The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days

by Juliet Conlin

  Wake your parents. NOW!

  Wake the baby! The baby!

  Alfred glanced across at his mother. She lay on her side, facing the cradle, and even in her sleep, the traces of her sorrow were apparent on her face. A deep crease between her eyebrows suggested that grief had followed her into sleep and her breathing was ragged and uneven, as though her lungs were too sad, too exhausted to inflate and deflate properly. Without thinking, Alfred reached forward to stroke his mother’s face in a gesture that denied his youth – but in doing so, he caught his nightgown on the cradle, stumbled forward and almost dropped the baby onto his parents’ bed. Freyja stirred, Karl grunted and Marie broke forth with a sudden wail that seemed to reach into the darkest corners of the room. It was a quivering, existential howl that woke both Freyja and Karl immediately.

  ‘It’s me, Mama,’ Alfred said to the dark figures of his parents who were now sitting upright in bed. ‘I have Marie.’ He couldn’t think of what else to say. He held out the baby – whose whole body now seemed engaged in the effort of filling her lungs with oxygen: hands pumping furiously, legs stretched out stiffly, her face the gaping hole of her open mouth – towards his mother as though handing her a gift. Freyja looked confused for a second but then took the baby off him and began shushing her.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ Karl said, his voice hoarse with sleep. He reached over and lit the petroleum lamp that stood on his bedside table. A warm buttery light spread through the small room, and Karl, Freyja and Alfred all looked down at screaming Marie. Although Alfred had saved his baby sister from asphyxiation, its traces were still evident in the baby’s purplish lips and tinge of blue on her skin. But it appeared as though Freyja’s shushing was managing to calm her, and Marie’s screams gradually turned into choppy, shuddering breaths. Karl looked up at Alfred.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ he repeated.

  ‘Marie,’ Alfred said. He felt blood rushing to his face.

  ‘Alfred, it’s the middle of the night,’ Freyja said, looking up at him. On the front of her nightgown, Alfred could see two large damp circles of yellowish breast milk that had leaked out despite the layers of gauze she wore inside her brassiere. ‘What are you doing here, mein Schatz?’

  ‘She wasn’t breathing,’ Alfred said and nodded at Marie. She had been calmed back to sleep by her mother. Like this, her lips in a pout and her tongue sucking at an imaginary nipple inside her closed mouth, it was hard to believe she was capable of producing such an assaulting sound.

  ‘How did you know she wasn’t breathing?’ Freyja asked. She carefully handed the baby to Karl and patted the blanket next to her to invite Alfred onto the bed. He climbed up gratefully and Freyja began to stroke his hair.

  ‘The women told me.’

  Freyja stopped stroking abruptly. ‘What women?’

  ‘I don’t know. They said – ’

  ‘There’s someone in the house?’ Karl said, his voice slightly raised now. He swung his legs out of bed and got up, baby Marie in his arms, and looked around for his slippers.

  ‘No,’ Alfred began. ‘I mean – ’

  Karl, having found his slippers, crossed the room towards the door, but stopped when he realised he was holding the baby. He glanced around quickly as if trying to find a suitable place to lay her down, but then he turned back to Alfred. ‘Were they in your room? Come on, boy, out with it.’

  Alfred frowned. He felt annoyed that the voice-women had got him into this mess but now had no advice to give him on how to proceed. It wasn’t his fault he was here in the middle of the night. He hadn’t woken his parents on purpose. He’d only been doing as he’d been told – but where were the voices now? Why couldn’t they tell him what to do now?

  ‘They woke me up,’ he said, shrugging. ‘They told me to come in here because Marie couldn’t breathe.’

  ‘Karl,’ Freyja said, brushing a strand of Alfred’s hair behind his ear, ‘come back to bed. Alfred was probably having a bad dream, weren’t you, Alfred?’

  Karl walked over to the cradle and placed the sleeping Marie inside. He stared down at her for a long time. ‘But she might have – ’ he said quietly, but didn’t finish his sentence.

