by Deborah Levy
I turned to Walter. ‘How is your sister?’
It was the second question I had been most nervous of asking my East German lover. I still did not know if Luna had told her brother about our night together in the dacha.
Walter looked into Karl Thomas’s eyes as he fed him. He was smiling as the baby gulped down the milk. It was Helga who answered my question.
‘We don’t know whether Luna is alive or dead.’
She lifted Hannah on to her lap and started to draw a cat with a green crayon.
‘What happened to Luna?’
‘She escaped one month before they opened the border.’
Their eyes were on me. Six pairs of eyes. My breath was bitter from too much coffee.
‘But hasn’t she contacted you?’
‘We haven’t heard from her.’
Helga was now drawing whiskers on the cat. Hannah, who had an orange crayon in her hand, added a long curved tail. The beers and hot chocolate had arrived.
‘Walter, I need to speak to you alone.’
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but I was looking forward to my beer.’
He passed the baby to Helga, which meant Hannah had to get off her lap. When she started to wail, I pushed him away from his wife and his beer and his children.
We sat on the steps of Café Einstein in the snow. He offered me a cigarette but I had something to say to him before I could smoke. I lit his cigarette with my Zippo.
‘I am very sorry, Walter, for being so foolish with Rainer.’
‘Yes, it was careless,’ Walter replied.
My newly shaved face was burning up. It was like fire in the snow.
‘I have done things that I regret too,’ he said.
‘What sort of things?’
He stared at the glowing tip of his new brand of cigarette and did not reply.
‘Walter, we must find Luna. Do you think she made it to the West?’
‘For now, we have to live without knowing.’
‘That must be very hard.’
‘Yes. Hardest for my mother.’
He glanced at my blushing face.
‘She would have left anyway. Without your intervention. Rainer already knew she wanted to leave.’
We smoked and stared at the snow.
‘She will be in Liverpool,’ I declaimed with great certainty. ‘I believe she is there because the wish in her was so fierce.’
Walter’s spectacles were now covered in snow crystals.
‘There is one very good reason for her to be in touch,’ he said.
‘What is that?’
‘Karl Thomas.’
He told me that Karl Thomas was Luna’s son. When he was four months old she left him with their mother for the day and she never returned.
Luna is short for lunatic, I thought, but did not say that out loud. What sort of woman betrays her son like that? He would miss her every day, see her everywhere, wonder what he did wrong to make his mother disappear, ask himself if it was his fault, did she not like him enough to stay around? I was furious with Luna so I asked about Rainer.
‘No one knows what happened to Rainer, either. He was the person with knowledge and contacts for those who wished to leave the republic. But that October he disappeared alongside Luna.’
I could feel the blush spreading over my chest and up my neck.
Walter noticed and he laughed.
‘I never told you about my wife and daughter.’ He squeezed his eyes against the falling snow.
‘That’s all right with me. You had to make your own arrangements.’
This time I accepted a cigarette.
‘Walter, I am a father too. I have a son.’
He looked startled, truly amazed. He lifted his right hand, combed it through his hair and then stamped the snow off his boots.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Isaac.’
‘And where is he now?’
‘In America with his mother.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this first? Before anything else?’
‘I am separated from his mother. She left with our son.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He thumped his hand on my thigh.
I suddenly realized I was ravenous. I had not eaten breakfast or lunch. I felt light-headed and hot and cold in the snow.
‘Walter, you are free to travel now. Maybe in August you can join me in the cottage I have bought in Suffolk. Why not make your honey farm in my garden? I am lonely and you are lonely.’
Walter laughed again. It was as if he had become the old Walter in the old Germany. This encouraged me to say more about the kind of life we might live together, which I did, in some detail.
He lightly draped his arm around my shoulders.
‘Where are my children when I stay with you in this Suffolk place in August?’
‘They are with Helga.’
‘Helga is an engineer. She earns the money for our family.’
‘I will pay for your travel,’ I insisted.
‘Will Isaac be with you in this house in Suffolk?’
I explained that he lived with Jennifer in America and that I would see him in the summer holidays.
‘But August is the summer holidays. You would be better off making a honey farm with your son.’
He jumped up from the steps with something of his old energy. He seemed anxious to return to his beer. I followed him. Helga had finished her beer and was halfway through mine. Hannah was now playing with six red buttons threaded with string. Karl Thomas was sleeping on Helga’s lap. Someone thumped my shoulder. It was the waiter bringing me the bill. As the family put on their coats and hats and gloves, Helga prodded my arm.
‘If you want, you can give us some money to help with Karl Thomas.’
She glanced at my blue linen shirt and when I did not reply she did this strange thing with her arms. She put both hands behind her back, palms together like a prayer, her fingers pointing towards the chandelier.
‘It’s my new yoga position,’ she said.
