Cover Your Eyes

by Adele Geras

  ‘Stop that noise at once, child,’ said the woman, dragging Eva by the hand towards the platform. ‘Who is Angelika?’

  ‘My sister. She’s supposed …’ Words failed Eva and she stopped. Angelika was supposed to be looking after her. Mama had said so. Angelika had promised. ‘Oh, well,’ said the woman. ‘She’ll be on the train already. Come along. No time to waste. We’re off in a few minutes. I’m sure you’ll find her once we get on. Where else could she be?’

  Perhaps the lady was right. Eva believed that grown-ups were almost always right. Maybe Angelika was there, waiting on the train. As they walked along the corridor towards their carriage, Eva became more and more certain that yes, everything would be just as it should be, with everyone in their right place and ready for the rest of the journey.

  Angelika wasn’t in the carriage.

  ‘She’s not here, and this is her seat,’ Eva said.

  ‘Let’s wait for the train to start and then we’ll look in all the other carriages. She’s probably gone into one of the others. They’re very alike, aren’t they? You wait here till we leave the station and I’ll come back and find you and we’ll look together. Yes?’

  Eva nodded. How could she say no? She pushed her way to the open window and stared out at the black platform. And there, suddenly, was Angelika. She was standing quite close to the train, with her back to it. Eva recognized her brown coat, her plaited hair like two red-gold ropes hanging down, her velvet collar, her white socks and black shoes.

  ‘Angelika!’ she shrieked and her sister turned round. Eva couldn’t think of anything to say so she repeated the name. ‘Angelika!’

  ‘Stop shouting at me,’ Angelika called back. ‘Goodbye, Eva. I’m going home. Without you. Mama and Papa will be so pleased to see me. I know they will. I’m going on that train to Berlin.’ She pointed at the train they’d looked at before. ‘They didn’t really want me to leave them. I know that.’

  ‘But me,’ Eva shouted. ‘What about me? Take me, take me too, Angelika! Please. Please wait.’

  But Angelika was already walking away. Eva watched her getting on to the other train. The wrong train. The one going to Berlin and to Mama and Papa. She didn’t look back once. She didn’t wave. Angelika went up the steps of the Berlin train and was lost from sight just as Eva’s train began to pull out of the station and Eva shrieked so loudly that the children in the carriage with her started shouting at her to stop, to keep quiet, to calm down.

  ‘My sister! My sister! She’s leaving me,’ Eva yelled. ‘She’s going home and leaving me behind.’

  ‘She won’t get to England if she’s not on this train. She’s silly.’

  Eva didn’t stop shrieking and crying. In the end, one of the older children went to fetch the woman who was in charge of them and this person slapped Eva across the face. ‘To stop your hysterics, child. Stop crying and calm down. You’ll have to in the end, you know.’

  Eva stopped crying and decided not to make another sound. All through the night, as the train made its way to the Dutch coast, she sat in the dark with the other children sleeping around her. By the time she arrived in England, she’d worked it out. Mama and Papa had probably agreed on everything with Angelika. It was like the story about Hansel and Gretel, except that in the story, the two children were together. But Mama and Papa, Eva decided, must have asked Angelika to lose Eva, to take her into a dark place and leave her there and then run back to Berlin, back to their lovely flat. Back to them. They didn’t care about her. Angelika didn’t care. She didn’t love her. Mama and Papa didn’t love her. She was completely alone. She had no idea where she was going. She sat in the dark and felt the chill and the silence fill her and envelop her until there was nothing but sadness left in the whole world. By the time they reached England, something in Eva had frozen solid.

  As they travelled, the wheels of the train made a rhythm in her head. Angelika’s gone. Angelika’s left me. Angelika’s gone. By the time she reached England, Eva had stopped speaking. She had understood the full horror of what had happened and she couldn’t bear it. The knowledge that her sister had abandoned her meant Angelika didn’t love her. Not one little bit, and that wasn’t something Eva could live with. If the truth was so dreadful that she couldn’t even think about it, then the truth had to be altered. Eva changed the whole story, turned it on its head.

