by Zoë Jenny
Claire talked to her in a low voice, almost whispering, “I will carry you,” she said. “Trust me.”
She held Nora’s back with her hands so she could just relax and feel the weightlessness of her body. “See? You’re floating.”
It was a way of familiarising her and making her comfortable in the water. She had to take away her fear of going under and drowning, the fear of losing control. As Nora realised she was safe, she sent the signal Claire was waiting for: a little tiny smile. Her reward.
“Shall we try now?” They were only two metres apart, Claire standing there like a steadfast rock as Nora swam towards her, frog-like, in hasty awkward movements, her lips pressed together. “Head up,” Claire shouted, “head up,” and then Nora jumped. Claire almost lost balance as she leapt at her, legs and arms clinging around her.
“Don’t let go,” she stammered. “Please, don’t let go.” As her little face burrowed in her neck, Claire could feel the breath on her skin. The hot breath of fear. She stroked the back of her head, a reflex – was there such a thing as a reflex for affection?
The pregnant woman got out of the pool and, as she walked past them towards the changing rooms, she smiled at her as if they were sharing a secret. Maybe she thinks this is my child, Claire thought, maybe she thinks I am Nora’s mother. At that moment she realised that this was exactly what it looked like.
Sadness struck her, overwhelming her like a crashing tidal wave. Pressing Nora’s little dripping wet body against her, she didn’t want to teach her to swim anymore; she wanted to leave the pool and instead buy her an ice cream, go for a walk in the park. There, sitting on a bench, she would calmly explain to her how important it was for her to be able to swim. Claire had always seen it as much more than just a useful life skill. Fear was the obstacle and impediment of any progress. That’s what it was all about. Turning fear into strength and learning to keep her head up. With a sudden movement she broke away from Nora’s embrace.
“Let’s go,” she said in a voice that sounded far more fierce than she had intended. “Let’s try again!”
That evening, when they were sitting in their basement kitchen and Anthony was smoking his after-dinner cigarette, Claire told him about Nora the first time.
“It’s normal to feel more affection for some children,” he said, puffing the smoke through his nostrils. “Just don’t get too involved.”
Claire carried the dishes to the sink. Don’t get too involved. It had sounded like a warning, and she loaded the dishwasher with more noise than necessary. The lightness she had felt after the hypnosis session had long gone. When they were watching TV later that evening, curled up together on the sofa, she didn’t follow the story of the film. She was thinking of Nora and what her room might look like, how Mrs Ross would put her to bed. Would she read her a bedtime story, or just turn off the light and close the door?
*
Claire didn’t know what to say. Of course she wouldn’t mind. Quite the opposite. She was delighted to have Nora for half-an-hour longer, but that’s not what she said. She looked at her watch as if to figure out whether she could manage it.
“You know, I don’t have another lesson after this, so it shouldn’t be problem.”
“Excellent,” Mrs Ross replied. “Of course I’ll pay you for the extra time.”
No parent had ever asked her to do that. If someone else had asked her, she almost certainly would have said no. After all she was a teacher, not a babysitter. But this was different. This was about Nora and she felt as if she couldn’t say no to the extra time with her.
As regards the swimming lesson, it was by far the worst since they started a few weeks ago. It took her half-an-hour just to get Nora into the water. Shying like a nervous horse, Nora refused to enter the pool and when she was finally in there, she didn’t move. She just stood there, shivering and scared. Hopeless. This is a Sisyphus situation, Claire thought, one step forward, two steps back. This wasn’t normal, far from it. Thinking of herself as someone with a lot of patience, she suddenly felt like she was about to lose it.
“You know what,” she said. “Let’s call it a day!” Nora looked suprised but utterly relieved.
In the changing room Claire helped her into her white cotton dress and matching sandals. The damp bathing suit looked limp and sorry; Nora quickly put in the plastic bag as if to get rid of the evidence of her failure. As soon as they stepped out into the sunshine, she sighed with relief.
