The Watcher

by Monika Jephcott Thomas

  She waited to be dismissed with the same eagerness she always waited to be told she could go and play on the beach. But it didn’t happen. Instead Herr Kahler was raising his voice again.

  ‘Now then, if you could sweep up the sand properly this morning why couldn’t you do it the first time I told you to do it, eh?’

  She didn’t know how to answer him. She was so exhausted, so tired of this game and she didn’t have the energy left to guess anymore. But that was OK, because Herr Kahler knew.

  ‘I’ll tell you why, girl, shall I?’ Unsurprisingly he didn’t wait for her permission. ‘Because you’re a lazy, spoilt little girl, that’s why, aren’t you?’

  ‘I…’ There was no point in arguing; if that’s all he needed from her to make up for the fact that she was not going to get a beating then she was more than happy to give in. ‘Yes, I’m lazy, Herr Kahler.’

  ‘And?’ he sang.

  ‘And spoilt,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Yes you are. Now get out,’ he spat.

  And she did, turning first not towards the garden, but to the front door where she blinked in disbelief at the sand free driveway. It wouldn’t be sand free for long of course, once the wind had had its naughty way with it, but for now, just at the time when Herr Kahler was due back from town, it was and that was all that mattered. She turned back into the dark hallway and saw a figure standing in the dining room doorway watching her. As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light she recognised her friend Milla, who hadn’t wolfed down her lunch to get out in the garden quicker, but had wolfed down her lunch so she could have the driveway swept just in time for Herr Kahler’s return. And for the strangest of moments Netta was scared about the idea of leaving this place next week; about going back to Mengede where there wasn’t a little girl she loved as much as Milla; about going back to the parents that abandoned her here, a father whom she didn’t know and a mother whom she thought she knew but wasn’t so sure now. For all its hatefulness and fear, the routines here were fast becoming the norm and therefore a topsy-turvy kind of safe. The little girl couldn’t imagine leaving it all behind.

  Someone was watching the house.

  The terraced red brick house on three floors in the suburb of Mengede in the heart of the Ruhr district. Sulphurous clouds draped the rooftop and thick soot lined the windowsills, even on the pretty, round Tiffany window in the attic.

  It was the blue and red glass of the window, lit up from the inside that evening, which the watcher’s eyes were fixed on. It was as if the watcher knew exactly who was in there and exactly what they were doing. Or perhaps it was just that the Tiffany window was so much more appealing than the other windows below – tall, skinny, square, humdrum – windows which made the house look gaunt.

  It was time. No more standing around on street corners. The watcher shuddered and then marched towards the house.

  Max was sitting by the Tiffany window, a medical journal open but unread on his lap. The late summer evening was sultry so the window was open and he could see out across the rooftops towards the quarry. The sky was aglow, not with the sun which only dipped below the horizon for a while at this time of year, but with the fires from the blast furnaces spewing their molten rivers into the legion of steel factories which dominated the district – the nights were never really dark round here, even in the dead of winter. Just as they had been along the Rhine when Edgar and Max were stationed there, where the sky was full of Christmas trees: intense cascades of light pouring down the darkness, green and red flares, incendiary sticks fizzing through the sky and landing on the timbered buildings of Rhenish towns, getting the firestorms going. The air had smelled burnt there just as it did here in Mengede, but back when Edgar and Max were fishing casualties out of the river as the French shot at them from the Maginot Line, the burning smell was the result of spent artillery shells, obliterated bridges and the bubbling flesh of grenade-blasted soldiers.

  The wind changed direction at that moment and sent a sharp and rapid clanging from the factories across the rooftops and in through the window, which drilled through Max’s reverie like gunfire. He started, the book hit the floor with a deep pop and Max felt himself diving for cover. He landed with his knees on the floor by the bed and his face and arms spread out on the mattress, the softness and washing soda scent of which tenderly punched him back to the present. He slowly rose up on his elbows and cradled his face in his hands. His relief at finding himself hundreds of miles and many years from the active Maginot Line made him rather amused at his landing in this way, knelt by the bedside.

