Alice

by Judith Hermann

  ALICE

  ALSO BY JUDITH HERMANN

  The Summer House, Later

  Nothing But Ghosts

  ALICE

  JUDITH HERMANN

  Translated from the German by

  Margot Bettauer Dembo

  Published in Great Britain in 2011 by

  CLERKENWELL PRESS

  An imprint of Profile Books Ltd

  Pine Street

  Exmouth Market

  London EC1R 0JH

  www.profilebooks.com

  First published by Fischer Verlag, Germany

  Copyright © Judith Hermann, 2010, 2011

  Translation copyright © Margot Bettauer Dembo, 2011

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed and bound in Italy by

  L.E.G.O. S.p.a. Lavis

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Typeset by MacGuru Ltd in Granjon

  info@macguru.org.uk

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 84668 529 3

  eISBN 978 1 84765 747 3

  Contents

  I Misha

  II Conrad

  III Richard

  IV Malte

  V Raymond

  I

  Misha

  But Misha didn’t die. Not during the night from Monday to Tuesday, nor the night from Tuesday to Wednesday; perhaps he would die Wednesday evening or later that night. Alice thought she had heard it said that most people die at night. The doctors weren’t saying anything any more; they shrugged their shoulders and held out their empty, disinfected hands. There’s nothing more we can do. Sorry.

  And so Alice, Maja, and Maja’s child had to look for another place to stay. Another holiday apartment, because Misha couldn’t die. Their present holiday apartment was too small. They really needed at least two bedrooms, one for Maja and the child and the other for Alice, as well as a living room with a TV for the evenings, a halfway decently equipped kitchen to take care of the child’s needs, a bath with a bathtub. A garden? Or a window with a view of something beautiful.

  In the hospital, Misha was wearing a hospital gown printed all over with blue diamonds. He was reduced to skin and bones, a skeleton; but his hands were as they had always been – they were also soft and warm. On his bedside table there was nothing now except a bottle of mineral water and a sipper cup. Though by now he’d even stopped drinking water.

  Alice packed her overnight bag. A nightgown, three T-shirts, three sweaters, a pair of slacks, underwear, a book. She sat down on the wicker sofa among the cushions and rolled a green plastic ball with a little bell tinkling inside it across the tiled tabletop towards the child. The child was already able to stand at the low living-room table, proudly, holding on to the tabletop with both hands. She didn’t react to the ball, but emphatically repeated the word ‘rabbit’ several times in a row. Very clearly. Maja was on the phone with the owner of a holiday apartment at the other end of town. Cheaper. Three rooms. With a garden. A washing machine too, yes, of course. No further from the hospital than this one-room place with its fake forsythia in a vase on the built-in cupboard, the framed photo above the TV showing the sun setting into an empty lake, the folding bed on which Alice had slept in front of the built-in cupboard, the double bed in the corner, and the wicker sofa pushed to the window. The curtains were drawn aside and the view was of a supermarket car park, vehicles coming and going, and people pushing brimful shopping trolleys.

  … in the Catholic hospital, Maja was saying on the phone. My husband is in the Catholic hospital. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her head cradled in her hand, her face turned away. Alice gazed at her back. Now the child had decided to take the plastic ball after all, lifting it up and shaking it hard, listening to the little bell with a rapt expression on her face.

  We’re moving, Alice said to the child. We’re moving to another place. It’s going to be really nice there, you’ll see. There’s a bathtub. A garden – we can go outside every morning. Trees. A lawn. Maybe rabbits, we’ll see, maybe we can catch one.

  The child didn’t reply. She looked at Alice, a long look full of mysterious significance. A clear drop of spit trembled on her little chin. She was Misha’s child and looked a lot like her father.

  The way things had turned out, Misha now lay dying in Zweibrücken – Two Bridges. The name sounded poetic to Alice, but it presented a distorted image, because for the dying man there was only one bridge, if any at all. For whom was the second one? Zweibrücken turned out to be the end of an odyssey that had led from one hospital to another – and then in the end and by coincidence it happened to be a Catholic hospital in a town far from home where Misha now lay dying. He might have joked about it if he’d had the strength. But he no longer did. He had cancer and was on morphine, was nearly gone. Alice wasn’t even sure whether the sound he made when she sat by his bed and put his hand in hers was intended as an expression of pain or acceptance. The doctors, who had withdrawn from the case a week ago, still hovered in the background out of courtesy. Now and then, one of them would come by and pretend to take his temperature or feel his pulse. For days they had predicted his death, but he didn’t die. Kept breathing, in and out. In and out. In and out. That was all.