They walked along Upper Street and Nora seemed another person altogether. She smiled at a little puppy that walked past. The torment in the pool was over, the world friendly and full of excitement again. How quickly the mood of a child could change. Suddenly Claire had the urge to treat Nora, to put the awful moments of the swimming lesson behind her.
At that time of day the cafe with the glass front overlooking Upper Street was almost empty. On display on the counter was a selection of luscious looking cakes, and Claire wanted Nora to have a piece. She chose a slice of the chocolate cake with the thickest icing on it, as well as a large lemonade.
As they sat on high chairs looking out at the pavement, Claire watched intently as Nora ate the cake at once, breaking it up with her fingers, bit by bit disappearing into her mouth. The slurping sound of the straw sucking up the drink reminded her of her own childhood, the hot summers in Berlin when her mother brought them freshly made lemonade in the garden. She and her sister Anne drank as much as they could, comparing their bloated bellies afterwards.
“Do you have any brothers and sisters?” Claire asked. Nora shook her head, putting the last crumbs into her mouth. “Nope.”
A lonely only child, that’s what Nora was. From that moment Claire knew she disliked Mrs Ross. Of course it was unfair; what did she know about them? Nothing. But there had been a coldness about Mrs Ross that had put her off from the very first time they had met.
“You really don’t like swimming, do you?”
“Mummy wants me to learn. So she doesn’t have to look after me on holidays. In Spain I almost drowned.” She told Claire how she was playing in the sea, looking for shells when a big wave caught her by surprise. She got whirled around, emerging only for seconds, gasping for air before the next wave forced her down under again. “The man saved me,” Nora explained. Claire noticed that she didn’t say my dad, or even a name, just ‘the man’. “Mummy was mad,” she added.
Of course, she was too busy looking after herself while her child was drowning, struggling for dear life. Claire felt furious. There were so many questions she wanted to ask – where was daddy, for example. But she didn’t want to come across as too curious. No wonder the experience had left Nora traumatised. However, at that moment Nora was here with her. Claire felt the urge to protect her, to look after her as if she was in danger, standing only an inch away from the edge of an abyss she was about to fall into.
“Can we go and see the angel now?” Nora asked, pushing back the empty plate and glass. It took Claire a while before she realised what she meant.
The Plaza was as ugly as any shopping centre, a U-shaped open-air complex crammed with shops. An elevator led to a mezzanine level with a cinema and restaurants.
Claire and Nora stopped in the middle of the square. There it was in front of them, the angel sculpture. Claire noticed it every time she came here to shop, overwhelmed by its sheer size. The massive silver wings on four spidery legs were spread out as if they were about to take off into the blue sky. The shiny stainless steel reflected in the sun. An iron angel. Towering over people going in and out of shops.
“Does the angel not have a face?” Nora asked.
“No, my darling, angels have no faces.” She paused for a moment. Claire didn’t know why she had said that. Angels have no faces.
“It’s a bad angel then,” Nora concluded quickly.
Claire looked at the sculpture. It was martial, warrior-like, as if ready for an attack.
“No,” Claire finally answered, stroking Nora’s head.
“The angel is just fast asleep and that’s a very good thing. It should never, ever wake up.”
She took her hand. Nora didn’t seem surprised at all and the gesture felt completely natural. Walking through the shopping centre, Claire felt strangely proud with this child at her side. Of course people assumed she was the mother, and in truth she didn’t mind that at all. She imagined how she’d be at home with her. She would help her with her homework at the kitchen table and then they would prepare supper together. She would let Claire stir the pan while she would set the table for three – the comforting routine of everyday life. Later Claire would read her a fairytale from the Hans Christian Andersen book.
“Can you read it again?” Nora would ask and she would start again, and read until Nora was asleep.
It was Mrs Ross who woke her from her daydreaming. Claire felt reluctant to hand Nora over to her mother, who didn’t even ask how they had spent the time. Claire watched their backs, and after a few metres Nora turned her head and waved at her. This image of Nora stayed with her for the rest of the day. Surely this gesture meant that Nora liked her. Why would she have turned and waved if she didn’t like her? It was a sign in her favour. It must be. Children don’t lie.