Walter looked embarrassed as he zipped up Hannah’s coat. It was hard to believe he was the man who had kissed me in the forest as we crouched under the branches of a tree, or the man who had got me drunk on schnapps and then cooked supper, naked, laughing and flirtatious.
‘Hey, Saul, this is for you.’ He pressed a brown envelope into my hand. ‘I found it in my mother’s apartment.’
It was addressed to me in Jennifer’s handwriting and still had the English stamps lined up on the top-right corner. They left together, Helga empty-handed, whatever the position of her hands. In a way it was a relief to be alone again.
I sat down at the table with its three empty chairs and opened the envelope. Inside it was the photograph I had given Luna of myself in a white suit crossing Abbey Road in 1988. It had been savagely ripped into two pieces. I understood that it was Luna’s revenge for smashing her precious Abbey Road album under my boots. In a way it was fair enough but it was a shock to see myself in pieces. My cheeks were still tender from the Turkish barber’s sharp blade.
As I put the pieces of the photograph back in the envelope, I realized something else was inside it. One sheet of thin paper folded in half. The paper was covered with typewritten words, some of them crossed out. At first glance it seemed to be an interview between Walter and someone else. The subject of the conversation was the letter I had written to him in East Germany, declaring my love for him.
Please, Herr Müller, we want to know more about your English friend, Saul Adler. Will you help us?
Yes.
What is the meaning of this line here? In this letter he has written to you.
The words mean to put the palm of his hand or his fingertips on the stomach of his correspondent to better understand how he is feeling.
And what is the feeling?
Friendship.
Why would a man place his hand on the stomach of another man to better understand a feeling?
You will have to interrogate the hand
.
Did you have sexual relations with your English friend Saul Adler?
If you are asking me if I have plans to leave the East and live elsewhere, I have no plans to leave.
What is the meaning of this sentence here referring to the Baltic Sea in winter?
The words mean the correspondent wishes to see the Baltic Sea in winter.
And is the Baltic Sea a code for something else in this context?
You will have to interrogate the Baltic Sea.
No, we will interrogate your sister instead. We believe she is pregnant with Herr Adler’s child. Is this your understanding, too?
You will have to interrogate his penis.
I sat alone with the white linen tablecloths and silver cutlery, watching the Berlin snow fall outside the window. More than anything, I wanted to leave earth and join the astronaut on his mission to walk across the surface of the moon.
Older Jennifer was at my side as she had promised she would be.
‘So what did you do next?’
‘I left Café Einstein and bought a kebab.’
16
That night a warm wind lifted the blossom off the cherry tree in Massachusetts and blew it into Abbey Road, London.
I heard Luna singing ‘Penny Lane’ in the pink rain.
17
A shabby plain woman sat on the chair beside my bed in my new private hospital room. She was eating a cherry-flavoured yogurt from a plastic pot.
‘Hello, Helga,’ I said. ‘Did you enjoy your yoga class in Berlin?’
‘I’m not Helga, I’m Tessa,’ she replied. ‘Your sister-in-law. Matt’s wife.’
‘No, you are Walter’s fake wife.’
‘No. I’m your brother’s real wife.’
‘Oh, it’s all coming back to me.’ I waved my hands as if somehow this gesture would magic her out of my world, but she didn’t budge.
‘I had to travel here from Birmingham New Street, where I’ve been teaching today.’
‘I’m pleased you can travel freely now, Helga.’
‘I’m Tessa. And the trains are not free. I teach children with special needs.’
‘That will be all of us, with special needs,’ I said.
‘In a way it is, yes.’
She unzipped an ugly grey rucksack and took out an orange.
‘Is it from Cuba?’
‘Is what from Cuba?’
‘Your orange.’
‘I think it’s from Valencia.’ She pointed to a little sticker on the peel of the orange.
‘Did you have to queue for a long time to buy it?’
‘No. About two people in front of me.’
‘You must have bought it from the Intershop,’ I said, smiling. ‘I suppose you used the West German marks I gave Walter.’
‘I bought it from Tesco.’
‘What a treat.’
‘I eat oranges all the time.’ She started to peel the orange. Her nails were bitten down and it took some time for her to get a grip on the peel.
‘Oh, I forgot,’ I said. ‘The Wall is down. The border is open.’
She was wearing flesh-coloured tights and flat brown shoes made from faux leather. Her legs were crossed. The scuffed shoes, which resembled ballet shoes, were slipping off her feet.
‘It must be hard,’ I said kindly, ‘to blend in with the more prosperous West Germans.’
‘You’re upsetting your brother and father,’ she said.
‘Yes, I’ve been upsetting them for ever.’
‘They’ve been told to stay away by the hospital staff, as if they’re vermin.’
‘Is that why you’re here to bother me, Tessa?’
‘Well, at least you’ve got my name right.’ She pushed a segment of orange into her mouth. Juice dripped down her chin. Two of her back teeth were missing.
‘Look,’ I said from my place propped up with pillows, ‘I don’t want to see you either. Please remove your yogurt pot from my table. Go away. Leave me to my sepsis and morphine and sunflowers.’
