Out of Such Darkness

by Robert Ronsson

  ‘Well, mine is the bit where the American writer and his German friend go to the park? And the boy sings. It’s a sort of traditional German song? Only it turns out the boy’s a Nazi and it’s actually a Nazi song. And the crowd all sing along? Well, that’s me. I’m going to sing the song, Tomorrow Belongs to Me. I have to do it twice?’

  As Jay recalled the scene from the film, chills prickled his neck. He pictured the rosy-cheeked boy with the fascinating voice and looked at his son. Ben sat opposite, straight-backed and blond. His brown eyes gleamed with the obligation to carry one of the key moments in the show.

  Jay saw a Ben he hadn’t recognised before. Yes, he thought, he can surprise me. He can be that boy, this son of mine.

  One side of Jay’s brain focuses on the rolling news coverage. The other recalls the voice that has taken up residence inside his head. Its intonation has always sounded foreign and Jay now decides it has a German accent. The presence from the train – dancing along the aisle, perching on the seat beside him – assumes a white face, centre-parted hair and it leers into a non-existent camera. His was the insistent voice that urged Jay to replay the horrors of the victims over and over in his mind. It was the Cabaret’s Master of Ceremonies who let the dogs out.

  Now it’s the MC who leans in so close that Jay can feel his breath on his ear as he whispers: Ben is your salvation. It will be a distraction – therapy even – to help him. Show an interest. Activity is the best antidote to depression.

  The television news presenter is saying that 20,000 people worked in the two buildings of the World Trade Center and up to half of them could be dead. The casualties on the ground at the Pentagon, where the third plane crashed, are fewer but all the passengers and crew died. It emerges that there was a fourth hi-jacked aircraft and it plummeted into a field in Pennsylvania. Again, all on board were lost.

  New film footage comes in and the Halprin family watches over and over again, from this perspective and from that, as the planes strike, as the towers collapse, as the people run. The pictures of the men and women jumping etch themselves onto Jay’s retina. The MC’s voice encourages him to superimpose the faces and mannerisms of his colleagues on the jumpers.

  If they were in the office they would simply have vaporised. Come on Jay, which was the worst fate: vanish in an instant, jump or burn? Which would you have chosen?

  Workers in the floors above where the planes struck were able to phone home and talk to their loved ones knowing they would never get out. Passengers on the fourth plane, United Airlines 93, used the on-board telephones after it had been hi-jacked and had described their plans to recapture the aircraft.

  Each development reinforces Jay’s sense of survival and cements the MC’s invasive voice in position. Rachel and Ben stop watching and creep around as Jay sits mesmerised by the screen – a voyeur at an auto-wreck.

  Rachel calls both sets of parents in England. ‘No, he’s really not up to talking. He’s in shock, I think. We’ll talk again tomorrow. He’ll feel better then.’

  As the sun sets, Jay goes to the window to pull the curtains. His face is swollen, his eyes raw. His caustic tears sting as he watches the houses opposite shine out their flickering TV-blue lights. Nobody in America is going to sleep worry-free tonight.

  It’s 3.23am on 9/12 and the MC prods his finger into Jay’s side. In the fug of waking Jay watches him blow a kiss, smile and hunch his shoulders with delight. When Jay shakes his head, the image falls from his memory as mercury slips from a tray – leaving only a smear. He checks the illuminated numbers on the bedside clock.

  A vision of the collapsing North Tower creeps into his head. The top floors concertina down as if a vacuum below is drawing the building in on itself. The MC’s voice: The fragments of your colleagues’ bodies that still remain after the explosion were pulverised into powder. All mixed together they’re a Cup-a-Soup version of the company that was there. 1) Open the sachet and pour into a medium mug or cup; 2) Make sure there is enough water in the kettle and switch on to boil the water; 3) When the water has boiled, pour into the cup or mug and stir with a spoon; 4) Leave to cool a little and drink. Go on, Jay, drink my tasty soup. Could it be thicker? Could it have more body? Are you the missing ingredient?