However, at home the house felt emptier than usual, the rooms bigger. Claire listened to the noises outside. The steady brawl of the traffic of City Road, a dog barking in the distance. Only inside the house there was an inanimate, heavy stillness.
*
Her family was scattered all over Europe. Her parents lived in Berlin, her sister Anne in Hamburg, she had an aunt in Barcelona and an uncle in Toulouse. She kept in touch with all of them, by phone and e-mail, but it was Anne that she missed. Anne before the baby that is.
She had changed since she’d had the baby. It was something in her voice, an unfamiliar hasty tone. They used to call each other much more; now it was down to once a week. Often the conversation would break up, Anne would go away from the phone to give the baby a dummy, or pick something up from the floor. When Claire asked whether she should call later, Anne insisted she would be right back. Sometimes she heard Karl in the background, talking to the baby, making silly noises, or the beeping sound of a child’s toy. Nowadays, there was always some noise in the background.
Gone were the days of intimate, sisterly conversations that could go on for hours on those lazy Sunday afternoons; the ones that involved several cups of tea and lounging on the sofa looking at the ceiling, talking about their childhood in Berlin, ex-boyfriends and rows, their weddings and other friend’s weddings or the latest skin treatments, until they got hot ears or Anthony pointed to his watch, whispering, “You’ve been on the phone for over an hour now!”
Of course the subject of the conversations changed when Anne got pregnant. Anne would send pictures of clothes and toys to her mobile. Suddenly it was all about what colour the wall in the children’s room should be and whether wooden toys have greater educative value than plastic ones. Sometimes Anne would tell her hilarous things, like when a man stopped her on the street, asking if he could please touch her bump because it looked so “delicously plump”, or when she went to a baby class with Karl where they had to practise how to hold a baby properly on a life-sized plastic toy. Anne regarded this as a complete waste of time and “just pathetic”, pointing out that the human race had survived for 200,000 years without such training.
Claire had been relieved to hear that Anne couldn’t stand those over-excited mothers who suddenly start to dress like babies themselves, wearing bib overalls and pastel-coloured jumpers.
She also welcomed the fact that her sister wanted to go back to work as soon as possible; she saw it as a sign that Anne, even with a baby, would still be Anne, the way she knew her.
In the last days of her pregnancy, Claire called her almost every day. She was as excited and anxious as Anne herself, but at the same time grateful that she’d had the chance to see her sister going through all the stages of pregnancy. It was like when they were children, climbing up to that five-metre-high diving board for the first time and Anne, as the older one, jumped first so her younger sister could follow. There was something profoundly reassuring about a bigger sister who marked the route, always a step ahead, holding that particular thorny branch out of the way.
Claire and Anthony had flown from London to Hamburg a week after Anne had been given birth to Margarethe. It was their turn; all the family members came to visit one after another, the parents first then brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts. Everyone wanted to see the new addition.
Margarethe. An unfussy, solid name. Anthony didn’t hide the fact that he didn’t like it. Claire would never forget the row they had on the plane to Hamburg.
“It’s a name like a rock, much to harsh for a girl.”
His statement annoyed her. “What about all these silly flower names: Rose, and Lilly?”
“What about them? I like flower names.”
“I don’t, and I don’t understand why English mothers try to be so original in finding new names. It seems a whole generation in England will be called after fruits and spices: Apple, Vanilla, Cinnamon, Saffron. It’s just ridiculous.”
Anthony had immersed himself in the in-flight magazine. “However, my daughter will never be called a German name. Margarethe. No way.”
Claire didn’t actually like the name that much herself, but his outright rejection had hurt her and she felt she’d had to defend her sister’s decision. More than the name itself, she was pretty certain it was the fact that it was a traditional German name that he didn’t like, but she didn’t want to drag the row on any further, so kept silent until they touched down.
