The Woman from Bratislava

by Leif Davidsen

  Toftlund has been away for a couple of days, but he came back armed with questions about my father. I told him that was none of his business. It was a personal matter. Private. His questions worried me, though. He also asked about you. He shouldn’t have known anything about you. As always, it hurt to have that part of my past raked up again. He said that everything was his business. When one was accused of a serious crime, there was no such thing as privacy. Not for the accused, nor for that person’s close family and friends. A crime did not only involve the perpetrator and the victim. The secrets and mental blocks of their nearest and dearest were no longer sacrosanct. Even casual acquaintances could be called in, their statements taken down, secrets revealed. A police investigation lays a person’s life bare in much the same way as a surgeon lays bare a growth, in order to cut away the diseased tissue. That was the image he used. Even his metaphors are rotten, they reek of male chauvinism.

  I told him I had nothing to say. My father had left us in 1953, shortly before my thirteenth birthday and was declared dead the following year. That was the expression the authorities used: declared dead. And it was that same wording which nurtured my hopes of his return. My mother remarried in 1955. My step-father adopted Teddy, but Fritz and I would have none of that, we wept as if our hearts would break and my mother bowed to our wishes.

  Naturally the police have interviewed my mother, but her senility is so far advanced that nothing she says is of any use to them. That much was plain to me from Toftlund’s manner. She keeps contradicting herself and cannot remember whether she is ninety years old or twelve. One minute she says that Dad has gone for a walk, or is over in the bakehouse. The next, that she has never known a man by that name and that her husband died five years ago. It does not help, of course, that both her husbands bore the same good Danish surname: Pedersen. Teddy alone adopted the middle-name of Nikolaj, from my step-father. My mother’s memory is like one of those play pits full of little coloured plastic balls which kids happily hop about in while their parents are shopping or having lunch. In the same way, the balls of her memories bounce willy-nilly around her calcified brain.

  Teddy came to see me today. He gave me a hug and held my hand across the table at which we are allowed to sit and talk. This was the one weekly private visit granted me in my solitary confinement. A prison guard seated on a high-backed chair monitored our conversation, which I am sure was also recorded. There are limits to how deep a conversation one can have under such conditions, but it’s better than nothing. Other than that all I have to distract me are the sessions with my tormentors and the couple of times each day when I am allowed to stretch my legs in the enclosed prison yard – though always alone. I consider myself a law-abiding citizen and yet I dream of being able to stroll around the yard along with the other inmates. To take the morning air with murderers, rapists and thieves would be like receiving an unexpected gift. To eat my meals with others would be a sheer delight, even if my companions were serious felons of the first water. That is how much I yearn for human company.

  Teddy was looking a bit rough. He said he had both backache and toothache; it was part of the price you had to pay for growing older. I found that quite funny. Typical male whinging. I am eight years older than Teddy and sound as a bell, mentally and physically. I don’t feel my age, but I do take care of myself. That Teddy has never done, and all his good living is starting to show on his face and body, but he is still his old, charming self. He gave me all the gossip from the academic world: who had won what grants, who was about to deliver their thesis, who could bask in the reflected glory of their clever Ph.D. students’ success and get their name into the academic journals, whose name was in the papers, who had been interviewed on TV, which of my fellow lecturers had attempted to put a stop to NATO’s crazy war, who was sleeping with whom. The wonderful stuff of the everyday to which you never give a second thought until you are deprived of it. He made me laugh out loud several times. And it was so nice to hear him call me ‘sis’ and ‘Irma, my lass’ as he always did, and still does even though I’m pushing sixty. He was always the apple of our eyes. I wonder if maybe Fritz and I compensated for our bitterness and disappointment by projecting all the love we felt we had lost onto little Theodor with his golden curls – they didn’t turn brown until he was well up in years.

  Obviously we could not talk about what was really on our minds. Teddy asked how I was, of course, and I shrugged, and then he said I looked thinner, but I was still his lovely Irma with the stunning eyes. That’s my baby brother, always ready with a compliment and a little white lie, but stupid he is not and he knew it was best to leave certain things unsaid.

