by Adele Geras
Rowena stared down at the floor. She didn’t speak, not a word. She got up from the sofa and left the room. Eva was out of breath from the effort of saying so much. She should have paused; perhaps not told her yet, but there would have had to be a time, when what Antoine was and what that had meant for her would have to be explained. Never mind, she told herself. She’ll get over it. Perhaps she’ll even forgive me and understand one day how it was; that I wasn’t to blame for Antoine’s death.
Rowena woke up the next morning to all intents and purposes exactly as she always was: a bit distant to her mother, as though she were more interested in everything else, formally polite and quite pleasant for most of the time but not close. Never close.
17
‘Okay,’ said Tom. ‘This is what’s going to happen. I’ve cleared a space for you in my cupboard and chest-of-drawers so you can put your stuff there while you’re staying here. You can have my bedroom. The sofa converts into a bed, so I’ll stay there. After we’ve eaten, I’m going to pop over to Salix House. I’ve spoken to Mrs Fitzpatrick and she’ll have a suitcase ready for me with a few clothes, and your laptop. She sounded gutted, I must say. She said to tell you that you’ll be back there soon.’
Tom was being nice. He was always nice.
‘It’s really kind of you, Tom, but you must stay in your room. I’ll have the sofa.’
‘We’ll argue tomorrow. Tonight you’re having the big bed. You look knackered and you need a good night’s sleep more than I do. I’m not discussing it.’
I wanted to say: why can’t I go back to Salix House now? Why has she packed for me? What’s she told the girls? And what has Eva said to Rowena? What’ll I do if Eva still doesn’t want me there? Even if she does, do I want to go back? I’ve got to. I want to see the Nativity Play. I don’t want to leave the girls, not yet. The bottom line was I had no other work to go to and nowhere to live. My flat was sublet and if I wanted it back, I’d have to give notice to the agent. The idea of all that hassle made me dizzy. I said, ‘Thanks, Tom. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘No worries,’ Tom said and left me alone while he went into kitchen. ‘I’m making risotto. It’s very comforting food. It’s nearly ready.’
‘You’re being really nice to me. After this morning and everything.’
‘We’re friends, right?’ Tom said.
*
‘But why, Granny? Why did she have to go away, even for a few days?’ Dee was sitting on the end of Eva’s bed. Eva was already under the covers. If she’d been left to her own devices, she’d have buried her face in the pillow and kept it there, whether she fell asleep or not, but Dee had decided to knock on the door.
‘Aren’t you meant to be in bed by now, darling?’ said Eva. Usually, she loved these sessions when the girls came and sat with her and told her what was going on at school, chattering away and sometimes allowing her to read them a story or sing them a song. Once, sitting like that, she’d found herself singing in German, a song she hadn’t realized she’d remembered. The girls had been quick to remark on it.
‘I know songs in lots of different languages,’ Eva had said, quickly. ‘Would you like to hear one in French?’
The moment had passed and Eva never sang in German again, but for that short time, she’d been taken back to something she’d forgotten, seeing it as though it were a scene in a theatre, as though she were a spectator, high up above the stage: she and Angelika, tucked up in their beds, in the bedroom they shared. Mama was sitting on her bed and singing. Eva could hear the words. If she closed her eyes she could smell her mother’s fragrance; she couldn’t remember the name of it and anyway she’d never smelled it again, though in the old days she used to go round perfume departments sniffing at bottles in an effort to track it down.
‘I’m sure it’ll be all right in the end, darling,’ Eva said but Dee wasn’t satisfied with that.
‘It won’t be all right unless Megan comes back. Will you speak to her and make her come back? What if she misses the Nativity Play? I want her to come.’
Just at that moment, Rowena put her head round the door.
‘There you are, Dee. Come on. It’s very late.’
Dee jumped off the bed. ‘Who’s going to take us to school tomorrow?’ she asked her mother.
‘We’ll see,’ said Rowena. ‘Now say goodnight to Granny and come to your room. I’ve got a lot to do this evening.’
‘Goodnight, Granny. Please ring Megan up and tell her to come back.’
‘Goodnight, darling. Sleep well,’ Eva said.
Rowena and Dee left her door open on their way out. For a moment, Eva considered calling Rowena back to shut it, but she didn’t feel like shouting and in any case, they were probably in the girls’ bedroom by now. She got out of bed and went across the carpet in her bare feet to shut it herself, ashamed at feeling so annoyed about such a trivial thing. But I was warm and comfortable and now I’ve been disturbed, she thought, and for no reason she could understand, tears came to her eyes. There was a sour taste in her mouth and suddenly, everything she loved about her own room was somehow skewed, off-centre, as though something wasn’t right in her physical world. Her stomach felt as though she’d swallowed a stone: heavy and almost painful. Her throat was dry. Also, she kept on wanting to cry, blinking away tears from time to time. She looked at the bed and knew that if she got back into it, she would pull the duvet up round her head and start to wail like a child. I won’t do that, she told herself. If she stayed out of bed, if she remained upright, there would be less chance of letting everything go.
