by Anna Ellory
‘No problem.’ Hilda intercepts the cup and holds it with both hands. ‘All done here.’
They walk back into his room.
‘How has he been?’
‘Quiet, but okay.’ Miriam looks at his shrinking body and the bag. The dress no longer at his feet. ‘Where’s the dress?’ she says. ‘The dress that was at his feet, where is it?’
Hilda points. ‘Just there.’
Miriam rushes to the chair and lifts the dress with both hands. Holding it against her chest.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a uniform, I think.’ A shiver runs up her spine. ‘She was there too,’ Miriam says. ‘They both were. I found this . . . and a letter inside it.’
‘Is everything okay?’ Hilda asks. When Miriam doesn’t answer, she continues, ‘Why don’t you get yourself up and out today? I only have your father on my list this morning and you could . . .’ They walk into the living room, which smells of wood polish and dusty sunshine. ‘It’s a beautiful morning out there.’ Hilda opens the curtains and then the windows to prove it. The light shines into the long-forgotten room and dust floats unbidden around her.
‘I can’t leave him,’ she says. ‘I . . . I’ve missed so much. I won’t leave him again.’
Hilda sits and places a hand on Miriam’s arm. ‘They didn’t want you to know. If they had, you would have known. Here, go for a walk. It’ll clear your head.’ She warms to her idea and nods. ‘I’ll be here.’
And although every part of Miriam doesn’t want to move, she is pushed into a coat and boots and out of the door. ‘It’ll do you good. Now go,’ Hilda says. ‘We’ll be fine.’
A biting cold hits Miriam as she walks down the street. Breathing clean air, the world is waking up, and the lack of traffic means it must be a Sunday. The world keeps moving. As do her feet.
She hasn’t walked without a destination for so long, and the further she goes the more her muscles unclench. At the junction, she turns right on to Dancklemannstraβe, the classic Berliner residential buildings shine white from the morning light. All the shops and restaurants are closed and the bike racks empty. The glass-fronted buildings link to each other like a bumbling carriage. She walks past a clothing shop, an Italian restaurant, a second-hand book and vinyl shop. The residents in the apartments above remain sleepy quiet.
She walks to the beat of a train on tracks, to the beat of her heart, but her head is lost in a letter from the past.
It mentioned Gleis 17. The picture of cattle wagons in the book she saw at the library. And the footnote, Grunewald station. Where they shipped people, her parents too, no doubt, off to camps.
When she nears Lietzensee, she turns right on to Sophie-Charlotten-Straβe. She is going back to where it started. For they both survived, even if they were separated, they made it out alive in the end.
She walks to Grunewald, her breathing erratic, her heart pumping in her ears. The station is quiet as she enters the brick building, the florist closed, and for a place designed for footfall, the lack of noise rattles her. A white sign with large black letters directs her to the track. She takes a deep breath and follows it.
9
MIRIAM
The track is rusty, covered in leaves and stones. As she stands on the platform the wind roars like a living thing, grinding, whistling and softly growling through the trees. The tips of her nose and ears tingle and pulse. She waits, as though for a train from the past.
Three wooden sleepers lie across each other, haphazard, with a bronze plaque screwed in to the top commemorating the deportations that happened here. Years ago. A lifetime ago, she thinks. Her hands grow cold, her feet numb and she stands. Waiting.
Stems of roses are played with by the wind. Once laid in memory, their petals join the leaves and big grey stones underfoot. A rose petal floats across her feet, once red, now crumpled black. She bends and picks up a stone and runs her finger over its jagged edges, its heaviness comforting.
Millions were deported, killed. The bringers of the roses come to remember, but her parents chose to forget. Why?
She places a stone on the sleepers.
‘For Mum,’ she says, then chooses another stone to lay beside the first, so they touch. ‘For Dad.’
They survived. When most died. They chose to have a life free of the past, but she cannot understand why Mum would keep the uniform. The clouds gather overhead and the wind swirls.