Anne’s house was slightly set apart on a hill, near the Alster River. White and square with a flat roof, it was modern in an unassuming way. Anthony called it “the box”.
Claire had anticipated that the arrival of a baby would turn everywhere upside down; she expected it to look like a storm had hit, but the only place where she could find traces of negligence was the kitchen, where the bin was overflowing with the empty aluminium packaging of ready meals.
Her parents had left the day before, but Claire could tell Mother had been there. The food hamper. Everyone else brought flowers. But it was food that was needed. Her mother knew that of course.
“They didn’t want to leave; we literally had to throw them out in the end.” Karl laughed. “I was worried they were going to eat her up. Your mum was sucking Margarethe’s foot.”
“That’s because newborns smell so nice,” Anthony added.
“Like kittens, of straw and milk.”
While they were all standing around the cradle, Margarethe was looking at them curiously. A toothless smile and a gurgling sound escaped her mouth. Claire took her hand and it clasped around her finger like a tiny buckle.
“She has your eyes,” Anthony said to Anne. “As long she doesn’t have my square chin I’m happy,” Karl said, laughing. But Claire couldn’t see any resemblance whatsoever. Margarethe looked like she had dropped from outer space and had just accidentally landed here in the cradle. She didn’t really belong to this world yet; she still seemed more accustomed to the womb, to an altogether different habitat. Everything must feel so vast for a newborn, Claire thought. How cruel it must be to be born into cold, glaring hospital lights, fussed over by dozens of hands. How crueller still to learn that the story didn’t begin with one’s birth but much earlier, and that the storyline was set from the very beginning and there was nothing, not the tiniest little thing, a newborn could choose from.
Maybe it was that fundamental, frustrating fact of life that made Margarethe produce the piercing cry that suddenly filled the room. Anne picked her up, offered her breast, but Margarethe refused, turning her head away from it, crying even louder, her body stiffening like it needed all its force to do so.
Poor Anne, she looked exhausted, tousled hair and all dishevelled, yet so happy, kissing the baby on its head with so much affection that Claire k
new from that moment that this tiny crying creature was the love of her life. She cradled the baby, walking up and down the room until Margarethe nestled into the curve of her shoulder and her body relaxed again. Claire watched them, fascinated how mother and baby responded to each other in an almost invisible exchange of impulses, noises, movements and touch; a highly developed and complex form of communication.
“She will fall asleep any minute now,” Anne said, putting her back in the cot. Everyone left the room and for a few moments Claire was alone with the baby. She looked at it closely, intrigued by its perfection. Suddenly she felt pride that her sister had produced this. There it was, the next generation. Maybe it was due to the fact they had the same blood running through their veins that she suddenly felt a strong sense of responsibility.
“It’s alright, you know,” she whispered. “It doesn’t make sense to you yet, but eventually you will learn the names of things and with that they will get meaning. Just like a puzzle that is slowly being put together and will suddenly make a picture. Do you know why this Alexander Calder mobile that your mummy bought at a museum shop is dangling from the ceiling? It’s because your mummy is an architect and she likes these kind of things and wants to pass it on. That is what parents do. They just pass on who they are. And this is where you are very lucky, Margarethe. You are safe. Your parents are good, intelligent people and you will grow up in a beautiful house in the best area of Hamburg. You really couldn’t have chosen better, you know. So don’t worry. Paddington Bear is sitting on the changing table over there, ready with his little suitcase patiently waiting for you, until you are old enough to take him on a journey.”
Margarethe was now breathing in a slow rhythm, her chest rising up and down, her eyelids almost transparent, streaked with blueish veins, flickering in her sleep. What does a baby dream of? Does it dream at all? She looked at this tiny sleeping body, defenceless and completely unaware of its whereabouts. It really was as if she had just been dropped from the sky. Claire covered Margarethe with the blanket and, as if the darkness of the room was too much, left the door half open, leaving behind a triangle of light.
