A Shadow of Myself

by Mike Phillips

  London

  September 1999

  FIFTEEN

  The extent to which Kofi’s declaration disturbed him had been a surprise to Joseph. In Prague, when he promised Radka to persuade his father to see Katya, he’d been sincere, but later on, faced with the prospect, he felt torn by conflicting emotions. There was more to it than the strain which the trip might put on Kofi’s health. There was, for instance, the way that so much of how he regarded his father had changed within the space of a few days. In recent times, when he thought about Kofi, it had been with a wearisome sense of obligation. His father, who he would have to visit from time to time, and who might fall ill again, imposing a burden of concern that he dreaded. Since being forced into a confrontation with Kofi’s history, however, his feelings had altered radically. Although he had been looking at his father for many years he had never quite seen him as he was. In comparison, George and Radka had never met Kofi but they seemed to know more about him and to have clear ideas about what sort of person he was. The thought made Joseph feel angry and insecure, as if they were about to steal his father away from under his nose. What made it worse was the fact that only a couple of weeks ago he would never have imagined feeling like this.

  ‘It’s all a long time ago,’ he had told Kofi.

  Beside him he heard Lena stir, and without looking he imagined her lips shaping the word no. She was probably, he thought furiously, convinced that he was standing in the way of a forty-year-old romance, when in fact he was only being sensible.

  ‘When you’re my age,’ Kofi said, ‘every damn thing is a long time ago.’

  Meeting his eyes Joseph knew that his own features were set in a discouraging mask, jaw set tight, an angry frown creasing his forehead, but he was, by now, beyond trying to conceal his disapproval.

  ‘I was thinking about it today,’ Kofi continued, ‘sitting in the library. When I left Moscow I decided to forget about her, forget about what happened there. I had other things to do, and anyway I thought I knew everything that was going on. Now I know that I didn’t. If she has a child by me, maybe nothing was the way it seemed.’

  ‘It was over forty years ago,’ Joseph muttered. ‘Forty years.’

  ‘I’ll die sometime.’ Watching Joseph’s frown deepen, Kofi laughed as if it was an amusing idea. ‘When I lie on the bed waiting I won’t be thinking all this happened forty years ago. If I don’t find out I’ll think that I missed something. I don’t know what it is. Maybe I never will, but I’ll know that I missed it.’

  What Joseph couldn’t quite make out was the mystery of what had happened between Kofi and Katya before they parted. Kofi kept repeating that he wasn’t sure and that he couldn’t remember the details.

  ‘I was being deported,’ he said stubbornly. ‘She was a Party member. That was enough.’ He looked at Joseph and shrugged. ‘I thought it was enough until you told me about this son. Now I don’t know. I have to think.’

  That was about all Joseph could get out of him, apart from his determination to go and see Katya. Suddenly it struck Joseph that Kofi had come to his door at that late hour because he wanted his help and support. In the usual run of things the old man was independent, almost stand-offish, and the idea that he might be looking for help with the mundane business of arranging to make the trip hadn’t occurred to Joseph until that moment.

  ‘Do you want to come with me?’ Kofi asked. His tone was an attempt at being casual, as if he was half anticipating a refusal.

  In the grip of his newly discovered feeling of possessiveness about Kofi Joseph had already determined that, if he couldn’t persuade the old man not to go, he would accompany him.

  Joseph telephoned Radka the next day. He’d been bracing himself, expecting her voice to reanimate the confusion of his thoughts about her. She sounded uncertain and distant, her accent stronger than he remembered. Rapidly, he told her about his conversation with Kofi, and about the fact that they were planning to come to Berlin for Katya’s birthday.

  ‘I did not expect it.’ Her voice was warmer and more controlled. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’

  ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ Joseph asked her. Now he’d agreed to co-operate, to join up for what he thought of as a moment of madness, his doubts had returned in full force.

  ‘I’m completely sure,’ she said firmly.