  ‘Well, while I’m here…’ He smiled wryly to himself, and began to pray for an end to his mind and body’s constant referencing to just a handful of years in his life. He’d had twenty-odd war free years before that on the planet, so why couldn’t his soul start harking back to those times again if it needed to look back at all. He had a new baby on the way. Surely this was the time to start looking forward, surely this was the start of a change in his fortunes.

  Just then there was a knock on the door and Karl poked his head in the room.

  ‘All right, son?’ he said, seeing Max getting up from behind the bed.

  ‘Yes, fine thanks, Papa,’ he said, retrieving his book from the floor and waving it at his father, ‘just catching up on some of the latest medical practice.’

  Karl was not quite sure how exactly Max was studying with the book closed and himself on the floor, but he had more pressing issues to concern him right at that moment. ‘There’s a woman downstairs. Come about the ad for a housekeeper.’

  ‘A bit late to come calling, isn’t it? And how did she know where we lived? Didn’t we put a box number on the ad?’

  ‘That’s what I said, but your mother and Erika are giving her a good grilling anyway. They reckon all the other applicants have been so awful they’d be mad to send this one packing, just in case she’s good, you see. So I thought you might want to come and ask a few questions too.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure the women have got it all under—’

  ‘Yes, but she’s… how shall I put it?’ Max was curious to see a glint in his father’s eye that could almost be described – but surely not in Papa! – as lascivious. ‘She’s worth a look.’

  The men bowled downstairs and crashed into the living room in a manner which would induce a reprimand from Karl should his students behave in a similar way. Martha and Erika looked up at their spouses and supplied the necessary scolding telepathically, then Martha introduced Max to the lady who was sitting in the chair with its back to the door. He came around to join the panel of women as the candidate rose to greet him.

  ‘This is my son, Dr Portner,’ Martha said with pride.

  ‘And my husband,’ Erika added with quick irritation, knowing Martha was likely to gloss over that essential bit of information.

  ‘Max, this is J—’

  ‘Jenny!’ Max gasped.

  ‘Ma—’ Jenny was about to reciprocate his enthusiasm, but was seriously savvy when it came to working with women and knew that over familiarity with a male relation at this point could seriously jeopardise her application for the post. In the shocking split-second of surprise reunions, which seemed to punctuate her relationship with Max, she even considered pretending not to know him at all, just in case the wife became instantly jealous and then excluded her from the job on some vague pretext, but since Max had already blown that option by blurting out her name she opted for the next best thing. ‘Dr Portner,’ she smiled demurely and offered a hand, which Max took with a brief flicker of a sulk, hoping for the kind of hug that marked their last reunion, although even he too realised that that would most probably go down like the Hindenburg in front of his wife and mother, who had already ear-marked this down-to-earth and rather engaging woman as a top candidate for the position of housekeeper.

  ‘You know Jenny already?’ Martha asked.

  ‘I do, yes. We met first in Breslau.’ Max was finding it hard to contain his excitem
ent.

  ‘Oh, really?’ Erika said. ‘Were you a nurse?’

  ‘Ye—’ Max begun, already realising that Jenny would not have put prostitute on her curriculum vitae.

  ‘No.’ Jenny intercepted the lie quickly. ‘Well,’ she and Max exchanged a quick and nervous laugh, ‘you become all things to everyone in a situation like that, don’t you?’

  ‘Do you?’ Erika enquired with a polite smile draped over a twinge of suspicion.

  ‘Yes,’ Jenny sucked at her cheeks impishly and announced, ‘I did a lot of the German officers—’

  ‘Houses,’ Max said, feeling beads of sweat break out instantly on his forehead.

  ‘Yes,’ Jenny smirked just as she used to in the convent when she would toy with Max, trying to embarrass him as he tried with all his might to stay professional. ‘And then we were all captured and sent all over the place and wouldn’t you know it, Max and I ended up in the same God-forsaken corner of Siberia where I was now employed to do the Russian officers’…’ He knew her game this time and would not be drawn to finish her sentence. She knew he knew her game. That’s what they loved about each other. So after a tantalising pause she added, ‘…houses.’