Megan. The thing with Megan had turned her upside down. Eva didn’t really know why she’d sent her away. She thought: I know I shouldn’t have done that to Megan but I can’t call it back now and I can’t confess to having been so stupid. Of course you can, said a voice in her head. Eva stood near her dressing table and wondered if she ought to do it now: go after Rowena. Say something like: ‘I’ve been a fool. It’s the stress of house moving,’ and all would be well. Rowena would ring Megan. Or she, Eva, could drive round to Tom’s flat and apologize to Megan, face to face. She sat down on the stool in front of the veiled mirror. I can’t, she thought. I can’t bear to have her here. Eva cast about for good reasons for why she should feel like this towards Megan and found none. Why had she shouted at her? Why had she banished from the house the one person who really seemed to understand her? It was almost as though she’d been infected with something, some illness, some madness. Am I going crazy? she wondered. It wasn’t impossible. Every day there was a story in the papers or on the radio about dementia in old people. Perhaps this was an unusual form of Alzheimer’s. If she wanted Megan gone, was it was because she was afraid of her? Afraid of something about her? Mad, mad thoughts you’re having, Eva told herself. You’re a stupid old woman and you’re going to pieces.
‘It’s worse to be the one that things are done to. Worse to be the victim,’ Megan had said and ever since she’d spoken them those words had been in Eva’s head, like the refrain of a song that wouldn’t leave you but twisted round and round till it almost drove you mad. Victim. The one things are done to. Worse to be the victim. Worse. Eva stared at her scarves, falling over the surface of the mirror. How could that be? Surely someone who acted badly, committed a crime, perpetrated an atrocity … surely they had to be the bad one? Victims are innocent. She was sitting at the dressing table in near darkness. The table lamp on her bedside table was the only light on in the room but that was turned in the direction of her pillow and away from where she was sitting. She twisted round to look at it and saw that part of her bed was illuminated, but most of the rest of what she could see was shadows and more shadows; she saw no colours anywhere, only black over every surface. Her own heartbeats … Eva could not only feel them but hear them too. Yes, she thought, it must be my heart, pounding like that in my ears. It occurred to Eva that perhaps she really was ill. I should get into bed, she told herself.
Instead, she
did something she’d never done before. With both hands, she gathered up the scarves that covered the mirror and pulled every one of them away. They fell to the floor and lay twisted there together like a coil of silk and chiffon snakes.
‘Angelika?’ Eva said, quietly, fearfully. In all the years since she’d first seen a girl’s wavering outline in the small mirror in Agnes Conway’s house, she’d been hiding from her sister. Until she’d spoken of Angelika to Megan, Eva had worked hard to wipe her mind clear of distressing memories, and almost everything she remembered about Angelika was worse than distressing.
But now, suddenly, out of the blackness that seemed to have spread from her surroundings and into her head, she wanted, needed to see her. Eva stared at the glass. That’s me, she thought. That old woman with white hair.
Her own face in the mirror swam in front of her as she stared, the outlines wavering, the features sliding about on the glass. She closed her eyes.
‘Please come, Angelika,’ she said and shivered as she heard her own voice sounding too loud even though she’d spoken almost in a whisper.
‘Guck ins Spiegel,’ a voice spoke somewhere in her head. Was that … could it be? Speaking in German. Asking her to look in the mirror …
‘Bist du, Angelika? Bist du wirklich? Sprichst du zu mir?’ Eva could scarcely form the unfamiliar German words, which seemed to stumble on her lips as she stared into the mirror, searching for her sister. Is that you, Angelika? Really you? Are you speaking to me? Oh, God, she thought. I can’t bear it. Is this how it will be now, with her voice in my head? Her words in German whispering in my ear? How will I stop her? I should have let her stay covered up for ever.
‘You can’t speak to me,’ Eva spoke in English. ‘Don’t say another word, Angelika. Don’t talk to me. I don’t want to hear you.’
The voice brought everything back. She gazed at her own face, as it faded and trembled and then disappeared from the glass entirely and Eva found herself once again pulled down into the dark surface of the mirror. She had moved from the self she was now to the small child she was then, four years old and on a train, the memories unspooling like a film before her eyes.
1938
They were speeding through the darkness. Eva knew where they were going. Mama had told them: ‘You’ll be safe in England and soon, soon, we’ll be there too. And meanwhile, Angelika, you must look after your little sister.’
‘But I’m not little. I can look after myself too! And Angelika. Why don’t I have to look after her?’
‘Because you’re four and I’m eight!’ Angelika sounded triumphant, gloating. She always had that note in her voice when she won a game, or got something for herself that Eva wanted. ‘You have to listen to me. Mama said so.’
