’re neither of us children.”

  She looked at him. His kind, middle-aged face had a curious closed expression. Like a small boy, she thought, insisting that taking the watch to pieces could not possibly have damaged it.

  “But, Konrad—”

  He lost some of his detachment. “Well, she should
have understood. It was nothing. I told her it was nothing. Look, your mother is an intelligent, vital woman. She has an enormous enjoyment of life, and that’s something she’s taught me, too, during the past years. All the things we’ve done together – the friendships, the holidays, even some of the jobs I’ve held – I would never have done without her. Whereas this other girl – she’s a little secretary. She’s never been anywhere, never done anything, lives at home with her mother, does the cooking and the mending, hardly speaks…”

  “Then – why?” asked Max.

  “I don’t know.” He frowned, puzzling it out. “I suppose,” he said at last, “I suppose it made a little rest.”

  It sounded so funny that she found herself laughing. She caught Max’s eye, and he was laughing too. It was not just the way Konrad had said it, but that they both knew what he meant.

  There was an intensity about Mama which was exhausting. You could never for a moment forget her presence, even when she was content. “Isn’t it lovely!” she would say, daring you to disagree. “Don’t you think this is the most beautiful day?” Or place, or meal, or whatever else it was that had made her happy. She would pursue what she believed to be perfection with ruthless energy, battling for the best place on the beach, the right job, an extra day’s leave, with a determination which most people could not be bothered to resist.

  “It’s not your mother’s fault,” said Konrad. “It’s the way she is.” He smiled a little. “Immer mit dem Kopf durch die Wand.”

  “That’s what Papa used to say about her,” said Anna.

  She had tried to translate the expression for Richard. It meant not just banging your head against brick walls, but actually bursting through them head first, as a matter of habit.

  “Did he really?” said Konrad. “She never told me that. But of course she used to do it to very good purpose. Getting you both educated when there was no money. Getting a job without qualifications. I don’t suppose that, without her habit of bursting through brick walls, either of you would have come through the emigration as well as you did.”

  “Well, of course.” They both knew it and felt it did not need pointing out.

  There was a little pause. “But this other girl – the secretary,” said Max at last. “What does she feel about it all? Does she think it’s over?”

  Konrad had his closed, little-boy expression again. “I’ve told her,” he said. “I’ve made quite sure she understands.”

  Suddenly, out of the smoke and the muddle of German voices, the proprietress bore down on them with coffee and three small glasses.

  “A little schnapps,” she said, “for the family reunion.”

  They thanked her, and Konrad made a joke about the burdens of a family man. She burst into laughter and drifted back into the smoke. He turned again to Max.

  “And now?” said Max. “What will happen now?”

  “Now?” The little-boy look had disappeared and Konrad looked suddenly what he was – a rather plain, elderly Jew who had seen a lot of trouble. “Now we pick up the pieces and put them together again.” He raised the little glass and put it to his lips. “To the family reunion,” he said.

  Afterwards Anna remembered the rest of the evening like a kind of party. She felt happily confused as though she were drunk, not so much with schnapps as with the knowledge that everything was going to be all right. Mama would get over her unhappiness. Konrad would see to it, as he had always seen to everything. And between them they had all – and especially Anna – saved Mama from dying stupidly, unnecessarily, and in a state of despair for which it would be difficult to forgive oneself.

  Max and Konrad, too, seemed in a much more relaxed state. They swapped legal anecdotes without any of the awkwardness that normally came between them, and once, when Anna returned from the Ladies (a very functional place almost entirely filled by one large woman adjusting a hard felt hat over her iron grey hair) she found them roaring with laughter together like old friends.

  The mood only began to fade while Konrad drove them home. Perhaps it was the cold, and the sight of the half-built streets with their patrolling soldiers. Or, more likely, thought Anna, it was the realisation that it was nearly midnight and too late for her to ring Richard. Whatever it was, she found herself unexpectedly homesick and depressed, and she was horrified when, at the door of the hotel, Konrad suddenly said, “I’m so glad you’ll be able to stay on for a while in Berlin. It will make all the difference.”

  She was too taken aback to say anything in reply, and it was only after he had gone that she turned angrily to Max. “Did you tell Konrad that I was going to stay on?” she asked.

  They were in the little breakfast room which also served as reception area, and a sleepy adolescent girl, no doubt a relation of the owner, was preparing to hand them their keys.

  “I don’t know – I may have done,” said Max. “Anyway, I thought you said you were going to.”

  “I only said I might.” She felt suddenly panicked. “I never said definitely. I said I wanted first to talk to Richard.”