‘But if you chose to forget,’ she whispers, squatting low so that she is level with the stones sitting together on the sleeper, ‘why did you keep the dress?’
She presses her lips together hard. ‘And the letter.’ She didn’t know a Eugenia. Why would she keep a letter that didn’t really ‘belong’ to her?
Her memories shift like smoke, changed by the current, and suddenly dissolve at the crunch of footsteps on stones behind her. She struggles to stand on cold legs. A couple, both in long, dark coats and fur hats, have come with flowers and Miriam nods to them, before noticing the stones. So many stones, so many people. Why would her mother keep a dress with just one single letter?
There must be something more.
Something else, maybe.
And just as she stamps life into her feet, she feels momentum. To leave a place stuck in the amber of memory and return home, to the present, to Dad and to the dress. To find out what happened to them. Her breath steams ahead as rain falls.
Through the station and out, the sky rains grey and she is soaked before she has walked to the end of the car park, her hood drips water on to her face. She finds a solitary taxi about to pull away and hails it.
The jingle of tinsel cheer that rings both from the radio and the driver stun Miriam into silence. It is an assault on the senses after the clear, crisp quiet of the platform. The peaceful respect of the past scratched away by cheap music.
‘Where to, love?’ the driver asks, turning the rear-view mirror so he can see her. She tells him and sees the smear of fingerprint left on the mirror. It fragments the light into a unique pattern that keeps catching her eye as they wash through empty streets. The screech of windscreen wipers creates shooting stars from raindrops across the screen. Closer to home, she wonders where Axel is and feels nauseous without any warning, just thinking of him.
‘Don’t mind if I turn up the radio, do you?’
The false cheer pulses out at her from the warbling driver.
She pays the driver. He wishes her a Merry Christmas and pulls away, leaving her on the step of the large five-storey apartment block, shadowed by oak trees on either side, their leaves littered on the cobbled ground. The front door a white light guiding the ship lost at sea home.
Unlocking the main door, she continues up the stairs, the fur of the hood tickles her damp skin. She moves as fast as she can, but her feet hold her back, each step weighted, like walking through water.
She finds the key in her bag, turns it in the lock and pushes her way into the apartment.
Time moves through frames like snap shots. Blink. Snap. Move. Her thoughts circle around and around. She hears the mattress and the radio in the background.
His door glides open and he looks dead.
She takes a step in, unsure yet eager, but stops as the smell of over-ripe fruit, more pronounced by leaving, hits her like a wall.
His chest rises then falls.
She smiles at Hilda in the chair. The radio is playing a quiet violin solo and Miriam can hear the haunting, sharp notes as they cascade, reminding her of journeys and of goodbyes.
‘The weather turned, eh?’
She nods.
‘I had a thought,’ Hilda says, getting up. ‘Now that you are here to stay, perhaps you would like to see a doctor?’
Miriam takes off her coat and kisses her father’s papery skin.
‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’ Miriam’s voice rises, then falls fast, as she somehow loses her centre. Unravelled somewhere between the purpose she felt at the platform looking at the stones and now, bac
k in the apartment.
Hilda packs her glasses into her bag. ‘I think you are doing an amazing job. But it would be wrong of me not to offer you some support, medical or otherwise.’ She closes her bag and puts it on her shoulder. ‘Think on it, okay?’
Miriam looks at her father, a sheen across his forehead and his cheeks pink. She touches the back of his hand with her fingertips.
‘If this is what you want to do?’ Hilda continues.
A fireball of frustration rises so fast she feels she may launch herself at Hilda and tear into her.
‘There are other places, hospice perhaps, if you are finding this too tough. And it wouldn’t be a reflection on you, just . . .’
The internal fire is extinguished with a hiss.
‘No. I have to. I want to,’ she implores Hilda.
‘Then we need to look after you too, so you can look after your father. I can make you an appointment.’ Hilda gives Miriam a kiss on both cheeks as though to seal the conversation, then sees herself out.