  *

  Eva, no longer four years old, but nearly eighty, found herself in tears in front of the mirror. She blinked and sat back a little so that her own face was no longer reflected in the glass. What she saw now was rippling silver and, dimly, part of the darkened room behind her. But the voice was there again, in her head and Eva shivered. ‘Willst du mir verzeihen?’ Her sister was asking to be forgiven. Suddenly it occurred to Eva that maybe, during the whole of the last seventy years and more, while she’d been terrified of catching a glimpse of Angelika; while she’d been fearful of the fury of her sister’s ghostly presence, there had been no reason for her terror. The dim shadow, which she’d caught sight of from time to time, from which she’d been hiding all her life was wanting only to be forgiven. Hatred of Angelika, dread of what might still be there in the glass filled Eva for a moment so that she almost flung the scarves back over the mirror and ran from the room. But instead she peered into it more closely. A hand. She saw a hand with its palm facing the room and reaching out, as though someone were trying to swim up from the unimaginable depths of the past towards her, towards her real hand. Eva could scarcely form the words but she put out her own hand and placed the palm directly over the flickering image she could just make out. She closed her eyes before she spoke.

  ‘I forgive you, Angelika. Of course I forgive you,’ she said. She said it in German. ‘Ich vergebe dir. Selbstverständlich vergebe ich dir.’ Her hand felt only the unyielding cold of the glass and she wanted to snatch it away but she forced herself to keep it there. She opened her eyes. Their hands were touching, Eva’s and Angelika’s, across decades, across death and sorrow and guilt there was her sister; exactly as she’d been the last time Eva had seen her: brown coat, plaited red hair, very white socks. Eva could see her plainly, as if there were another room on the other side of the glass and Angelika was there, in that place.

  She’s not real, Eva thought. I’m imagining her. Nevertheless, she sat quite still, holding her warm hand to Angelika’s cold one. She had no idea of how long she’d been there on the dressing-table stool, swallowed up by memories of the past. Perhaps it was no more than a few seconds. Angelika’s image was fading.

  ‘Don’t go,’ Eva called to her, but it was too late. The pale hand that seemed to Eva to be reaching out to touch her own: that went last of all but bit by bit every vestige of Angelika faded away. Eva held her face close up to the mirror and could see every line and wrinkle that time had left on her skin. Of her sister there wasn’t a trace and Eva knew as surely as she knew anything, that she would never see her again. I’ve forgiven her, she thought. There’s no reason for her to come back.

  Eva stood up and returned to her bed. There was something about the quality of the silence in her room that was different, almost as though some humming, like a boiler or a central heating system, had been turned off. Now that Angelika’s gone, Eva thought, something like a whole other world or dimension has disappeared. The ghost, the presence, whatever it had been, and that had probably been no more than her own imagination, wasn’t there any longer and the quietness it left behind was comfortable and comforting. Eva couldn’t remember when she’d been more exhausted but still she couldn’t sleep. Stop thinking about Angelika, she told herself. You’re not the bad person. You’re free. You didn’t abandon your sister. She abandoned you. And then she sat up in bed, thinking of Megan. Now, now she understood exactly what the poor girl had meant. Tomorrow, she vowed. Tomorrow I’ll put that right if I can. If it’s not too late.

  18

  When I woke up, I felt as though I hadn’t slept at all, but I must have done because my bedcloth
es were on the floor and I was hanging half out of the bed. Tom was already up; dressed and showered and sitting at the table under the window, marking some books. He’d even folded the sofa back into its normal shape. He hadn’t needed to drive to Salix House to pick up my stuff. Rowena had brought a case round last night, even before I’d finished not eating the risotto Tom had made so lovingly. Tom had gone to the door as I ran into the bedroom. Now, I got out of bed and put on the dressing gown that Rowena had packed in my case. I went into the sitting room.

  ‘Hello!’ Tom said. ‘You look a bit rough.’

  ‘Oh, ta. How to make someone feel good about themselves. You should write the book.’ I smiled to show him I was joking and how okay I was. He’d been kind last night. He’d said goodnight to me quite early and shut the bedroom door. I’d lain in his bed and stared into the darkness for hours.