  ‘What about George?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s not here. When he comes back I’ll tell him.’

  She told him the date. She would be leaving Prague with Serge in a few days. She wanted to keep the surprise from Katya, so she would telephone to find out the number of their flight and where they would be staying. She didn’t mention George again.

  During the next few days Joseph kept on hoping that Kofi would change his mind and bring it all to an end. Lena kept asking questions, which were more irritating because he didn’t know the answers. He went through the motions, booking tickets and a hotel, forcing himself conscientiously to discuss the trip with Kofi, who seemed to have lost his inhibitions about visiting the house and turned up every other day. He didn’t stay long, merely asking about the arrangements or whether Joseph had heard from George.

  ‘Why don’t you phone him yourself?’ Joseph asked, to which his father shrugged, his eyes wavering away.

  ‘I’ll wait. It’s only a few days. That will be better.’

  Kofi seemed to have more to say to Lena. Sensing a slackening of Joseph’s concentration she had simply stayed after the weekend. When he asked whether she wouldn’t have problems at work, she told him that she was taking some time off and it didn’t matter anyway. She worked in a department store in Leeds, which she considered beneath her. It was not the sort of job which the daughter of a teacher like herself would have taken in her city, and she thought of it as one of the punishments of her exile. Telling Joseph that it didn’t matter whether or not she went back, she shrugged contemptuously.

  Somehow he couldn’t summon up the resolution to tell her to go, and, in any case, there was something about his mood which made him happy that she was in the house. It was only her attempts to establish a relationship with Kofi which irritated him. One day he came back to find her chatting on the telephone, smiling and giggling as if she was talking to one of her friends. When she put it down she smiled happily at him. ‘Your father,’ she said. ‘He was in Sarajevo once. He was telling me about it.’

  ‘Sarajevo.’ Joseph was startled. Another thing he didn’t know. ‘When was this?’

  ‘In 1950-something.’ She made it sound like the Dark Ages. ‘It was different then.’

  That would have been before he was born, but the revelation gave him a sting of irritation. Here was another person who seemed able to get closer to Kofi in a few days than he’d ever managed in the course of a lifetime. If he hadn’t already told her she could stay he might have suggested her leaving there and then.

  ‘How is it,’ he asked her, trying to keep his tone casual, ‘that you and my dad have so much to say to each other?’

  As he asked the question, she had given him a look out of the corner of her eyes, something a little sly about her expression, as if hesitant about revealing what she knew.

  ‘He’s easy to talk to. Not like the English. He understands.’

  ‘You talk to me,’ Joseph pointed out.

  She made a quick open-handed gesture.

  ‘I know. I don’t mean you.’

  Joseph didn’t believe her. Whenever they argued, she’d describe the features of his character that she disliked as being ‘like the English’, a phrase which he soon recognised she meant as a deadly insult. In any case she was now comparing him with Kofi, so that anything she had to say would probably be some kind of criticism.

  ‘All right,’ he snapped, not trying to conceal his irritation. ‘He understands you, and he’s not English. Forget I asked.’

  She put her hand on his arm and peered at him, gauging his mood.

  ‘I don’t mean anything bad about yo
u. You’re different. But your father – it’s not anything he says, it’s what he is.’ She paused, gathering her thoughts, feeling for the words. ‘When I tell people here about myself they look at me like they’re with a sick person. They’re thinking, poor refugee, then they forget and they think, bloody foreigner. They’re like children. When they hear that word they think they know everything about me. If you tell them about sitting in the dark waiting to die it’s like something that happens on TV, and they hear without understanding and they really don’t give a shit.’ She was breathing faster, and Joseph could see that she was struggling to control her anger. ‘It’s not their fault,’ she continued, ‘because they don’t know anything, but sometimes I hate them just because they don’t know anything.’