  ‘So you were in Gegesha?’ Erika, unaware of the great crevasses of history between the words, was genuinely intrigued now. Any hint of envy she’d had about this woman’s relationship with Max was for now overruled by the notion that she could have a bona fide inhabitant of Max’s lost world living under her roof. What conversations they could have! What stories this housekeeper could reveal to Erika, what gateways she could help her to open up into her husband’s barricaded mind!

  ‘Well, not in the camp itself, of course.’ Jenny gave Erika a little patronising laugh. ‘But in the village down the road where most of the Russian officers lived.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  Martha invited Jenny to sit down again and beckoned to her son to perch on the edge of the armchair where she sat. ‘You seem to have had plenty of experience then in some quite adverse conditions.’

  ‘I’ll say!’ Jenny looked around at all her interviewers and, far from being intimidated, her bright green eyes alighted on Karl and she winked.

  The headmaster nearly fell backwards over the piano stool.

  ‘Well, it has been very good to meet you.’ Erika was using the words and the tone which they had all used on the previous candidates; the ones who hobbled in, clearly way over fifty-five and needing someone to look after them; the ones who flounced in in pigtails, clearly well below thirty without the slightest idea of what work was, let alone this work; the ones who, although they sat neatly within the age limits, said incredible things like, ‘I don’t mind dusting, but I don’t do dishes.’ Or, ‘I’m a housekeeper of considerable calibre and experience, so I think I am best placed to determine my own hours, thank you very much.’ It was as if, despite how excited Erika had been about the prospect of having another link to Max’s untold story in the house, something was gnawing at the excitement and threatening to make it topple.

  Max saw the sure thing wobble and did not want to lose his old confidante yet again. Karl saw the sure thing wobble and did not want to lose such a pretty addition to the household. Martha saw the sure thing wobble and was sick of doing all the chores around here herself so as Jenny began to rise they all chorused, ‘Hang on!’

  Jenny sank back into the chair, eyeing Erika and wondering if she would counter the rest of her family.

  ‘Did you give us your references?’ Martha said, stalling.

  ‘Well…’ Jenny hesitated.

  Max, who’d been studying her like a naturalist would a rare bird, saw the uncertainty and wondered: Where the hell is she going to get references from?

  ‘References? Pah! You can put those away.’ He gestured towards Jenny as if she was reaching into her purse for them, which she wasn’t. ‘I can be her referee!’ Max laughed a little too loudly. ‘I’ve worked tending to patients in the very houses she’s, er, kept, and I can say without a doubt,’ he swallowed down images of mildewed walls and gutters filled with human faeces, ‘you won’t find a better housekeeper this side of the Atlantic.’

  Everything was different again. Just as she was getting used to having her father around he had dumped her on the Isle of Sylt. Then just as she was getting used to that, here she was back at home torn away from her best friend Milla. But home had changed too. Now there was a new housekeeper called Jenny and her father seemed to spend even more time chatting and smiling with her than he did with Karin. And her mama told her there was a new baby growing in her tummy. She was going to have a little brother or sister by next spring.

  ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ Erika had beamed at her.

  ‘It’s rubbish,’ Netta huffed to herself and stomped upstairs to go and sulk on her bed for a while.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Tante Bertel’s voice cracking the stale air on the first landing usually sent Netta scurrying onwards, hoping not to get dragged into helping her weird old auntie, but since Bertel seemed to be the only thing that didn’t ever change around here, Netta found herself poking her head around the old lady’s open door and saying:

  ‘Hello, Tante Bertel. It’s only me!’

  ‘And who is me?’ Bertel said, struggling to see from the bed where she was almost flat on her back.

  ‘It’s Netta,’ Netta said, coming close to the bed so her great aunty could see.

  ‘Oh,’ Bertel said, studying the little girl for what seemed to Netta to be an hour. ‘Well, I’m not sure a little thing like you will be much use, but I’ve slipped down the bed and I really need to sit up.’