  “Well, there’s nothing to stop you explaining that to Konrad. I don’t see why you should be in such a state about it.” Max, too, was clearly suffering from reaction, and they stood glaring at each other by the desk.

  “Rooms 5 and 6,” said the girl, pushing the keys and a piece of paper across to them. “And a telephone message for the lady.”

  It was from Richard, of course. He had rung up and missed her. The paper contained only his name, grotesquely misspelt. He had not even been able to leave a message, because no one in the hotel spoke English.

  “Oh damn, oh damn, oh damn!” she shouted.

  “For God’s sake,” said Max. “He’s bound to ring again tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow night I’m going to a bloody party,” she shouted. “Konrad arranged that. Everybody here seems to decide exactly what I should be doing at any given time. Perhaps just once in a while I might be consulted. Perhaps next time you make long-term arrangements for me, you might just ask me first.”

  Max looked confounded. “What party?” he said.

  “Oh, what does it matter what party? Some awful British Council thing.”

  “Look.” He spoke very calmly. “You’ve got this whole thing out of proportion. If you like, I’ll explain it to Konrad myself. There simply isn’t any problem.”

  But of course it was not true. It would be much more difficult to tell Konrad that she was not staying, now he believed that she was.

  Alone in bed, she thought of London and of Richard, and found to her horror that she could not clearly visualize his face. Her insides contracted. The familiar nausea swept over her, and for a long time she lay under the great quilt in the darkness and listened to the trains rumble along distant tracks. At last she could stand it no longer: she got up, dug in her suitcase for a clean handkerchief, climbed back into bed and spread it on her stomach.

  Wednesday

  Max could not have slept well either, and they were both bad-tempered at breakfast. They had to wait for their coffee, for the little breakfast room was filled with six or seven guests who must have arrived on the previous day, and even with the help of the adolescent girl, the proprietress was too disorganized to serve them properly.

  “When do you expect to leave then?” Anna asked Max coldly.

  He made an impatient gesture. “I don’t know. But I’ve got to get back to Greece soon. For God’s sake,” he said, “nobody there speaks a word of English, Wendy doesn’t speak a word of Greek, and she’s got a ten-month-old baby.”

  She said nothing for a moment. Then resentment rose up irresistibly inside her and she said, “It’s just that I don’t see why it should always be me who has to cope.”

  “It isn’t always you.” He was trying to attract the proprietress’s attention, without success. “You know perfectly well that even during the war when I was flying, and later when I was working my guts out in Cambridge, I always came home. I came whenever ther
e was a crisis, and I came whenever I could, apart from that, just to lend moral support.”

  “You came,” she said. “But you didn’t stay.”

  “Well, of course I didn’t stay. I was supposed to be flying a bloody aeroplane. I was supposed to be getting a First in law and make a career and be a prop to the family.”

  “Oh, I know, I know.” She felt suddenly tired of the argument. “It’s just – you can’t imagine what it was like being there all the time. The hopelessness of doing anything for Papa, and Mama’s depressions. Even then, you know, she was always talking about suicide.”

  “But she didn’t actually do anything, did she?” said Max. “I mean, this is a bit different.”

  She had a sudden vision of Mama in her blue hat, her face wet with tears, saying, “I couldn’t go on. I just couldn’t go on.” In a street somewhere – Putney, she supposed. Why did she keep remembering it? And was it something that had really happened or something she had imagined?

  “Anyway,” said Max, “if you really want to go back to London, you’ll just have to go. Though I wouldn’t have thought a few days would have mattered either way.”

  “Oh, let’s wait and see,” she said wearily. “Let’s see how Mama is this morning.”

  Max had finally managed to catch the proprietress’s eye, and she hurried resentfully over to their table.

  “All right, all right,” she said. “You’re not at war here, you know.”

  While he ordered the coffee and rolls, Anna made a mental note of the expression – a bit of Berlin dialect which even Heimpi had never used. A German at the next table tittered at the sound of it. Then he smiled at Anna and pointed to his newspaper. “Rule Britannia, eh?” he said. She looked at the front page and read the headline: Englischer Angriff in Suez.

  “For God’s sake, Max,” she said. “Look at that. We’re at war.”

  “What?”

  “Bitte, bitte,” said the German and handed the paper over to them.

  It was true. British paratroopers were supporting the Israelis in Egypt. There was not much beyond the headline – clearly few details were known as yet – but a longer article speculated on the effect this new development might have on the Hungarian situation. A headline almost as big as the one about Suez said, “Russians offer to withdraw troops from Hungary, Romania and Poland”.