  ‘You don’t look that bad, actually. But you didn’t have to wake up so soon, though. No Dee and Bridie to take to school.’

  That made me feel like crying again. He said, ‘I’m off there in a mo. Nativity Play next week means it’s all go from now on, I’m afraid. I might be a bit late back. You going to be okay? There’s plenty of food in the fridge.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you to eat. I’ll make us dinner tonight. It’ll give me something to do.’

  ‘Oh? That’s nice. No need. We could go out if you like.’

  ‘No, I’m happy to cook. It’s … I haven’t done any cooking for ages. I’d like to really. As a way of thanking you. You’ve been so kind to me.’

  Tom stood up and smiled at me. I smiled back, rather feebly. He said, ‘Gotta go. See you later. Phone me at once if—’

  ‘If what? You’re teaching.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Phone if you need me.’

  ‘I’m fine. Really. Thanks.’

  He was getting his stuff together to take to school, but when he stood up to go and get his coat, I felt a rush of affection for him. I put my arms around him and hugged him. He kissed the top of my head. Then he went off downstairs, carrying a plastic box loaded with exercise books and a few props and with a shepherd’s crook tucked under one arm. I offered to help him but he said, ‘No, you’re okay. If I give you anything it upsets the balance. I’ll see you tonight, okay?’

  I watched him getting into his car. Once he’d left, I sat down with a cup of coffee and the rest of the day, when I thought about it, seemed like a desert that I had to cross. Perhaps I’d clean the whole flat as a way of thanking Tom. Or perhaps I’d just sit here and not get dressed and start crying again. Don’t be so bloody spineless, I told myself. Go and get dressed and get some food in and some really nice wine for tonight. Tom will help you drown your sorrows. I toyed for a moment with the idea of making him some brownies as well as cooking the tea. Baking was soothing and there weren’t many situations that brownies didn’t improve. The only problem was I felt paralysed because I couldn’t do the two things I really wanted to: go back to Salix House and phone Luke.

  I kept on seeing his face in my mind’s eye. I thought of the utter bleakness he must feel: the hours and days and years of knowing that he’d never see his little boy or his wife ever again. How had he managed to gather himself together after that and function in an ordinary way? I had a dreadful flash of what the accident must have been like: a child’s small body smashed and enmeshed in metal and a woman’s hair caught up in a tangle of bent steel. I felt ill when I thought about it. What a hideous irony: Luke trying to cheer me up. I remembered how it felt when he touched my hand to comfort me. I thought of the worry in his strange, lit-up eyes when I rushed away. I should phone him. He’d asked me to. Or text? Or I could email him. There was an address on the card. Maybe I would email him, but I wanted to hear his voice. For a few seconds I sat with my phone in my hand and nearly dialled the number. Then I realized that I’d just be apologizing for running away. I couldn’t tell him the whole story. Not on the phone.

  I was wondering what to do when a loud buzzing noise startled me: Tom’s doorbell. I looked out of the window to see who it was, and there was Eva, looking nothing like her normal self, but with her hair wound carelessly on top of her head and stuck with a tortoiseshell pin and wearing what looked very much like Rowena’s Barbour jacket, the one that normally hung just inside the kitchen door. I didn’t bother pressing the buzzer, but ran downstairs myself, to let her in.

  ‘Eva!’ I said. ‘What’s wrong? Are you okay? You look …’ Why was I saying this? Why wasn’t I furious with her? Why, in fact did I open the door to her at all, after she’d thrown me out?

  ‘I know, I know. I came in a hurry. I just dressed without thinking.’

  ‘Come in now. Come and have a cup of coffee.’

  I stood aside to let her go first but she took my hand and squeezed it. ‘Thank you,’ she said, sounding shaky, and not like herself. ‘I’m glad you opened the door. I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to see me. Talk to me.’

  I didn’t answer, but led her into Tom’s sitting room. ‘Sit down, Eva. I’ll go and put the kettle on. Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea, please.’

  I should have known. Eva was deeply suspicious of any coffee she hadn’t overseen herself.

  Tom had half a packet of Hobnobs which I put out on a plate. I poured the tea.