  Maja was putting a fresh nappy on the child. On the double bed. The child was beautiful, her skin soft and white. On her back there was a heart-shaped birthmark, a mark of distinction. Alice sat on the wicker sofa and watched as Maja changed the child’s nappy, holding both little legs in her left hand and gently raising the child by her little feet.

  We’ll take a taxi, Maja said. Could you call for one. In ten minutes.

  OK, Alice said.

  They didn’t talk much. Sometimes more, sometimes less; it wasn’t awkward. The night before they had sat next to each other in silence, watching the child eat pizza. For quite a while. Alice got up and washed the last of the dishes, two coffee mugs, two plates, the small bowl from which the child had eaten a lunch of plain yogurt with banana slices. Please pack up the things from the refrigerator, too, Maja said. She told the child to lie still. Don’t move – just for a moment.

  There were eggs, fish, tomatoes and a piece of butter in the refrigerator. And fennel tea, potatoes, apples, and pears. Plus three bottles of beer and a bottle of wine. In the pot on the stove there were sterilised teats and the child’s feeding bottle. Alice unfolded two bright yellow bags, feeling unduly helpless – she wanted to do everything just so.

  Then the landlord was standing at the door. He had knocked inaudibly, just wanted to check whether everything was all right. Alice counted some notes into his outstretched hand; she saw no reason to lie to him. No. We’re not leaving town, we’re just moving; this place is really too small for us. But otherwise everything’s fine. Thank you very much. No, it will still take a while. It’s not over yet. The doctors say he’s very strong. The landlord smiled, a crooked, ineffectual smile; he looked quite awkward, but what else could he do.

  Where will you be going?

  To the outskirts of town, Maja called out from the bed. There’s supposed to be a garden there; that’s better for the child. But thanks for everything. Thank you very much all the same.

  Maja and the child had been in Zweibrücken for ten days. They had come by plane; it was the child’s first time flying, and she didn’t cry at take-off or landing. Maja had booked the holiday apartment fro
m Berlin, had told the landlord that she wasn’t coming to Zweibrücken on holiday. Did anyone ever go to Zweibrücken on holiday? The landlord didn’t have an answer. Forty euros a night for the room, the forsythia, and a bath with a shower. On their fourth day there the child had started crying inconsolably as soon as they were on the street leading to the hospital, and that’s when Maja had phoned Alice.

  Can you come? Misha is dying. Don’t you want to see him once more? I need someone to look after the child; she no longer wants to go to the hospital with me.

  Alice was tempted to ask, Do you think Misha wants to see me? Don’t you think it might be too much for him? But how could Maja know whether Misha wanted to see Alice or not.

  Instead she had asked, What’s the matter with the child?

  Maja had thought for a moment and then she said, The child no longer reacts to Misha as if he were a person. I can’t take her into his hospital room any more. But I want to be with him. You understand that, don’t you?

  Alice left Berlin the next day. She barely knew Maja. She knew Misha. Of course she wanted to see him one more time; what kind of a question was that. There had been times when she thought she couldn’t live if she couldn’t see Misha’s face any more. She had often told him that, and each time he had laughed good-naturedly. But she also thought he would die while the train in which she sat was rolling through the desolate and ugly landscape; she considered herself so important that she assumed Misha would die because she was coming and before she could be at his side.

  In spite of that, she had left for Zweibrücken. Misha did not die. Not while she was sitting on the train, reading a newspaper, falling asleep and waking up again, drinking coffee, eating a tart apple, looking through the window, crying, going to the toilet, and twice changing her seat. Seeing signs in everything and misinterpreting them. Misha didn’t die, not when she arrived in the town and Maja and the child picked her up at the station, not when they embraced and Maja said, We can cry later. Misha didn’t die the first night that Alice took care of the child while Maja went to the hospital, nor the second, and before the third night they had decided to move.