  There’s solace for Jay in knowing these are the MC’s words, not his own. In the immediate aftermath, on the train or in the car with Rachel, when each morbid obsession or ghoulish thought entered his head, he wondered whether he might be going mad. But now he can assign these grisly introspections to a second person, surely this means he hasn’t lost his mind.

  The MC interrupts these fragments of half-asleep thoughts with another, more collected idea: the complete personnel roll of Straub, DuCheyne, is understood to be dead.

  As one of the workers on the 95th floor, he’ll be listed among the missing. Only his family and the Cochranes next door know that he’s alive. He resolves to tell ‘the authorities’ in the morning. This only prompts more confusion about whom ‘the authorities’ might be. He drags a pillow over his head.

  He hopes, prays even, that his colleagues have souls. Something of them has to be left for their families to cleave to. In this country where ‘which church do you go to?’ is a more common question than the British ‘what do you do?’ the families will have the compensation of knowing their loved-ones’ souls are safe. They will have already consulted their priests, their rabbis, maybe even their imams.

  Rachel has nobody to visit her. The family has no spirituality. There’s no religious element to their Jewishness. Out of nowhere, Jay sees the image of a clothes hanger. He thinks about the story.

  Hymie Shapiro, a great-uncle on his mother’s side, ran a tailoring business in London. Jay had never met Great-Uncle Hymie. He didn’t even know of his existence. But, when Hymie died some twenty years ago, he decreed in his will that every traceable relative should receive a clothes hanger from his shop. So one day, without notice, Jay received a parcel from Gold and Oppenheimer Solicitors and in it was a letter and Jay’s clothes hanger. The letter only explained the fact of the bequest; it gave no clue as to Great-Uncle Hymie’s motive.

  The clock now shows 4.13, two hours before Jay would normally rise and make a cup of tea. But the thought of the clothes hanger has taken root and the tendrils fill his head. Rachel’s unbroken snoring reassures him as he slides off the mattress and creeps to the wardrobe. He opens the door and silently thanks the landlord for installing an interior light. He looks across to check Rachel’s still form.

  Taking the weight from each clothes hanger before sliding it, he moves his suits one by one. He’s looking for a white plastic plaque and there it is under his well-loved but seldom-worn Harris Tweed jacket. He takes the jacket down and, with all the exaggerated stealth of a cartoon burglar, he leaves the room and tip-toes across the landing to the bathroom. He closes the door, flicks on the light switch and squats on the toilet. The MC sits opposite him on the tiled floor with his back against the door, watching.

  Jay removes the jacket from the clothes hanger, absent-mindedly checks its distinctive trademark label and leans forward to drape it over the side of the bath. Now he’s holding the clothes hanger by its metal hook and he caresses its shoulder as if it’s an artefact plundered from a museum. He imagines Great-Uncle Hymie himself describing it.

  ‘Look at the hook in your left hand, Jacob. See the gauge of that steel wire? It’s over-engineering, but such quality. This hook is never going to straighten out. No matter if it’s carrying an extra-outsize, double-lined astrakhan coat with mink collar. And the bobble on the end, Jacob. That’s it. Pass your thumb across it. Even a mistress’s tender skin would not take a scratch from such smooth.’

  Jay runs his palm down the flank of the arm. ‘Slick as a rabbi’s blessing, Jacob. Only a dense-grain wood could take such sanding. No suit lining, not even my finest silk, could pick a snag from such a finish. Notice how I have designed an angle to the arms. This way the jacket drapes just perfect. A customer coul
d only be impressed with a jacket on such a clothes hanger.’

  Tears cascade from Jay’s chin onto his shorts as he hugs the hanger to his chest. The chamber echoes with his low moan. Great-Uncle Hymie’s voice is now fading, ‘Thank you for keeping my clothes hanger, Jacob. A blessing upon you for this.’

  The faux-ivory plate pinned across the join where the two angled arms come together captures Jay’s attention. There’s an old-style telephone number, Waterloo 5561, and then the word ‘Hymie’ in slanted, black script across the centre. To the right of this in red are the words, ‘The Tailor’ and an address, like the telephone number in smaller, black font, ‘48 Lower Marsh, London, S.E. 1’. Jay traces the indented characters with his fingertip.