  Joseph had heard her say something similar before, and he felt an automatic tug of sympathy, but he was actually thinking about his brother. Did George find him ignorant and complacent in the way Lena was describing? After all George had tried to embrace him and he had responded by thinking he was about to be conned.

  ‘Your father had this experience,’ Lena said. ‘He knows how it feels.’

  More than a week later, he remembered the conversation. They were about to take off from Heathrow, the sound of the jet engine swelling to a long screech.

  ‘You never told me you were in Sarajevo,’ he said.

  Kofi nodded.

  ‘I don’t remember much about it.’

  It was the sort of annoying reply that Joseph had feared he would get. Kofi wasn’t habitually secretive, but, at times, when questions came up about places he’d visited or people he’d known, he would become close-mouthed. Joseph was accustomed to his reticence, but on this occasion he felt a sudden spurt of jealous anger. It was obvious, he thought, that his father assumed that he was too ignorant and insensitive for the memories he was willing to share with Lena, someone he’d only just met.

  ‘You must remember something,’ he told Kofi. ‘You were chatting with Lena about Sarajevo. Like you remembered enough to convince someone who lived there.’

  They had climbed above the clouds now and Kofi was watching the carpet of damp cotton wool below them, a dreamy look on his face, but caught by something in Joseph’s tone he turned around and looked carefully at him.

  ‘I really don’t remember much,’ he said. ‘I was telling her a story, about what happened to me when I was there.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Just some old stuff. You sure you want to hear it?’

  ‘Of course,’ Joseph told him.

  Kofi nodded reflectively, as if considering the effect of his words.

  ‘I was only there for a couple of days,’ he said. ‘When I was in Moscow, they used to send us on trips, festivals, conferences, that sort of thing. It was one of the ways we paid for our scholarships I suppose. So they sent me to a festival of youth in Sarajevo once. It was more crazy than most, although everyone usually had a good time. In those days life in the East was pretty drab and poor.’ He paused, watching the stewardesses push a trolley full of drinks up the aisle. ‘It was really poor. Stuff we take for granted was unimaginable. So every time they had one of these things people used to get as much out of it as they could. Drink and sex was what we looked forward to.’ He grinned at Joseph. ‘In England they like to pretend sex was only invented yesterday, but when I was on the boats England was no different to any other port. In those days sex wasn’t complicated. You had people spouting about morality and respectability and then you had the way people were. The church people and the politicians said you shouldn’t do it, then they went down to Tiger Bay and picked up a girl. Those were hypocrites, but if you were a working man or woman it was the only thing you could do for pleasure. It was the same all over Europe, but in the East it was special. They weren’t puritans except about politics, and the Party had a high level of tolerance for human weakness, unless you were really senior. The highest had the most vices, but not many people knew that then. If you were just a cog in the machine you had a lot of latitude. You had to be careful what you said about politics, but when the partying started, as far as they were concerned you could drink as much as you could hold, and then go out and fuck a dog if you could find one that wasn’t busy.’ He was gazing out of the window, the dreamy smile back on his face. ‘I was in the city two nights. Me and another boy from South Africa were the only black men there. By the end of the first night everyone was pissed and half a dozen girls came after us. I say girls, they varied in age, the youngest might have been seventeen, the oldest in her thirties or forties. They came from factories all over, I can’t remember now, but what they said was that the only black man they’d ever seen was Paul Robeson, and they wanted to hear us sing. I think they had the impression that all black people sang like Robeson, and they wanted to hear some spirituals. Well, we were all pickled and we agreed to give them a concert on condition that we could have sex with all of them. By the time we agreed the terms it was well after midnight and we’d got through a few more bottles. I’m talking vodka and slivovice, all kinds of brandy, we were out of our heads. So we started. I had to teach this South African guy the words of some of the songs, but he could really sing, and we had them, man. I was young and strong and it was like heaven. We were at it all night; first we’d sing, then we’d go with one of the girls, then we took it in turns to sing while the other one was on the job. Next day we had to find a corner to catch some sleep because they wouldn’t let us back in the hostel rooms during the day, but that second night we were ready to repeat the whole thing again. There were only two of us, then we brought in a couple of guys from the Ukraine and another one from Siberia and we made up a little choir, which was a very good thing. When it was all over the boys said we’d been fucking on Stakhanovite principles, overfilling our quotas, because the word got round and we had a whole heap of women waiting to get in on the deal.’

