by Annie Murray
‘How lovely – a bunch of sunshine,’ Anatoli said. Turning to the man in the next bed he said, ‘This is one of my daughters . . .’
The man called a chirpy hello to her. ‘Lovely wench, that,’ he said.
Once again the warmth of Anatoli’s affection spread through Greta. She filled the jam jar from the sink nearby and put it on the bedside cabinet to arrange the flowers. She saw that propped against the water jug he had a little watercolour painting Edie had done for him of snowdrops and crocuses.
Anatoli watched her, smiling. ‘Thank you, my dear. Now do come and sit down and tell me everything – how is our lovely little Francesca? I can’t offer you tea or anything in the way of hospitality, but you may be lucky if they come round – you never know. I expect you have come straight from work haven’t you?’
‘Yes, but I’m all right, I don’t need a drink,’ she said. ‘How’re you feeling?’
‘A little stronger,’ he said, slowly, thinking about it. ‘I am weak, I know that. Even the thought of walking along the ward to the bathroom feels like climbing Mount Everest. But I do feel a bit better each day.’
He told her he had kept himself occupied reading the paper and he read snippets out to her. He was very interested in what was going on in Czechoslovakia, the movement known as the Prague Spring, where the Communist Party had lost overall control.
‘Imagine living in a country where there is no freedom, where everything is ruled by the state,’ he said. ‘Now all that will change. It is a great liberation, an upsurge of the will of the people!’
Greta loved to hear him talking about so many things she felt ignorant about. And as well as the news he gobbled up his usual detective stories. He talked cheerfully about the routines of the ward and one of the nurses who had been especially kind to him. Greta could see that he would charm them and make them want to be kind.
‘But I am longing to be home,’ he told Greta. His deep brown eyes looked deeply at her, and he reached out and took her hand in his, cradling it close to him for a moment.
In two weeks he was allowed home. They were so excited that it was like having royalty coming. Edie and Greta cleaned the entire house and made everything especially comfortable and attractive for him, with fresh flowers and books to look at. Peter, who was talented like his mother, had also done a painting for his Daddy, of himself, by looking in the mirror. He had cleverly captured something of his pale, dark-eyed face and mop of curls, and Edie had stuck the painting carefully on to a piece of card so that it would stand up against a vase.
Edie told Greta it was one of the first things Anatoli noticed that afternoon when he walked slowly into the room, looking thin, fragile, but overjoyed to be home. By the time Greta got home from work Anatoli was in his comfortable chair.
‘Is that our girl I hear?’ he called out as she came through the door. His voice sounded thinner, but it made her so happy to hear it.
‘Hello!’ She put her head round the living-room door and there was everyone, just as they should be, Francesca half toddling, half crawling over to meet her, squeaking with excitement, Edie and Peter there and Anatoli with his cup and saucer, and things felt right again.
Chapter Forty-Six
That spring and summer, Greta’s life revolved round her work at Cadbury’s and at home, around Francesca and Anatoli. She took very little notice of anything else, and it was only because of sitting with Anatoli after he had read the morning papers that she knew that a black American preacher called Martin Luther King had been shot, that there were anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in London and student riots in Paris.
Anatoli seemed to gather strength after the operation and things felt hopeful. For a few weeks he rested, only occasionally calling into his business. Then he went back to working in the mornings. He slept for a while after lunch then enjoyed the company of whoever was at home. Greta often sat with him, sometimes outside on warm days, in the pretty square of garden. Sometimes she did the weeding for him while he gave instructions. Or she read to him.
‘It’s not that I need you to read to me really,’ he said with a twinkle. ‘I just like the company and the sound of your voice.’
One afternoon, while Francesca was having her nap upstairs, they sat outside, a rug wrapped round Ana-toli’s legs even though it was warm.
‘Now I’ve become such a thin old stick I feel the cold,’ he joked.