  Great-Uncle Hymie’s clothes hanger will never again be the silly joke of a dying old man. Jay places it reverently on the windowsill. He will find a proper place for it in the morning.

  He returns to bed, moving gently. The MC is tiptoeing theatrically behind him with a white-gloved forefinger pressed against his pursed lips. Jay is awake for another thirty-four minutes while the MC nips at the open sore – if you had been in the office on time there would be nothing left to show you had existed. But eventually he desists. He’s not cruel. He’s not an inconsiderate spectre. He knows Jay has to have enough sleep for there to be something to work with in the morning. As Jay’s eyes close and he loses consciousness the MC loosens his arm from around his waist and turns to face the other way.

  Chapter 6

  Peter Everley had assured me it was a short walk to the hotel and, true to his account, the hotel came into view the instant I turned into Carmerstrasse. I climbed a few steps and entered through the open outer door into a porch. A glass panel in the inner door allowed me to view the reception desk by the staircase. I took a deep breath, opened the door and went inside. “I have a booking. My name is Mortimer.” I spoke carefully, enunciating each consonant.

  “Herr Mortimer, of course. Welcome in the Carmer Hotel. It is an honour for us to have such a famous guest.”

  Peter had evidently paved the way with a little exaggeration but I was happy to find that this man spoke good English. “I don’t know about that …”

  The man pressed a bell and the “ting” echoed around the enclosed space. “You will need help in the stairs with your bag, yes? We have not the elevator. Now if we can deal with the registration?”

  I soon settled in as a resident of the west end of Berlin. Most of the sights of the city were to be found towards the east near the boulevard called Unter Den Linden. But Peter was right, I did not need distraction. My room on the third floor was perfectly adequate for me to work in and it had a tall French window that I could open inwards. For the next few days I sat at my desk and worked on the book. I took breakfast in the nook below the stairs with a cast of other guests renewing itself daily. They were always men dressed in suits and carrying heavy bags of samples.

  It became my habit, around mid-morning, to take a walk down Carmerstrasse to Savignyplatz where there was a coffee shop on the corner. It was gay with a dark-green awning which hung over the tables arranged outside. As long as I was there before midday, the sun illuminated the tables and I would customarily enjoy a coffee with a cinnamon pastry while writing notes for Dexter Parnes. The white-aproned waiter spoke very good English and after he realised that I would become a regular customer, he asked my name. From then on he would call across in English as I arrived, “Your normal order, Herr Mortimer?” I would wave my notebook in response and this became our ritual.

  On one such occasion there was a tall, wild-haired man of about my age sitting at my preferred table and I had to take the one next to it. I may have looked at the man distastefully but he seemed oblivious because he started up the conversation straight away. “You’re English.”

  “Yes,” I said, taking out my notebook and pen and placing them carefully in front of me.

  “Cigarette?” He held out an open tin. The white tubes had tan-coloured ends.

  “Are these the new ones? With cork tips?”

  He lifted his chin as if his neck needed a stretch and spoke with lazy assurance. “Yes. Regatta brand by Greiling. The cork tip makes for a smoother smoke. Go on.”

  “I will.” He flicked his lighter and I discovered that I had to suck quite hard to get a draw.

  “Takes a bit of getting used to – but worth the effort.”

  I blew out the smoke and touched my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “Takes away a lot of the taste. Is the goodness still there?”

  “Supposed to be. If you look at the cork afterwards you’ll see it’s trapped some dark brown matter. Looks bad. Better not to have it inside you, they say.”

  “Who?”

  “Greiling – the advertisements.”

  “Well …” I didn’t need to say any more because he nodded and snorted blue smoke as he suppressed a laugh. For the first time since I arrived I felt my guard – the resistance to company that one feels in a foreign country – drop. I offered my hand. “Cameron Mortimer.”

  “Leonard Plomer. Call me Leo. Everybody does.”

  “Cameron.”

  The waiter appeared by Leo’s shoulder and started to shuffle behind him.

  “Look here, Cam,” Leo said. “Sit with me and take in the sun.” He signalled and patted the table. The waiter deposited my order alongside him. “Noch einen Kaffee, bitte,” Leo said.