  The hour went all too quickly. As it was drawing to a close he could not resist asking:

  ‘What really happened to your father?’

  I noticed he said your father. Teddy regarded our mother’s second husband as his dad. He didn’t remember anything else, and our step-father had spoiled little Teddy rotten. There was never any talk of a wicked step-parent in Teddy’s case. I thought for a moment. He was holding my hand across the table, but he let it go and lit a cigarette, and even though I gave up smoking years ago I took a cig from his pack and lit it. It tasted strange, I felt my head swim for a second. It brought back memories of my youth. One single, sublime drag and I was transported back to a time of smoke-filled bars, loud voices, long hair and twanging guitars. Night-long philosophical discussions about the need for revolution and the liberating, consciousness-raising process of feminism. Into my mind, too, came a picture of a long-forgotten lover and a morning in a bed with the light streaming through the window along with the May birdsong. All of that in a couple of drags, then I stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray and took Teddy’s hand again.

  ‘I thought he died in Hamburg,’ I said, leaning across the table, so that we looked like a couple of lovebirds in a café. ‘That was what the police told us. Found in the harbour. The body had almost disintegrated, it had been in the water for weeks. There were some signs of foul play, though. A contusion on the head. Dad’s passport was in the jacket pocket, it too had almost fallen apart completely, but was still barely legible. End of story.’

  He considered me:

  ‘Ah, but is it? I met a woman in Bratislava, Irma.’

  ‘We don’t need to go into that right now.’

  ‘She said she was my half-sister, and that our father died less than a year ago.’

  I looked at him. He looked back at me. There was a look of desperation in his eyes. A frantic longing to know the whole story and since it sounded from Toftlund’s questions as if they must know something of it, I decided that I might as well confirm Teddy’s suspicions.

  ‘It’s true,’ I said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That Dad died just under a year ago and you have a half-sister.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. Why the hell did no one ever tell me? Does Fritz know?’

  ‘Fritz has known for some years.’

  ‘But not little brother?’

  ‘Would it have mattered to you?’

  He sat for a moment, puffed on his cigarette and said quietly:

  ‘No, sis. To be honest, no, it wouldn’t.’

  ‘There you are then.’

  ‘She showed me a picture of him in SS uniform. Fucking disgusting.’

  ‘Don’t be so childish. You’re a historian. You know how it was.’

  ‘Was he there on the Eastern Front. Did he lock up and torture decent Danish men and women?’

  ‘Yes to the first. A definite no to the second. But I think we should save this until I’m released.’

  ‘Will you be?’

  ‘Yes. They have nothing on me.’

  ‘They’ve been questioning me too, and other people. About your revolutionary past.’

  ‘I never did anything illegal.’

  ‘What about all your lot’s talk of revolution and bombs. Christ, you even had your own little newspapers. You were all so flaming high-minded tha
t you wouldn’t give house room to any opinions but your own.’

  That angered me, he saw it in my eyes and drew in his horns.

  ‘Sorry, sis. That sounded worse than it meant to. But Christ, the seventies was a weird time.’

  ‘Could I have another cigarette?’ I asked, and he lit one for me. This time it only tasted of smoke. It would be easy to start smoking again, it takes the edge off and gives you something to do with your hands. Like being a baby again, stuffing something in your mouth and being soothed by it.

  I said: ‘Having such high principles probably did engender a certain lack of sensitivity. The aim justified the means. I freely admit it. Some people remember the late-sixties as a dream, a time of hope, of euphoria. My own memories are actually tinged with bitterness at the implacability of the men in particular. My good memories are associated with the solidarity of the women’s movement. I do miss that sometimes. But the male revolutionaries? No thanks. I also admit that the ghost of totalitarianism hovered over our ranks, but the revolution never came to anything. Our principles were not put to the test, as Dad’s were. For the large majority of us theorising was as far as it went. The Danes did not want revolution. We did not have to choose which side to fight on in a war.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘You’re an old social democrat, Teddy.’