The soloist is still playing and Miriam turns the radio off, cutting the harmony dead.
HENRYK
The memory of Frieda in my coat, the colour of midnight. I know if I can remember, if I can hold on . . . I search for a memory that kept me alive.
It will keep me alive again now.
And among the shadows I find it, as easily as knowing my own name.
Yeats.
The images bounce like the raindrops did as I shook off my coat and hung it over Frieda’s bathroom door.
‘They burnt your books today.’ Frieda passed me a cup of black tea as I sat on the end of her bed, brushing a hand through my wet hair. The bed, which also doubled as a sofa, was the only furniture, aside from the coffee table. The room had been painted a worn rose colour, deep, rusty pink. It felt warm despite being cold.
Her apartment faced east and was part of the central block of flats in the building. With only one window, situated in the bathroom, no natural light also meant no natural heat.
‘And you have ten thousand marks on your head.’ She sat opposite me on the low table, and blew the steam, which climbed like smoke from her cup. Our knees were close, but not quite touching.
‘Ten thousand marks?’
‘Yes. Think you’re worth a bit more?’ She laughed.
‘No. More and you’d hand me in yourself.’
‘Don’t speak like that.’
I touched my knee to hers but she pulled away. ‘My books. All of them?’ It stung, although I knew it shouldn’t.
‘Don’t worry too much, you were in great company. I imagine the clouds will be full of text in the morning. Look up and the world can read your words.’
I sipped my drink and looked into the cup.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘They’re burning Wells and Freud, I doubt anyone will feel the loss of my work.’
‘Sure they will. Look at me.’ I continued to look into my cup. Her knees nudged mine so I almost spilt the contents. ‘It’s just a display, you know. The books, they’ll survive the bonfires.’
I looked up at her then, really looked at her. ‘Emilie has the means to leave Berlin,’ I said.
‘Oh.’ She slumped back. ‘When do you leave?’
‘I don’t. I can’t leave.’
‘You have to.’
‘No, I won’t leave you.’
‘This is your life. Emilie’s life. You don’t have a choice.’ Then, after a pause, ‘Did you tell her?’
‘I told her the truth so that she could leave if she wanted. She won’t. She called me a misguided fool.’
‘She’s not wrong.’ Frieda smiled. ‘In other circumstances, she and I would be great friends. For what it is worth, I agree with her. There’s nothing here for you anymore.’
‘Frieda,’ I said, and she looked up. ‘Now who’s the fool?’
She tipped her head to the side ever so slightly and all I thought about was running a finger along her jawline to her chin to pull her closer to me.
‘You know I have to say it: you have no other choice, Henryk. You have to go.’
‘Does it make you feel better?’
‘Better! What? Telling you to leave, perhaps forever, with your wife? Go and live happily ever after, leave me behind?’
‘Then why?’
Our faces so close, separated by the ribbon of steam. ‘Because perhaps you need to hear it. From me.’
‘Permission?’
She nodded.
‘If I needed permission to leave I would never have stayed. It’s not as clear as that and you know it.’ I placed my cup on the floor.
‘The country is in ruins,’ she said. But as her mouth moved with the words I was looking, really looking, into her eyes and the unspoken connection from before kindled to life. It was a connection that held nothing concrete, just a deep, albeit slightly uncomfortable, recognition. I didn’t understand it, but I knew that this was the force of us.
‘It’s not the country or some misplaced patriotism. I’m staying because I cannot walk away from you.’
‘Yes, you can,’ she almost whispered. ‘If I can walk away from you, then you can walk away from me.’
I smiled.
‘I can walk away. I can,’ she said, more to herself this time.
I’d leant so far in I was squatting in front of her and her breath was hot on my face.
‘Who are you trying to convince?’
‘All these words mean nothing,’ she said.
