Berlin Syndrome

by Melanie Joosten

  ‘You know nothing about my mother.’

  ‘That’s because you never say anything! Who are you, Andi? Where the hell have you come from?’ She stands now, tries to ignore the heat engulfing her face. ‘Don’t you have any family? Any friends? Isn’t there something you should be doing other than this?’ She gestures at herself, drops her hands to her sides.

  ‘No.’ He shakes his head at her. ‘There’s nothing as important as this.’

  And she knows then that it will never end. This is all there is.

  He catches a glimpse of his reflection in a mirrored column. His skin appears green-hued under the fluorescent lighting. Tungsten lighting, Clare had explained to him. Or is it the other way around? Does tungsten describe incandescent bulbs? He must ask her again, pay more attention. Either way, the strip lighting makes him appear ghostly.

  He stands in front of the department-store directory. Unterwäsche. Underwear. There is nothing listed. People push by him, shaming him with their unfaltering strides, shopping bags demonstrating their morning’s success. Damen. First floor.

  On the escalator he stares again at his reflection, trying to imagine how he appears to a stranger. Friendly? Aloof? He cannot tell; he looks like himself. On the top step of the escalator he stumbles, the mirror mocking him with his own surprise. He regains his composure and walks through the ladies’ clothing department until he sees pyjamas, then underwear. Where to begin? He wishes Clare was here to help him. Reaching out, he touches a bra and recoils at the stiffness of the lace.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  The whites of the assistant’s eyes are startling, her smile pasted on.

  ‘Something for your girlfriend, perhaps?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What size is she?’

  Surely there can’t be too many to choose from. ‘Medium?’ He shrugs. He doesn’t want to cup his hands — it seems crude. He tries to think of something that would be the same size. Does it matter that one of her breasts is bigger than the other?

  ‘Is she tall or short?’ asks the assistant.

  He holds his hand to his shoulders, looks at it, then lifts it higher. But that’s almost as tall as himself and he knows the top of Clare’s head very well. He lowers his hand. ‘About this?’

  The question hangs there. How can he not know? He should have asked her for her size; he had just assumed that he would know the right ones when he saw them. He throws his gaze around the floor, a forest of metal trees waving bras and knickers at him like flags.

  ‘Maybe you can bring her in here? She can choose something she likes and she can try the different sizes?’

  ‘Oh no. It’s a surprise.’

  The assistant looks pleased. ‘I see. Well, perhaps you choose a set, and if it is the wrong size she can bring it back in.’

  ‘Yes, I can bring it back.’

  Her smile turns quizzical.

  He corrects himself. ‘Yes, she can bring it back, that’s right.’

  Some of the sets are the colour of flesh; the bras look like breasts hanging in row upon row, their nipples blurred away for propriety’s sake. There are cream breasts, black breasts, ones in tartan, polka dots and stripes. He chooses a set that is pink and orange — it is exactly like a festive flamingo. He wants her to be beautiful again; he wants her to think that she is.

  She doesn’t like to get her face wet in the shower. Instead, she ducks her head to the left and to the right. Put your left shoulder in, put your left shoulder out. Put your left shoulder in and shake it all about. She turns her back to the taps and lets the water fall on her head. Keeping her eyes tightly shut, she turns again and cups her hands in the stream. Takes a deep breath and splashes her face. She lathers up with the soap, rubs it about her face then rinses it off, blowing ferociously through her nose to stop inhaling any soapy water. Since she began talking to Andi again, she has been showering three times a day, sometimes more. It is the only place in the apartment where she doesn’t feel trapped, where she feels she is existing of her own volition.

  She dries herself quickly standing on the bathmat. The mirror has fogged up, but she does not mind; she does not think she will recognise herself. She pulls on her underwear and reaches for her bra. The elastic has lost its cheerleading snap and instead it curls, set in waves like an old lady’s perm. Tiny matted balls dull the synthetic fabric, and she casts it aside. She puts on one of Andi’s shirts. Anything else seems excessive — she’ll only have to take it off when the day ends or when she showers again. The fog has dispersed, and her reflection catches her staring. She looks sad. But is she? Her reflection smiles at her. She smiles back. It is a simple exchange.

  From the living room, the sky gives nothing away. She braces herself against the kitchen bench and lunges, stretching one leg and then the other, her calf muscles pinching at her legs, complaining about their lack of use. She puts on a record, delighting in the amplified crackle of the dust. She listens to the end of one song, the start of the next, and at a particularly spectacular riff she punches the air in exuberance. She laughs aloud, realising that she has become one of those people who express their emotions even when no one else is in the room. As though there might be film cameras about, paparazzi to chart her happiness.

  Climbing into her perched position by the window, she makes herself as compact as possible so none of her creeps over the edge. It is not very comfortable, but she fits. It is amazing how much space people insist on for themselves. The need for high ceilings and cat-swinging rooms. She wonders how long she might last in this position and twists around so she can see the clock face. Half past four. Was there anything she meant to do before Andi comes home?