  ‘Oh, no – I’m not anything, really. Slightly to the left, tending towards the centre, Danish wishy-washy, that’s my style.’

  I smiled at him, my unprincipled little brother:

  ‘There was no actual risk attached to any of it, for me or the others. We took it very seriously, of course, all the time knowing, perhaps, that it was only a phase. And if you really want to know, I changed my outlook in the early nineties, after the Wall came down. I don’t suppose there is any way round the reforms. Totalitarianism is not the answer. The cost is too high. I have laid the totalitarian ghost, Teddy. Besides, I’ve always been a good girl, dutifully attending to my studies, my lectureship, my students and, eventually, my professorship.’

  ‘Better late than never,’ he said, and I felt a surge of resentment at his implicit disdain. He had never had any principles to speak of and like most people with no principles he found it easy to judge.

  ‘Oh, well,’ he said. ‘They can’t do you for that, anyway. If they did, they’d have to collar a whole load of the nation’s finest sons and daughters along with you, haul them out of Parliament and Danmarks Radio and managing editors’ offices and wherever else the revolution’s somewhat ageing advance guard now spends its respectable, market-oriented time. They’d have trouble fitting them all in here, I tell you. But it’s like I’ve always said: words are cheap in this country. They have no consequences.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, Teddy. But don’t worry. They have nothing on me. This is just the last shock wave from the front line of the cold war. I’ll be out soon.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, sis. I mean, what would we do without you? You’re what holds the family together.’

  I could tell there were a lot of private questions he wanted to ask, but he could see from my face that this would not be wise, not with so many ears – both human and electronic – listening in. We sat for a moment or two, holding hands, and then, unable to resist, he said:

  ‘What’s her name, this dear sister I’ve suddenly acquired?’

  ‘Mira. Mira Majola.’

  ‘Very pretty sounding, I must say, but she told me her name was Maria.’

  ‘Some other time, brother mine.’

  The prison guard coughed and announced that our time was up, we would have to say our goodbyes. Sorry, he said, quite kindly really, but those were the rules. I could picture Toftlund with the headphones over his ears, cursing this stickler for cutting us off just as the conversation was getting interesting. I would have loved to spend the whole afternoon with Teddy anywhere else but the Western Prison, but I was also happy that the time was up. I was in no mood for sharing family secrets with the intelligence service’s great, hearkening ear.

  We both stood up, hugged, and Teddy whispered in my ear:

  ‘So what’s your feeling about our real father, sis?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Nazi, bigamist, traitor to his country and his family. A murderer too, for all we know. Whose was that body in Hamburg harbour with his passport on it? Have you ever wondered about that? Because that’s one hell of a note.’

  I felt anger well up inside me, but I did not want to part from my little brother on bad terms, so I did not rise to the bait. Instead I simply said:

  ‘You don’t understand, Teddy. But one day it will all be explained to you. And then you’ll understand. But not now and not here.’

  ‘Alright, sis,’ he said and gave me a squeeze, although I could tell that it hurt his back. ‘Take care. We can’t wait to see you out of here.’

  ‘Neither can I. Say hi to Fritz for me.’

  ‘Right-oh.’

  ‘And give Mum a call.’

  ‘She doesn’t understand a word you say.’

  ‘She recognises your voice. Talk about the weather. It doesn’t matter what you say. She just likes to hear our voices.’

  ‘How can you tell. The inside of her head’s like a chalk pit.’

  I took a step backwards, laughed at him. He could always make me laugh.

  ‘Teddy. Behave yourself.’

  ‘Come home soon, sis. We miss you.’

  ‘It won’t be long now. Say hello to Janne too.’

  ‘Will do, sis. Will do.’

  He left and I was taken back to my cell, but not, strangely enough, to interrogation. Maybe they had to decipher and analyse my conversation with my little brother before coming back to plague me with questions which, more and more, seemed to go round in circles.