  ‘I can help,’ said Netta, who hated the suggestion that she wasn’t strong enough just because she was a little girl. She might have come back from the children’s home as small and as thin as ever (and Milla might have put on a kilogram, mainly through drinking double cream), but she could still beat Josef and Peter at just about anything.

  Bertel’s sharp eyes sparkled as Netta took up the challenge and began hauling her about. Like the little girl, Bertel did not have a great appetite these days so she was not as difficult to hoist up the bed as Netta had expected her to be. Her flesh hung from her arms and neck in a way which made Netta think of the rooster in the garden. She pretended to reach across to straighten the collar of Bertel’s nightdress just so she could brush her hand against that neck to see what the bluish flap of skin there felt like. In no time her great Tante was propped up against a mountain of pillows with Netta tucking the blanket around her as her mama did to her in her little bed directly above.

  ‘That’s better,’ Bertel smiled. ‘Now I can see everything.’

  She nodded towards the three tall bay windows and Netta followed her gaze to the street below. But for Netta, hearing what was going on up above was far more interesting. She could clearly hear her papa’s voice, but it was as if he was talking to himself:

  ‘Of course I still have it. I would never lose it again, would I?’

  Then came a more muffled voice. A woman’s, she guessed. The words were not as clear as her father’s so she asked Bertel if she was OK now, to which Bertel said, ‘Yes I am, thank you, Martha,’ and she left the bedroom and crept along the landing to the bottom of the stairs. Peeking through the banister she could see Jenny, arms folded, leaning in the doorway of her room talking across the tiny landing to Papa, who Netta knew must have been standing in the doorway of his room too, but she couldn’t quite see him from where she was hiding.

  ‘…look well. Much better than the last time I saw you anyway.’ Jenny’s smile was huge and she kept rolling her red lips inside her mouth as if she was trying to hide it, but it kept popping back out again.

  ‘Well, that’s not difficult is it?’ Papa said. And then after a moment where neither of them said anything, ‘You look well too.’

  ‘It’s this new life as a housekeeper, must be agreeing with me.’

  Papa laughed, then said, ‘Did you know?’

/>   ‘Did I know what, Max?’

  ‘Did you know that it was my house that you were coming to for a job?’

  ‘Your father’s house to be precise.’

  ‘Well, all right.’ Papa sounded a tiny bit annoyed when he said that. ‘But did you know I lived here?’

  ‘I asked around. I did some checking. And then I bleeding well hoped it was your house. Well, I wasn’t going to be a bloody housekeeper for anyone else, was I?’ She slapped at him playfully as she said that and Netta watched her standing there with her arm out for a while. She must be holding on to his arm or something, Netta thought.

  Jenny’s face looked all serious, then she let her arm flop back onto her thigh with a slap and smiled again. Netta was getting uncomfortable stuck in one position so she shifted her weight and the banister creaked.

  Jenny’s eyes dropped from Papa’s and landed on Netta’s. The housekeeper’s face turned angry and Netta shrank back from the stairs telling herself that Jenny had not really seen who was there. She took a couple of slow steps on tip-toe.

  ‘Who’s there?’ It was Tante Bertel again. At least Netta hoped it was and she used the noise of the voice to cover her steps as she fled back downstairs and out into the garden where she hid herself in the cold autumn mist and squelched among the over-ripe pears rotting at the base of the tree.

  She managed to get to bed that night with neither her papa nor Jenny mentioning anything about it, but she couldn’t get to sleep, her mind was racing with all these changes and she kept seeing Jenny’s sharp face glaring at her through the shadows whenever she shut her eyes.

  Then she heard the sheets shift in her parents’ bed and she knew one of them was awake. She scrunched up her eyes and kept her face to the wall. Then there was the sound of old adult joints clicking, which told her someone was trying to creep out of the room. That sound always gave them away, she thought, but we kids can slip around like cats! The door was opened and as soon as it creaked, just as Netta knew it would, the creeper froze. Then after a moment, as the silence settled again, the clicking of joints continued. But not for long. The creeper didn’t go downstairs, as Netta had assumed. The creeper knocked softly on Jenny’s door. And the creeper was let in.