  Joseph was flabbergasted, and he wondered for a moment whether his father was making up the story.

  ‘You told Lena all this?’

  Kofi laughed, enjoying his son’s astonishment.

  ‘Yes. She loved it. I think she enjoyed hearing about the city before all the disasters started to happen. She said her grandfather talked about crazy things like that.’

  ‘I didn’t know it was all that crazy.’

  Kofi laughed again.

  ‘That was how we lived. Crazier things happened. Just before they built the Wall in Berlin an African student got shot dead going over the border after the whores who used to hang out in the bushes near the Tiergarten. He was the son of a prominent politician in West Africa, and they had to cover it up, make out it was an accident, because they couldn’t tell the old man that his son had given his life for a quick one with a prostitute.’

  Joseph took this in, almost bewildered. He had got used to the idea that there was a great deal more to his father than he had ever imagined, but, for the moment, he was more shaken than he wanted to admit.

  ‘What about George’s mother?’ he asked. ‘Was she there?’

  Kofi shook his head.

  ‘No. We didn’t get together till later. She was different. She saw herself as a cultured intellectual. She was going to be part of the élite. The girls I’m talking about were like worker bees. All they wanted was a good time.’

  Watching Kofi out of the corner of his eye, Joseph thought that his face was creased in a smile that he seemed never to have seen before, and he felt a sudden flood of tenderness for the old man.

  ‘Are you looking forward to seeing her?’ he asked.

  As if he hadn’t heard, Kofi turned his head towards the window and for a moment Joseph thought he wasn’t going to answer.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually. ‘There’s a lot of explaining to do, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe I should have talked to her on the phone. Maybe we shouldn’t be going there.’

  He frowned, his eyes looking out into the distance, fixed on some vision
only he could see. Watching him, Joseph felt a stab of worry. He was sure now that, in one way or another, the trouble George was in would affect Kofi, and, thinking about the night in Prague, the silent garage, the puddles of blood, and the severed head of Milena’s brother, he felt the hairs creeping on the back of his neck. On the surface they were simply going to see Kofi’s old friend Katya, but Joseph had the feeling that whatever had been happening on that night wasn’t over. He should have known, he reflected, that everything he had told Kofi would suck them both into a situation which he didn’t understand and which might be full of unexpected dangers. If anything happens to my dad, he thought, just when I’m beginning to know him, I’ll never forgive myself.

  As if guessing Joseph’s thoughts, Kofi turned and grinned widely at him.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I can handle anything that comes along.’

  SIXTEEN

  DIARY OF DESIRE

  The life and times of Kofi George Coker

  Moscow 1957

  I never went back to Marina’s apartment, although I saw her a few times out with Calvin. I thought of her often enough during the next couple of weeks, masturbating like fury under my blanket, but by the time Calvin asked me again if I wanted to visit her, I was occupied with other matters. It was spring more or less, and although the snow and ice was still lying around, the rivers had begun to move and the birches were beginning to sprout green buds. Naturally my thoughts were focused on Katya – sexy teach, as Calvin called her, licking his lips. I suppose I might have got over it if I hadn’t been obliged to see her practically every day, a provocation which was hard to bear. I don’t know what I would have done in the end, but, as it happened, Fate stepped in and settled the matter without any effort on my part. This is a strange thing which has happened to me a few times during my life, and which I can’t explain. Wanting something, I would worry at the problem, figuring this and that angle, then suddenly an event would occur which got me over every obstacle, as if a solution had been ordered and arranged by the spirits.