  I shifted across so I was alongside him with my coffee and pastry in front of me. We both faced out into the square and I could hear the klaxons and beeps of traffic from beyond the trees. “You speak German.”

  He waved a hand, “Enough to get by.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  He rubbed his stubbled chin as if trying to recall a difficult theorem. “About a year. You?”

  “Less than a month. I need to organise German lessons. You don’t know anybody, do you?”

  Again it seemed as if I had asked him to disclose a terrible secret. There was a long pause during which his coffee arrived. “Danke.”

  “Bitteschoen.” The waiter bustled away.

  “There must be somebody in my digs but I can’t think. They all come and go.”

  “What do you do?”

  He held out his hands. “Guess.” His fingers were long with large pads on the end and I would have said he was a musician but for the spatters of all the shades of blue and red that coloured his palms. He turned his hands over. I could also make out other fine spots of yellows and browns.

  “Painter?”

  “In one. You?”

  “I write.”

  I expected him to ask about my writing. Most people did. Instead, he sipped his coffee and, with my ego lightly bruised, I took the opportunity to take a mouthful of the spiced pastry which was usually the taste highlight of my day.

  “Where are you staying?” Leo asked.

  My mouth was still churning the sweet ball round and I had to swallow quickly. “Carmer Hotel. Just along the road. My agent in London booked it for me.”

  “Hotel? You must be doing well.”

  I stubbed out the cigarette and took a gulp of coffee. It boosted the blandness of the smoke. “I hadn’t thought about it. I assumed an apartment would be more expensive.”

  “Apartment?” He snorted. “That’s not the way it’s done. Look–” he waved a hand regally as if showing me the extent of his demesne, “–look at all these grand houses. Most are owned by people who once had pots of money. But they were done for in the inflation. What with that and the crash they’ve had to find ways of earning money you wouldn’t believe. You’d get a room for much less than you’re paying at the hotel. But you have to be careful. You’ll need a bit of space and privacy if you’re working.”

  “How do I go about it?”

  “You’re already doing it, Cam. You talk to someone who knows. When you’ve finished your coffee we’ll take a stroll and I’ll introduce you to Frau Guttchen.”

&nbs
p; Within ten minutes he had walked me up Carmerstrasse, past my hotel, to the point where it joined Hardenbergstrasse. There was a circular lawned area where four streets intersected.

  “You are now standing in Steinplatz.” Leo pointed to a green-painted kiosk on one of the corners. “Ernst runs it. He’s a veteran of the war and deserves our custom. You can’t see it through the little window but he’s lost his legs. You must buy your cigarettes from him.”

  I said I would.

  “If you don’t like Regatta, try Enver Bay. They have a strong Turkish taste and Fritz will give you a good price if you buy them a hundred at a time. Now, let’s meet Frau Guttchen.”

  We crossed Uhlandstrasse and found ourselves in front of a muddy-green building with gothic-arched windows. Leo led me through an entrance into an open courtyard. I guessed that when the block was new – as few as ten years before – this had been laid to grass but now it was fenced off and divided into vegetable plots. They looked like the kitchen garden at home but the soil was sandy dust and it seemed able to support only a limited variety of plants.

  We turned left and climbed a staircase to the first floor. “Frau Guttchen owns two apartments here. She is a widow. I think, when her husband was alive, they may have owned the whole block but I don’t like to ask. She rents me the loft space in the top apartment. It’s bloody cold in the winter and can get stiflingly hot in the summer but the light is good. I can get on the roof when the city heats up. It’s all mine up there.”

  “Does she have a room spare?”

  He pulled at a bell knob. “Not on this floor but the one below me. It’s at the front. View over the square. It has a gas ring, I think. You share the bathroom, of course.” There was a sound inside. “Here she comes.”

  Chapter 7

  The alarm goes off and the heat builds as Jay’s systems fire into life. His blood pump wheezes into an acceleration cycle, spinning its wheels like a steam engine on an icy track. His brain reboots and he comes to life. Why? Why has he woken so early? It’s not as if he’s going anywhere. He turns to Rachel who’s invisible except for a spread of hair across the cream pillow. ‘Is Ben going in today?’