She leaned forward so her face was close to my own.
‘You little shit. Do you know what your brother has been doing for you? He’s been sorting out your sick pay at the university. He’s been talking to your union people every day and he’s knackered enough already. Your bosses point out that you’re expensive to employ because of your age and you’re not in a fit state to work.’
I wondered where Rainer had got to. He would see Tessa off for me. Another doctor had been doing the rounds since I’d become stronger. Or perhaps since I’d become weaker. I hadn’t seen Rainer for a while.
‘I have a PhD on the psychology of male tyrants,’ I said, glancing at her through the golden petals of the sunflowers, ‘starting with Stalin’s father, Besarion Ivanes dze Jughashvili, also known as Beso. He was a shoemaker of some renown. Georgian footwear was his speciality, but, alas for him, the European style of shoe was becoming more fashionable at the time.’
Tessa took off her spectacles and slipped them into her rucksack.
‘Your brother is paying your bills.’
‘I still don’t want to see him.’
Tessa stood up. She looked tired and furious.
‘Do you have a message for Matthew?’
I touched my head and shut my eyes.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell him you said thank you.’
The sound of her worn-out shoes shuffling across the floor stayed with me for a long time. I had to get to another world. To Walter. To Luna, who tried to dance away her panic. To the phosphorescent woman and her cello. To the astronaut driving his Lunar Roving Vehicle across the surface of the moon.
When I opened my eyes in the dawn of the Euston Road, the first thing I saw was the plastic cherry yogurt that Tessa had left on my table. It was past its sell-by date and on special offer. Underneath the pot was a slip of paper terminating my employment at the university.
Rainer stood beside by bed.
‘Welcome back to Britain. Or are you still swimming in Erich Honecker’s lake?’
‘I’m definitely in Britain,’ I replied, though I could not feel my lips moving. ‘Is it true that I can go home next week, Rainer?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘The night-shift nurse.’
I leaned forward and plucked a petal from one of the sunflowers, rolling it between my fingers until it became yellow mush in my hands. Rainer looked startled but he did not contradict me. As he pressed his stethoscope against my heart, he began to fade and blur into East German Rainer.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s true that we have many enemies, such as the night-shift nurse, trying to perpetrate sabotage wherever they can.’ He definitely didn’t sound like himself, but as I hardly knew him, how would I know that? While he listened to my heart murmur and mope, I understood his ears were the listening device hidden inside and outside his head.
18
Jennifer asked if there was anything I wished for while I lay in my bed waiting for something to happen. I could hear the sound of water between us, still and sad, and I heard my breath and the click of one of my toes.
‘I’d like a bacon roll. And a bath. And to iron my shirts.’
She looked surprised. ‘I thought you were going to wish big things for the world.’
‘I want to walk again and meet my nephews and maybe see Jack. But Rainer says I’m going home in a week.’
When she did not reply I wondered if she was going to take out her sketchbook and tell me to visit Jack and my nephews and have a bath and iron my shirts so she could draw my visions with her pencil.
I felt her fingers somewhere on my face.
‘The air is very dry in here,’ she said, dabbing some sort of cream on my lips.
It was true they were blistered and sore.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘smudge them together. Like this.’
We were both looking into each other’s eyes as she leaned over me.
I would have preferred to iron my shi
rts in all the time zones I was living in than return to Jennifer and me swimming in that pond in Cape Cod after we had buried Isaac.
‘I know nothing about you, Jennifer. Nothing about your life after us.’
‘That’s true.’
I waited for her to speak her life to me. I waited for a long time.
‘Well, ask me some questions, then,’ she finally said.
I suppose I wanted to know who it was she said ‘darling’ and ‘sweetheart’ to on her phone, where she was living, how she was living. Yet I did not want to know, as well as wanting to. I could not break into her thoughts and feelings. Or my own. I could not break in.
‘Jennifer, am I still forbidden to describe your body?’
‘What else about me interests you?’
Her fingers had moved from my lips to somewhere under my right cheekbone. I shut my eyes. Her fingertips were gentle as she soothed the cream into my skin. But Jennifer had never been gentle. Not with me.
‘It’s like this, Saul Adler.’
‘It’s like what, Jennifer Moreau?’
‘It’s not as if it’s my life’s work to help you see me. I’ve got other things to do.’
‘Your favourite colour is yellow,’ I said with tremendous certainty.
I could hear her speaking in French to someone who was by her side. I had forgotten her father was French and that she spoke the language fluently. The person she was speaking to was not French, his accent was English. He sounded a bit like Jack. I wondered if they were speaking in French because they did not want me to understand what they were saying. But I did understand. Jennifer was explaining how she preferred travelling by train than on aeroplanes. It was easier to transport her cameras and other equipment. The person by her side asked her another question. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I miss my daughters. Especially when I make pancakes in winter.’