  They were standing on the pavement, waiting for the taxi. The pushchair was collapsed. The bags of food from the refrigerator sat next to Alice’s overnight bag and Maja’s suitcase. Earthly goods. Every word suddenly had a second meaning. The pavement was narrow, cars rushed by, raising fountains of rainwater behind them. Nobody was out walking. The taxi didn’t come. Maja, holding the child in her arms, rocked her a while, then she passed her to Alice. Alice took the child, afraid she might put up a fight, but the child didn’t resist her, just looked so very serious. Alice held the child in one arm, supporting part of the weight on her hip, the way you hold children. The closeness of the little face, framed by a fluffy pink pompom hat, embarrassed her. The child smelled of baby, of milk, and mashed carrots; her blue eyes were huge and shiny. Alice had to look away; she gazed up and down the street. What a place. The street crossed over the motorway, ran through a park where dishevelled ducks swam in a stagnant pond, then on to the desolate centre of town and up to the hospital – a walk of twenty minutes with the pushchair and the child who, just learning to walk, wanted to walk all the time, but never straight ahead, rather this way and that way. She was learning to walk in spite of everything and precisely because of it all. Maja had been taking this route for a week now. There. And back. The child had thrown soggy biscuits to the ducks. The ducks barely noticed. It was cold, the middle of October, not golden. The child on Alice’s arm turned her head and saw what Alice saw. Rain and grey houses. Nothing that they might have pointed out to each other.

  Maybe I ought to call the taxi again, Alice said, but Maja didn’t react, which probably meant that there was no need to call again. Alice found that Maja often spoke by saying nothing, expressing herself clearly with silence. In different circumstances Alice might have objected to this silence. But Maja was Misha’s wife. They had a child together, and once Misha was dead, Maja would be his widow. The affair between Misha and Alice had happened too long ago for her to claim any rights whatsoever. Just an anecdote but, Alice thought, if it weren’t for that anecdote, I wouldn’t be in Zweibrücken now. And yet, my being here doesn’t change the fact that Misha is dying.

  The taxi pulled up at the kerb. The driver made a face; he didn’t feel like climbing out, getting his feet wet, packing all their stuff into the boot – the pushchair, the suitcase, the overnight bag, the bags of food. He got out. Maja took the child from Alice and smiled at the driver. Alice got into the front seat. In the back the driver fiddled nervously with the child’s seat. Maja was holding the child in her lap, still smiling. Then they drove off. Nice windscreen wipers, music on the radio, the regional station, idle chatter, a gong, and then pop songs. Looking out of the window. Driving down the street, crossing the motorway – the signposts, upcoming exits were all clearly visible, drawing one to distant places, the possibility of getting away from Zweibrücken again. Let’s beat it, disappear, clear out, skedaddle – it was a language that was suddenly no longer appropriate here. They drove past the park; the hospital whisked by, seven storeys with twenty windows each – the third from the left on the seventh floor was the window of the room where Misha lay in bed, breathing in and breathing out. The door to his room always ajar, and his breathing so loud you could already hear it as you walked out of the lift.

  You’ll be shocked when you see him, Maja had said the first time Alice went to the hospital. And she had been.

  Alice didn’t look up at the hospital window. They drove uphill briefly, leaving the centre of town, then through a wooded area and into a housing development. The cab driver had a terrible cough. Number twelve, Maja said from the back seat. Alice paid, didn’t ask for a receipt. The driver took their things out of the boot, mumbling to himself as he did. Then he drove off. Alice, Maja and the child stood in the street looking at the house – a small, new, white house with a conservatory in which huge azaleas were pressing against the fogged-up panes. A rustic witch sitting on a straw broom hung outside the stained-glass panel set into the front door, swinging and rustling in the wind. Alice thought she knew what the doorbell would sound like. The air was brisk. Suddenly they could smell the rain, the wet soil, the damp leaves.

  Alice had been at the hospital that morning. After breakfast. One of the doctors had said, There are people who find it easier to die alone; let him be by himself for a little while, don’t worry. Misha had been alone from one o’clock at night till ten o’clock in the morning, nine hours during which he had been breathing and did not die.