  She looks out the window. Nothing has changed in the courtyard below, and for this amongst other reasons, she is beginning to doubt the existence of time. Her watch, an authority on the subject, supports this view; its hands refuse to move, but she is yet to take it off. If she just glances at her wrist, she is reminded of all the other places she has been when needing to know the time, when it actually mattered. She hugs her knees, curls her toes and concentrates on taking up as little space as she can. She is neither small nor large. Not tall or short, fat or thin. She abides by the law of averages. She imagines that in the actual world, the one where everyone else lives, she would take up very little space. She does not go to places and court attention. She is in the thoughts of very few people. This comforts her. Celebrities take up a lot of space. They exist for many other people — it must be hard work. But she exists for just one, and while this can be exhausting in itself, she is glad that she is small and inside and sitting, knees drawn up, on this particular windowsill. That she is taking up no one’s thoughts, she is not weighted down by anybody’s expectations. As long as she does not move from this spot, none of that will change.

  ‘Hey, Clare! Look what I got!’ He calls out to her from the hallway, the door slamming shut behind him.

  She waits to hear the familiar click as he turns the key and the lock slides into place, and she twists round to see Andi hurrying towards her.

  ‘Look.’ He proffers a bottle of wine.

  She accepts it, not sure why he is so excited. It’s a shiraz. Then she realises. An Australian shiraz. ‘Where did you get this?’

  It’s a Rosemount — cheap. It makes her think of house parties in Brunswick backyards, people crowded around fires burning in washing-machine drums, lemon trees holding court from the fence line. Sipping shiraz from plastic cups, the smell of burning red gum.

  ‘I found it at the supermarket. Not the Aldi, the other one. You know the one just over the river?’

  She stares at him. Holds his gaze until he looks away, realising what he has said. She has no idea where any supermarkets are. Prick.

  ‘Anyway, you mentioned you liked shiraz so I thought I would get a couple and maybe we can get a pizza?’ He take
s the bottle from her hand and puts it on the table. He leans down to kiss her on the cheek, and the body that is no longer her own allows it. And her impostor thoughts let her feel glad that he is home, the bringer of wine that reminds her of Melbourne and of another time.

  He falls onto the couch beside her; his jacket smells like traffic exhaust, and she inhales. She wants to be outside. But she wants to be right here, too.

  She pulls away from him and gets up from the couch. ‘I’ll get a bottle opener.’

  She didn’t think she would remember the taste so well. It’s heavier than the Chilean wines. Probably not a suitable wine term, but the first adjective that comes to mind. Not fruity, not spicy. Heavy.

  ‘So how was your day?’ She sounds ridiculous, a bit player on a suburban stage.

  ‘It was okay, but slow. I had two classes sitting exams so it was a very quiet day.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ She takes another sip of wine, tries to picture Andi standing in front of a class of teenagers and commanding their attention. She is jealous of those students and the shared nuances of conversation that can only be achieved when people are speaking in their first language. His English is less stilted now than it once was. She would like to think this is because he is more comfortable with her. She suspects it’s because he initially pretended to be less fluent than he was, did not want to seem a threat. Even so, she feels he is considered when speaking to her. Reserved. It makes her uneasy, as though his thoughts are being censored.

  ‘What about you?’ he asks. ‘What did you do?’

  She stands looking into the courtyard, immerses herself in the vista as though she has never seen it before. Nothing ever happens in the courtyard. Nothing ever happens in the apartment. It is the same, day after day after day. But still she stares out the window, as if there is something to see, hoping that something will change. The television tower watches her watching, springing into view whichever direction she looks, dripping with bonhomie like a loyal Dr Seuss character. It used to worry her, this waiting and lack of action, but now that she knows her thoughts are elsewhere and that time is elastic, she has lost any sense of urgency.

  ‘Clare?’

  She does not want to answer his question, to prise apart this world with her truth. But she does not want to lie. So she tells him what she did, the real her, not the one who spends her days moving pot plants and cutting letters from newspaper headlines. What she would do if she was out of this mess.

  ‘Oh, you know, the usual.’ She turns and faces him, leans against the sill. ‘I went into the city and did some shopping. Stopped by the library then caught up with a friend for coffee. Then we went for a walk through the gardens, even though it was freezing.’ She looks straight into his eyes, dares him to question any of this. ‘And then I figured I still had a few hours left before you came home so I began work on a new photographic series, one that uses time lapse.’

  He says nothing, and they stare at each other until time — so elusive to her, so deftly chartered by him — breaks free again and barrels forth.

  ‘Oh, Clare.’ That expansive, disarming smile.

  She understands how true that description is now. His smile makes her put the safety catch back on; she feels the unused bullets drop to her feet.

  ‘You know this is how it has to be.’ He widens his eyes at her, performing innocence.

  She turns back and watches his reflection in the window. It lifts its arm in a toast. It is not smiling, it is not focusing on anything. It walks towards her, catches her eye, her own reflection, and becomes Andi again.

  ‘Come on, baby. Let’s enjoy the wine.’