  So I paced up and down my seven square metres, staring at the yellow walls and the tiny window. The light outside my cell had a blue cast to it today, as if the April sun was beginning to gain the upper hand. Easter can’t be that far away. I sat down on my cot then got up again, my thoughts going back in time, as I tried yet again to remember.

  The truth is that I can recall very little of the time after we trundled off in the removal van, leaving the village on the island of Fünen like thieves in the night. There are a couple of years which are shrouded in twilight in my memory. A darkness relieved only by a few fragmented recollections, but otherwise consisting of nothing but a dull, constant ache and a sense of loss.

  19

  THE FACT WAS that I felt betrayed, but I also missed my father as badly as only my adolescent heart could. I could not accept that he would willingly have left us. There had to be more to it than that: some deep, dark conspiracy which the grown-ups were keeping from me. My mind seemed to be caught in an eternal twilight. I do not think my mother was particularly aware of how I was feeling. I don’t think she realised how unhappy I was. If she did then she certainly did not do anything about it. She wanted no hysterics, as she put it. In any case she had more than enough on her plate, getting us installed in a small three-room flat in a sedate provincial town in Jutland and creating a decent life for us in the thrifty fifties when times were still lean. Money was tight. Being a single mother with three young children was no picnic then either.

  Mum was intelligent, she had taken her school-leavers’ certificate. This gained her a job in a solicitor’s office as a sort of general dogsbody. But it was not long before her sunny smile and quick wit made her indispensable to Mr Kelstrup the solicitor. He was a stout, rubicund widower in his early sixties, with a penchant for partaking of lengthy and substantial lunches at the town’s quality restaurant in the Chamber of Commerce building, while a trainee took care of the most pressing business. Mr Kelstrup was an easygoing sort of man who did not worry too much about expensive academic qualifications. So in no time Mum was acting as secretary, personal assistant and even something of a sparring partner, whom her employer could bounce ideas off
. There were not that many of them in the office, it was not a big practice. It dealt mainly with conveyancing, a bit of debt-collecting from lowlier members of the community, the execution of wills and the occasional court case, providing legal aid for petty criminals. Only later did I discover that he too had been on the wrong side in the war and had even spent six months at Faarhus Prison Camp for collaboration. His sentence had been suspended, though, and his licence to practise law restored to him. The last German refugees had been sent home long ago, or chased out like cattle, the last executions for treason carried out and most people in the town felt that, well, they had always known Mr Kelstrup the solicitor, and he was only a little fish. And besides, he was cheaper than the other solicitors in town, so for goodness sake. There was really no more to it than that. And anyway, plenty of folk had been taken with the thought of a Neueuropa in the days when everything had looked very different. As long as he remembered to put a light in the window on May 4th then he was no different from anyone else.

  Mum was given some help getting started. By people who remained nameless, but also by Kelstrup. It was no accident that he should have given her a job at a time when his practice was not doing enough business to merit taking on another member of staff. But Mum was good for business. She was well-liked, she inspired confidence and she organised Mr Kelstrup’s diary, thus ensuring that he kept all of his appointments – something which, due to his weakness for the delights of the table, he had not always been so good at doing. As a teenager I did not understand the set-up. This was something I only discovered later: how people discreetly tried to help one another, even when they had long since forsaken their old ideals. A small favour here and there. That was how it worked all over Denmark. And that, I suppose, is how it still works in my native land.

  So my mother found her feet. Teddy was looked after by a nice lady known to us simply as Mrs Hansen, found through Mr Kelstrup, and Fritz had made a good pal with whom he spent all his time. The whole family quickly fell into a routine that did not differ from anyone else’s. The essential thing was not to stand out. To have the same furniture and curtains as other Danes. To keep one’s house and children neat and clean. To adhere to the bourgeois norms of the silent majority. Not to imagine one was anything special. Not to push oneself forward or show off.