  ‘Thank you,’ Eva said, picking up her mug (Tom didn’t do cups and saucers) and taking a small sip. ‘I had to see you. I have to ask you to forgive me for what I did to you.’

  I didn’t say anything. Eva went on. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have sent you away. I see that now and I apologize. Please come back. The girls miss you. I miss you. Please.’

  ‘Eva, of course I will. And of course I’ll forgive you. Don’t look so sad.’

  I felt like getting up and hugging her and dancing round the room, but her unhappiness, the way she was sitting as if a weight of misery was on her shoulders, prevented me from leaping about.

  ‘Why not? I am sad. I hurt you and I never meant to. Unforgiveable. I didn’t understand what you were saying.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You said: It’s worse to be the victim and that made me … I don’t know … furious. I didn’t want to think such a thing. I didn’t know why the thought of what you said had that effect on me. Now I see. I’ve had … well. Can I tell you what I saw last night?’

  I nodded and Eva began to tell me, from the beginning, everything that happened when she and her sister left Germany, more than seventy years ago. While she was speaking, I didn’t say a word. She only picked up her mug when the story was over.

  ‘I’ve told you now,’ she said. ‘Told you everything.’ She looked down at the carpet. Some of her hair had escaped from the knot and curled down to her shoulders. She picked it up and anchored it back again with the pin. ‘I hadn’t understood what you meant, you see,’ she said. ‘Now I do. When I was small, I couldn’t bear the thought that Angelika didn’t love me. Couldn’t admit to myself that, yes, I was so unimportant to her that she was prepared to abandon me to anything that might have turned up. She didn’t know whether I’d be safe or not and she didn’t care. She didn’t care for me. It was easier for me to become the one who left her. I could deal with that more easily.’

  ‘But,’ I said. ‘How come I saw Angelika? Because I did, you know. She was there in Salix House.’

  Eva shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I can’t explain it. Maybe because you were so kind to me, because you understood me so well, you tuned in to what I was seeing? Or that we both shared a feeling that we were guilty of something. Oh, God, I don’t know. I don’t understand about such matters.’

  She waved her hand in the air and for a moment she was no longer the sad, old woman who’d been living almost her whole life in an agony of guilt, but back to being the positive, imperious, Eva Conway: the dress designer, the creator of Salix House.

  ‘I don’t understand them and I don’t care about them. Angelika is gone. She has left me, finally. She’s
not there any longer. You know what it’s like when a machine is on, somewhere? Say a washing machine in another room? You’re aware of the noise, on some level, even if you’re not in the same room?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well,’ she went on, ‘that’s what I told myself last night. It was exactly as though some humming, some vibration, had stopped. Gone from my head. Now there’s nothing but silence. Peace. And I wish, I so wish that you’d come back. It’s not just the girls who miss you, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked. ‘You won’t mind? You’d want me to come back?’

  ‘Of course. Naturally. I should have made that clearer. Dee and Bridie’ll be so happy when I tell them that you’re coming. You will come, won’t you? You want to? Then come now, with me. You haven’t got much to pack.’

  ‘I can’t now, Eva. Later. I’ve promised Tom I’d make supper for us both, as a thank you for putting me up last night. I can’t get to Salix House before ten, I don’t think. So I won’t see the girls till tomorrow morning but you’ll tell them why I can’t come tonight, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘And there’s something else I want to say. I shouted at you for not understanding my point of view yesterday, about how I felt when I found out that Simon’s baby was alive, but I’ve been thinking about what you said as well and I think I’m going to be able to be happy, after all, that the baby is okay. That has to be good, right? Even if what I said about Simon and me and our history is true, it’s okay to be pleased that the baby’s still there, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, of course it is! That’s what I was trying to tell you. That’s what I couldn’t understand your not grasping. You are free of Simon and his wretched family for ever. I’m going home now to tell the girls the good news of your return. They’ll be very happy. If I say you’re with Tom, that’ll make them even happier. They’re very keen on the idea of you and him, you know. They want to be bridesmaids.’

  I laughed. ‘No chance of that, I’m afraid.’