He had asked Greta to read him a chapter from Georges Simenon’s Maigret and the Idle Burglar. At first when she had read to Anatoli she had felt self-conscious and stumbled over the words, afraid that her reading wasn’t good enough, and she said so.
‘But you read perfectly well!’ he protested. ‘Why are you always so critical of yourself?’
After a while she had learned just to relax and read, and she enjoyed the Maigret stories herself.
‘D’you want me to go on?’ she asked, at the end of the chapter. They were quite near the start of the book so they hadn’t got to the really exciting bits yet.
‘No – that’s enough,’ Anatoli said, sipping from a glass of water. ‘I want to ask you something.’
He put his head on one side and looked at her closely. ‘How old are you now, my dear?’
‘Twenty-three,’ Greta said.
‘And you are soon to be divorced from young Trevor?’
Greta nodded.
‘Your marriage was not a success for either of you, obviously,’ he said straightforwardly. ‘Otherwise you would not be divorcing. And you are sure this is the right thing?’
‘Oh yes,’ Greta said, wondering how Anatoli could have any doubt. ‘Anyway, even if I wanted to be with Trevor, which I don’t, he’s got a family of his own now – with Marleen. And they want to get married sooner or later.’
‘Quite so,’ Anatoli said. ‘Don’t imagine that I am criticizing. I am thinking of you, here as a young, beautiful woman . . .’
A blush spread up Greta’s cheeks and she looked down at the table, the tatty copy of the book they were reading in front of her.
‘Here you are, with two much older people – like living with your parents again, and your little baby, who is a jewel. But you have no young life for yourself, no lover . . .’
‘But I love it here!’ Greta looked up at him passionately. ‘I love living with you and Edie, and I‘ve got Francesca. I don’t need anyone else in my life – I like it just as it is!’
‘But you are a lovely girl – do you not have men queuing up to ask you to go out with them?’
‘A few,’ Greta admitted. ‘But I keep this on, you see—’ She still wore the brass wedding ring which Trevor had given her. ‘That puts them off. I really don’t want anyone else.’
Anatoli looked troubled. ‘I wonder if your experience has put you off the thought of marrying?’
‘Well – not really,’ Greta said slowly. ‘I like it here, that’s all.’
‘That’s very gratifying,’ Anatoli said. ‘But things cannot stay the same for ever here, you know. I don’t know how long I . . .’ He stumbled over the words. ‘And I would like to think of you being here with Edith. But we must not be selfish. It is possible, you know, to marry again and for it to be better. You must never lose sight of that.’
‘But you and Edie are different – you’re special!’
‘No,’ Anatoli said sharply. ‘Not special – no we’re not. We love each other, truly we do – but we are also more aware.’ He sighed. ‘My first wife was a wonderful woman, but I know I was not a very good husband, or at least not until it was almost too late. When I was young I was too preoccupied, too busy trying to build up a business and with my music. I suppose I assumed she was there to supply me with everything I needed while I earned the money.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Sometimes I was harsh, rude and selfish. You may wonder why my own children have not rushed to my side in these weeks. But that is why. They did not grow up to admire me – there is a distance between us and I do not know whether we shall be able to overcome it before
it is too late.’
He paused, shaking his head.
‘After Margot died, they said things to me, harsh, angry things. I did not want to hear them and I was angry towards them. All I know is that when I met Edith, and was suddenly in love again without ever expecting this to happen, I was utterly determined to be different, to learn . . . And she had been alone for a long time – very like you, bringing up David. We were older and we knew we had mistakes to learn from – that you cannot take the other for granted so easily. But it is worth it, Greta. I hope you believe me?’
‘I believe you,’ she said lightly. ‘But I can’t magic up the man of my dreams, can I?’
‘No – I’m just begging you not to close the door, just because you have a child, You are still a young woman . . .’
A little cry came through the open window upstairs.
‘Ah – she’s waking up!’ Greta cried, getting to her feet thankfully.
‘Bless her little heart,’ Anatoli said.