  That morning Alice sat at Misha’s bedside until noon. First on one side of the bed, then on the other. The room was utilitarian, fitted cupboards, a sink, the door to the toilet, a bare area of painted linoleum where a second bed had stood in which another patient had been lying. Some days ago the nurses had pushed him elsewhere, without giving any reasons. To some other place.

  Sitting on the right side of the bed, Alice had her back to the window that looked out on the city and a distant range of hills. Sitting on the left-hand side of the bed, she’d be next to the IV drip stand for the morphine, but leaning back against the wall unit, she could look out of the window and see the hills when she could no longer bear to look at Misha. To look at his face. Misha slept with his eyes open. The entire time. Like a plant, he had turned to the light, towards the grey but bright day – his body, his head, his arms and hands turned towards the window. In spite of the open eyes he looked as though he were sleeping, but perhaps it was something quite different, this state he was in, anaesthetised by morphine, flooded by images, or by nothing at all any more. He had sighed, often and deeply. Sometimes Alice would take his hand, which was warm and so very familiar. The door to the room was slightly ajar, the squeaking of the nurses’ shoes was comforting – the ringing of the telephone at the nurses’ station, the rumbling of the lift, the whispering and laughter, a constant bustle, the food trolley roll
ing past the room. Now and then one of the nuns would come in. An old, wrinkled nun came by often; Alice thought she came on her account rather than because of Misha.

  Everything all right?

  Yes, so far.

  The nun had stopped at the foot of the bed and, holding on to the metal bar, had gazed at Misha with her head cocked. Interested. His mouth was open, the gums black, his unseeing eyes turned towards the window. The nun had looked at Alice and asked what sort of man he had been.

  How do you mean? Alice had asked, sitting up; she had been slumped down in the chair leaning against the wall unit.

  Do you mean what was his profession?

  The nun had lifted her hands casually and dropped them again, giving the bed a jolt. She said, Well, how did he spend his life? What did he do?

  They had both looked at Misha, and Alice thought the nun would never know what Misha had been like, how he had looked, how he talked, cursed, and smiled – how he had lived his life. She saw only the dying man. Was she missing something?

  Hesitantly Alice said, Well, I’d say he was a magician. A conjurer – do you know what I mean? He could do all sorts of tricks, pull rabbits out of a hat, juggling. Mind reading. But he always let you look at his cards. He always wanted to show you his cards. I can’t explain it.

  The nun said, I thought it was something like that. Her tone of voice was neutral; it could have been agreement or scorn, hard to tell. She said, Well, it won’t be much longer. Once their features get so sharp, it doesn’t take much longer. Then she left the room.

  The door to the small, white house opened by itself, they didn’t have to ring. Probably everybody here had seen everything, standing behind the curtains of their terrace doors, in the shaded corners of their living rooms on this quiet, peaceful street. They had all seen the taxi stop, had seen them get out. A blonde and a dark-haired woman and a small child wearing a little pink hat. And all three with dark rings under their eyes. A suitcase, bags, and a push-chair. The door opened by itself, the owners came out of the house. Welcome, they extended their arms. A fat woman and a fat man, older people, the age of Maja’s parents, Alice’s parents. Alice was older than Maja, and Misha wasn’t that young any more either. Alice had always thought he would outlive her. Would outlive them all. Misha would always be there. That’s what she had thought. She wouldn’t have been able to say why she thought so. Perhaps it was an expression of her love, something timeless. Standing in front of the house, the food bags in one hand and the overnight bag in the other, and Maja next to her with the child on her arm and all those little things at the edges of the picture – ornamental spheres in flower beds, the earth already dug up, green grass, a white clay turtle – Alice felt a trembling in her knees that threatened to get out of control but then went away again. The woman had a big bosom, was wearing violet-tinted glasses; she was incredibly cordial, not quite natural. The man, always hovering a little distance behind her, his hands rough and worn, his handshake firm; his tracksuit bottoms were filthy and there were extensive scars on both sides of his broad, shaven skull, as if his head had once been held in a clamp. It looked peculiar, but then everything seemed peculiar, had to be accepted for what it was. Alice carried her bag into the front garden and up the broken paving stones of the front path while the child on Maja’s arm kept saying, Rabbit. Rabbit. Rabbit. As if to calm everyone.