Eva didn’t bother to argue. At first, as the train was leaving the station, she looked at Mama, waving from the platform. Then her figure grew smaller and smaller and after a few moments she wasn’t there any longer and all Eva could see if she looked out of the windows were the dark sides of houses and no people anywhere. No Mama. That was when Eva realized that they were really, properly on their own, she and Angelika, in a crowd of other children with strange grown-ups in charge of them. They wouldn’t be going home, but to England, a place that Eva didn’t know how to imagine. She started to cry, and Angelika was kind to her and gave her a hankie which she used to mop up her tears. Then she fell into a half-sleep, still in some way aware of the rhythm of the train wheels on the track, and the occasional screeching of the whistle.
They stopped somewhere in the middle of the night and the children were herded off the train and on to a platform.
‘They’re giving us something to eat and drink, look,’ said Angelika, and Eva saw a few women moving among the children, with trays of cocoa and slices of bread.
When they’d finished eating, Angelika took Eva by the hand.
‘Where are we going?’ Eva asked.
‘Not very far. I want to look at this train.’
Eva didn’t want to go, but she didn’t want to stay with the others if Angelika wasn’t going to be with her, so she followed her sister.
‘I’m scared, Angelika.’
‘Baby! It’s only a train.’
While Eva and Angelika were looking at the train (which seemed very boring to Eva) some men came up to them.
‘Are you girls looking for someone? Are you taking the train to Berlin? Where are your parents? ‘
‘No, we’re …’ Angelika started to answer, and then she grabbed Eva’s hand and they ran away to their own platform.
‘Were they bad men?’ Eva wanted to know.
‘No. I don’t know.’
‘If they aren’t bad, why did you run away?’
‘Doesn’t matter, does it? Come on, I want to explore a little.’
‘But what if our train goes?’ Eva looked to check it was still there where they’d left it. It was, and the other children were milling about. Some had found benches to sit on and were eating their rations and drinking their cups of cocoa very slowly.
‘Come over here,’ Angelika said, leading Eva into a dark, high-ceilinged place which was like nowhere Eva had ever been before. Wooden crates were piled up into a kind of mountain in the corner and were spread about everywhere: some quite small but some so big that she couldn’t see over them. The floor was grey and cold and hard.
‘I’m not going to England,’ Angelika said. ‘I don’t want to go and I’m not going.’
‘But we have to. Mama said. She’s coming to find us, she and Papa. She said so.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Angelika and then she smiled at Eva. ‘Let’s play hide-and-seek. Do you want to play? It’ll be good here. Look, there are lots and lots of places to hide.’
Angelika never wanted to play with her little sister. Eva was so excited at the invitation that she stopped thinking about what they’d just been talking about, stopped thinking about going home or going to England and said, ‘Yes! I want to play with you. Can I hide first?’
‘No, I’m hiding first. I’m hiding first or I’m not playing.’
‘All right. What must I do?’
‘Cover your eyes and count to one hundred. Close your eyes and then cover them with your hands. Do you understand?’
Eva nodded. Only when her eyes were closed and also hidden under her hands did she realize that she couldn’t count to one hundred. She could count to ten and knew some of the numbers up to twenty but not all. What should she do?
‘Angelika!’ she called but her sister was gone. Eva waited and waited for what felt to her like a long time – and then she opened her eyes again. Surely by now Angelika would have found a good hiding place? She hated it here. She was frightened and cold and wished more fervently than she’d ever wished for anything that Angelika would change her mind and come out from wherever she was and say: We’re going back on the train now. I’ve had enough of hiding. Eva was scared but also happy because, after all, Angelika had suggested a game. Angelika, who always told her to go away and play somewhere else, had asked her to join in.
When she came out from behind the wooden crate, Eva looked around and didn’t know where to begin. She was paralysed by a dread of what might be behind the crates, ready to jump out and get her. But Angelika might be behind them too, she told herself. I’ve got to go and find her and I don’t want to. I can’t. I can’t go in there. The impossibility of everything was too much for Eva and she began to cry and to shout out for her sister: ‘Angelika! Come out. I don’t want to play. Come out now. I’m scared.’
Eva called out over and over again and no one emerged from the darkness. Then a woman came running towards her.
‘What’s the matter, child? Who are you? What’s your name?’
‘I’m Eva Bergmann. It’s on my label. I’ve lost my sister. She’s Angelika Bergmann. We were playing—’
‘What have you done with your label? I can’t see any label.’
Eva looked down and the cardboard ticket w
ith her name on it had disappeared.
‘I don’t know where it is. My mama pinned it on … here. I can’t … I don’t …’
‘Well,’ said the woman, sighing with irritation, ‘come along now. Can’t be helped, though it is careless of you to lose it, you know.’
Eva felt more miserable than ever. She’d been so proud of the label. Mama had printed her name in black letters and when they’d left the house, she’d called her and Angelika ‘my pretty parcels’. She was posting them, she said, all the way to England and how could parcels get anywhere if they didn’t have a label attached to them? Would she now not be able to go to England on the train? Eva sobbed and kept on crying for Angelika, hoping that even now she’d come out from wherever she was, reveal herself and everything would go back to being like it was before they’d started playing.