Greta went up to fetch a half awake Francesca, feeling stirred up. What was Anatoli going on about? She was happy here in this little cocoon she had made for herself, with Francesca to lavish all her love on and not needing anything else. Raw feelings of longing lurked inside her but she pushed them away. Who needed men or marriage? She was quite happy as she was, thank you very much!
The summer passed, intensely precious. Anatoli’s health held up, and for those months it seemed he was all right, that the operation had given him a new chance of life. Even his times of depression seemed to have vanished, as if they had been removed with the tumours.
When not at work, Greta spent time with him, or had happy times at the Cadbury’s lido at Rowheath. She and Pat and some other friends would go and spend the afternoon. Francesca loved being in the water, and Greta had bought a little rubber ring for her to float about in. The little girl’s face was always a picture of delight as she kicked vigorously and beat her hands against the water. Greta would tow her round the shallow end, loving being in the water herself and laughing at Francesca’s enthusiasm.
‘She’ll be an early swimmer that one,’ Pat said, breast-stroking alongside them, one of the first times they went. ‘She’s in her element isn’t she?’ Francesca had been in the pool last summer but had been very young then. Now she was coming into her own. As the summer went by she gained almost too much confidence.
‘Oh – there she goes again!’ Greta would cry, having to get up from her circle of friends on the grass in their colourful swimming costumes and tear after Francesca’s toddling figure as she made her way determinedly towards the water. She would scream with fury at being brought back.
They spent lovely lazy afternoons there in August, minding each other’s children so that each of them could have a proper swim and sitting picnicking and chatting on the grass. Edie came occasionally, though she didn’t like to leave Anatoli for too long. Greta found the time passing in a kind of dream. Anatoli read to her, in great dismay, news of Soviet tanks moving into Prague to crush the spring uprising. Ruby – she heard through the grapevine rather than from her mother directly – had been seen going about with a new man. This news made Greta shrug. So what was new? Another in a long line of disasters.
And in the middle of the month Marleen was rushed into hospital, where she had another baby, this time a girl who she called Sandra. Greta thought about going to see her. She decided not to bother. Marleen and Trevor felt like another world now. They were nothing to do with her. Her divorce would soon come through and she and Marleen had never lost much love between them as sisters. So what? she thought.
It was evening when the telephone call came: September and a whiff of autumn in the misty mornings. Greta hardly ever answered the telephone, which stood on a table in the front hall, but Anatoli was sitting down and Edie was bathing the children.
‘You take it!’ Anatoli called as it clanged away.
‘Hello, hello?’ The voice on the other end was female, high-pitched, and at first Greta could make no sense of anything she was saying.
‘Hello?’ she said encouragingly.
‘Hello – Edith?’ And there was a confusion of language at the other end. Greta knew it was someone foreign but had no idea what she was saying.
‘Can you wait a moment, please,’ Greta said. The woman at the other end sounded so frantic that she wasn’t making sense in any language.
‘Who is it?’ Anatoli came out into the hall.
Greta held the receiver out to him, shrugging. ‘I don’t know – someone foreign.’
He put the receiver to his ear. ‘Hello?’
In the quiet of the hall Greta could hear a torrent of speech at the other end. Anatoli’s face seemed to set hard as granite. Greta could see it was something dreadful. She felt her innards tighten. When he finally said a few words they were in German. He seemed to be consoling, reassuring. At last he put the phone down and kept his hand on it, closing his eyes.
’Oh God in heaven . . .’
Upstairs the bathroom door opened and Peter appeared, beaming, at the top of the stairs with his pyjamas on.
‘Peter – is Mummy there?’ Anatoli said. ‘Please tell her to come down.’
Edie came carrying Francesca, tousle-haired and wrapped in a big white towel.
‘There’s a lovely warm, clean girl – you can go to your Mummy now,’ she said, handing the happy bundle over to Greta. ‘Who was on the telephone?’