  And why not? Where would she rather be than with a man who wants her so much he is dedicated to never letting her go? Sometimes it seems like a dream. And since it sounds so ridiculously clichéd, she swats the word ‘nightmare’ away before it lodges itself in her mind.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want a tree?’ He can see the listing snow outside — it turns to slush as quickly as it falls. ‘It’s not too late. I could still get one at the market.’ He rubs her feet as they lie in his lap. They are so soft, bear none of the calluses of his own.

  ‘Nope.’ She looks up at him. ‘I haven’t even got you a present.’

  ‘You don’t need to get me a present. It’s enough for me that you are here.’ He lifts her foot to his mouth. He wants to kiss her toes, but she gives her leg a shake, and he lets it go. ‘Besides, my present will be fun for both of us.’ He hopes he is right.

  ‘Did you get your parents anything?’ She puts her cup of coffee down on the floor, stretching out her foot and curling her toes into the palm of his hand until he begins massaging again.

  ‘Of course I did.’ He had told his father that he was going away for the Christmas break; he wanted to spend the entire time with Clare, without interruptions. Every day, every night. His father had not minded, seemed almost amused that Andi had made a point of telling him. But Clare thought it was selfish, that it was uncaring not to spend Christmas with his family.

  ‘What did you get?’

  ‘I bought my father an Amazon gift voucher.’

  ‘A voucher? For your dad?’ She draws her foot back. ‘You can’t get him a voucher. A present is supposed to show that you thought about the person you’re giving it to. If I had ever given my father a voucher, he’d have been insulted.’ She puts her hands to her temples as though beset by a sudden headache.

  He does not say anything. He does not want to talk about her parents.

  ‘Actually, Dad would not have even known what to do with an Amazon voucher. I don’t think the internet was around when he was alive.’ She scrapes her hair into a ponytail and twists the ends under so it holds together in a knot.

  ‘Your father isn’t alive?’ The words are out before he can stop them. How come he does not know this?

  ‘He died when I was nine.’ She looks at him, raises an eyebrow.

  He does not know whether to believe her. Why has she never mentioned it before? ‘You never said.’

  She shrugs. ‘You never asked.’ She gets up off the couch, picks her coffee cup from the floor. ‘You better not have gotten me a voucher.’

  Her teasing smile offers him relief. She is not upset — it is just an oversight. But he feels as though he has made a mistake; he wonders what else he does not know about her.

  ‘No, not a voucher.’ He follows her to the kitchen. She stands with her back to him washing out her cup. He wants to hold her, to tell her he is sorry about her father; he cannot imagine losing his own. But everything about her screams don’t touch. The only movement is in her elbow as she swirls the cup about. He feels like they might stand here forever.

  ‘Do you want your present now?’

  She rinses out the cup and puts it in the rack. She does not turn around when she speaks. ‘It’s still early. How about we play backgammon for a while?’ She swivels her head slightly, lets her voice fall over her shoulder to him.

  He nods. ‘I’ll set it up.’

  It’s a game she has taught him. At first he found it disorientating, the board expunged of numbers and letters. But he has grown to love the measured way the markers skip from one spike to the next, like stout gentlemen stepping out in the evening. Clearing some books from the coffee table to lay out the board, he notices the pile of Polaroids.

  ‘You think you’re still on your winning streak, don’t you?’ She takes a cushion from the couch and drops it on the floor by the coffee table.

  ‘You bet,’ he replies. ‘Are you saving these for something?’ He picks up the Polaroids, fans them like playing cards. Over a dozen Clares stare at him with one eye, the other obscured by the next photo.

  ‘Maybe.’ She puts her hand out, demanding them, and he passes them over. ‘You don’t want them, do you?’

  ‘No.’ He only n
eeds one photo of her when he’s not here — the most recent. He had not thought about what she does with the ones he discards.

  ‘Do you want to go first?’ She passes him the cup, smirks. ‘You’ll lose anyway.’

  They play as the day folds, getting up only to turn on the light, change a record, pour more wine. She wins six times in a row before he gives up.

  ‘Okay, that’s it. Time for your present.’ He pulls himself up off the floor and heads to the hallway. He takes the key from the safe and unlocks the front door. He picks up her present from where he has left it on the landing and goes back into the apartment, where he puts the present on the floor so he can lock the door again, put the key back in the safe.

  ‘Close your eyes, I have not wrapped it,’ he says as he returns. He holds it to his chest as he pauses outside the door to the living room. ‘Are you ready?’

  When he enters the room, she is standing by the table. She looks like she is about to cry.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Her lips are pursed, and she is blinking rapidly. ‘I heard you unlock the door. I thought you were going to let me go.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I thought that was my present.’

  He does not know what to say; he had not given it any thought. The landing was just the best place to hide the present, somewhere she would never go.

  ‘No, this is it.’ He nods at the case in his arms. When she doesn’t say anything, he brings it over to her, puts it on the floor. In her hands he places a set of tiny keys. ‘Merry Christmas.’

  They both look at the red suitcase. Its sides are battered, its corners scuffed. She looks at the keys, and then at him. Impatient, he snatches the keys from her hand and bends down, stabbing one into the lock on the case. The first catch releases and he presses the second one then lifts the lid. Inside nestles a piano accordion: its marbled red body embraces the light, its keyboard pearled like the inside of shells.