‘I know, we talk, but—’ I cut myself off. I was at war; I wanted to kiss her lips and work out what I meant through them. But if I did I would lose the contact with her eyes and there was a magic in luxuriating in her gaze. ‘I do love Germany,’ I said for want of other words. ‘The old Germany, I mean.’
She smiled and moved back to take a sip of her drink, then placed it beside mine on the floor. ‘You are just like Yeats.’
She did this so often, catching me off-guard with a remark that must make sense to her, but made none to me. I made a mumbled, incomprehensible sound. I admired the shape of her shoulders and the tilt of her head, her jaw.
She laughed. ‘You confuse the love of your country for the love of a woman.’
I sat back. ‘Your evidence?’
‘Take “Leda and the Swan”. It’s about the rape of a country, not of a woman. His love is all about Ireland. A dreary spot of land he calls home. You place me in your way. Instead your love of Germany is what keeps you here, not me.’
I took both her hands in mine and rubbed my thumb over her knuckles. Slowly. ‘Don’t insult me.’
‘They say Yeats loved women, but what he really did was love his country, a broken country, over anything else.’
‘Is that wrong?’
‘No, I’m just putting forward the argument that if you searched your soul you would see that I represent everything that makes you think of Germany, the good and the bad.’ She looked away. ‘And therefore you cannot leave one without the other.’
‘That is true, but I am not leaving you. The country can go to hell.’
‘It already has.’
‘Well then, have you finished?’ We were nose to nose and if I moved at all I knew I’d lose eye contact and we would continue our conversation physically.
She pulled back. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I haven’t finished.’
‘Carry on then, please. Don’t let me stop you.’ I placed my hand over hers again and pulled her closer, my legs weaved in between hers, touching.
‘The best lack all conviction,’ she started.
‘While the worst are full of passionate intensity,’ I finished for her and traced my thumb over her wrist.
‘Exactly. That represents men,’ she said.
‘You are saying I have no passion?’
‘No, you have no conviction.’
‘Really?’ As I spoke I could feel her lips touch mine, a featherweight of expectation. But I was losing her eyes and they were brighter
and greener than ever. ‘Yeats represents humanity, the human condition, man not men.’
‘Well, as you well know . . .’ She touched my chin and lifted my gaze, which had dropped to a strand of hair fallen to her shoulder. ‘I have both intense passion . . . and conviction.’ She smiled.
‘You,’ I said. ‘You are a break in the mould.’
She kissed me, pressing her entire body into me. She proved her point as my hands were given permission to explore the rest of her body.
And as our bodies spoke, in rest and exertion, we didn’t part.
MIRIAM
She takes out the dress and sits with it on her lap beside her gently snoring father. The poems, the collection, when all is ruin once again. The stark reality of the Berlin Wall falling, the impossible happening she had left, and . . . the hollow faces of the Holocaust, to be carved on a stone . . . to not be forgotten. She unfolds the letter.
Maybe the dress was not Mum’s at all? The glimmer of hope in the dark has Miriam reading the letter again, she doesn’t even know where Lublin is.
She touches the dress, her fingers running over the coarse cotton. She plays each finger in turn along the stripes as though she were playing a piano. Thumb, fore, middle, ring – now ringless, she thinks – baby, and then back again. The whiteness of exposed, shrunken skin on her ring finger shimmers under her father’s light.
She walks her fingers across the stripes of the uniform until she gets to the pocket. A thread stands out from where Miriam found the letter. She tries to poke it back in and searches with her finger. There must be something more to this.
As her fingers poke into the frayed pocket they touch only fabric and are tainted by the smell of misery.
10
HENRYK
Frieda left my side first. I think she had to because, after all, I always left her. We sipped water.
‘You have to go. It’s just before curfew,’ she murmured.
‘I could stay,’ I suggested half-heartedly.
‘We both know you can’t.’
She dressed lazily, her blouse not buttoned but tucked into a skirt with nothing underneath.
I wrapped my arms around her from behind and pressed my nose into her hair. ‘In another world,’ I said.