‘My darling,’ Anatoli said solemnly. ‘Please come and sit down.’
‘What is it?’ Edie faltered, hearing the sombre tone of his voice. As she went to sit in the front room her mind rushed into explanations. ‘Was it the hospital? Are you all right? Not bad news – tests or something?’
‘No, nothing like that—’ Anatoli knelt by her chair. Greta stood in the doorway holding Francesca. She could hear Peter still rollicking about upstairs.
‘My darling, there is some terrible news.’ Anatoli paused, as if he could not say it.
‘What is it?’ Edie clutched at his hand, a wild expression on her face. ‘What is it? Who was that? David – what’s happened? The army – is he fighting, has something happened?’ This was the worry that haunted her always. She had barely recovered from the war last year.
‘No – David is fine. But that was Annaliese.’ Anatoli swallowed. ‘Today there were bomb explosions in Tel Aviv. Gila was there with Shimon.’ Edie’s hands went to her lips, her eyes opening wide in horror.
‘They were very close to it . . .’ Anatoli was struggling for words. ‘Gila was wounded – quite badly. She’s in hospital. But Shimon . . .’ The words hung unspoken between them. Anatoli shook his head and Edie started to shake hers as well.
‘No! Not . . . Dead? Little Shimon?’
Anatoli did not have to answer. His face said everything.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Afterwards David scarcely remembered driving to Tel Aviv.
A secretary from the medical school lent him the car. ‘Of course – in the circumstances . . . Keep it for as long as you need . . .’
All memory of the journey, the baked, dusty roads, was lost to him. All he could remember later was the sense of his body, hard as steel all the way, anger locking his hands to the wheel, the throb of his head . . . My son, my son . . . As the sun went down he found himself driving through Tel Aviv’s block-ish suburbs. Twice he asked directions to the hospital.
Aunt Miriam had telephoned the medical school with the news, the message reaching him during a lecture on orthopaedics. The secretary who tiptoed in to find him, the shock plain in her face, had been motherly, offered him money, food, the telephone to contact Miriam in Tel Aviv, where Gila had been staying. Finally she lent him the car.
‘Does she know about Shim?’ he had asked Miriam.
‘She knows, of course.’ Miriam struggled to speak, as if every word was made of broken glass. ‘She was with him. She saw. Yes – she knows.’
He is dead. My Shimon
is dead.
She told him of cuts, broken bones. Gila and Shimon had been hurled aside by the blast. The hospital was full of the injured, too many to be sure of numbers. There had been three bombs in the city that day, she said.
His mind was spinning, full of pictures of his son, his wife: his family. The baby . . . Miriam had not said anything about the baby. He imagined Gila, injured, disfigured even, surrounded by the whiteness of walls and sheets. With all his being he ached to give comfort.
He drove into the grounds of the hospital.
They have killed my son . . .
Casualties of the bombings were still coming in and the hospital corridors were in turmoil. Finding himself here in another hospital, he wanted to behave like a doctor, to be in command, detached. Instead he felt bewildered, barely able to function or think who to speak to. It was some time before anyone could tell him where he would find Gila. When he reached her ward, she was not lying swathed in whiteness as he had imagined: she was not there at all. A complication had developed, a nurse told him. He was handed to a doctor, a middle-aged man with soulful brown eyes.
‘She will be all right,’ he assured David, gently. ‘But I’m sorry to say – you knew she was pregnant? She was thrown some distance by the blast. The impact and shock have made her miscarry. There are complications . . .’ He wiped a hand wearily over his face. ‘They have her in theatre now. You should come back tomorrow.’
‘Where is my son?’ David asked. All the energy his anger had given him had left him and he felt like weeping.
‘Your son?’
‘A little boy. They said he was killed . . .’
The doctor’s face tightened a little. ‘I’m so sorry. At the moment I don’t know. You should ask in the morning.’
‘I must see my son,’ David insisted.