  ‘Then let’s be grateful to Alfred, liebling.’ Freyja held out her hand towards her husband. ‘He probably had a bad dream and came here for comfort. He must have noticed how quiet Marie was. That’s what happened, isn’t it Alfred?’

  Alfred nodded, although he wasn’t sure anymore what had happened. He was very, very tired now. Perhaps his mother was right, perhaps it had just been a bad dream. He rubbed his eyes with the balls of his hands. He couldn’t be sure.

  Karl straightened up and breathed in sharply. ‘I’ll go and check on the children,’ he said. ‘To make sure.’

  And without clarifying exactly what it was he was making sure of, he left the bedroom.

  Freyja leaned back against the wall and pulled Alfred’s head onto her chest. ‘Do you wish to sleep here with us tonight?’ she asked.

  Alfred’s heart skipped a beat. This was unusual indeed, given that none of Karl and Freyja’s children had spent a night in their parents’ bedroom past the age of three months, so hoping most sincerely that he hadn’t misheard the question, Alfred gave a small nod, his cheek rubbing up and down against the cotton of his mother’s nightgown. Freyja began making the same shushing sound she’d made earlier to calm Marie, and then placed her index finger gently but firmly against his forehead, just between his eyebrows. Her fingertip felt as hot as ice and within moments, Alfred was asleep.

  Day One

  Half an hour after Alfred had returned from the Gents, I persuaded him to give me the address of his granddaughter, as unfortunately she hadn’t thought of giving him her telephone number. It was by now evident that she wasn’t going to show up. She lived in the Kreuzberg district, which was just a slight detour en route to my home in Schöneberg, so I offered Alfred the share of a taxi.

  ‘Oh. I’m afraid I have no European money on me,’ he said. ‘But if you point me in the right direction . . . I don’t mind a walk.’

  ‘It’s more of a walk than you think,’ I said. ‘You’re welcome to join me. It won’t cost me any more than if I travelled alone,’ I added, not quite truthfully.

  Alfred hesitated, but then nodded. He looked exhausted.

  ‘Oh, and by the way.’ I held out my hand. ‘I’m Julia. Julia Krüger.’

  ‘Very nice to meet you,’ he said, taking my hand in both of his. They were pleasantly warm and dry, the skin slightly papery. ‘I’m Alfred Warner.’

  ‘Well, come on then Alfred,’ I said, and together we headed for the exit.

  Throughout the drive, for just under twenty minutes, Alfred sat staring out of the window, although by now the sun had set and there wasn’t really much to see. A few perpetual building sites, the black canal, and – inserted among crumbling late-nineteenth century apartment buildings that hadn’t been modernised since the end of the war – those unimaginative post-war tenement blocks with tiny windows and uniform façades. Alfred kept staring out of the window, motionless. Once or twice I heard him mumble something, but it was fairly clear that he wasn’t conversing with me, so I just sat back and closed my eyes, wondering if I had enough eggs in my fridge to make an omelette, and if so, whether they would still be fresh.

  By the time the taxi stopped in front of Alfred’s granddaughter’s building on Schönleinstraße, I was close to falling asleep. The taxi driver gave a grunt to let us know we’d reached our first destination, and Alfred opened the door. He turned to face me for the first time since we’d set off from the train station.

  ‘Thank you so much for your kind help,’ he said. ‘Perhaps if you’d like to wait, I’ll see if Brynja can give me some money to cover my share?’

  I shook my head and smiled. ‘No, that’s okay. As I said, I would have had to pay the same fare if I’d been on my own.’

  ‘Well, thank you again,’ Alfred said, and proceeded to
climb out of the taxi. It was then that I noticed that his head was trembling in a most worrying manner. Of course, he was an old man, some thirty years or so older than myself, and an occasional minor tremor of head or hands is to be expected, but this appeared far beyond normal.

  ‘Alfred,’ I called.

  He turned and bent down to look into the car. ‘Yes?’ His breath clouded in the freezing air.

  ‘Um, perhaps I’d better help you up the stairs.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Alfred shook his head, which multiplied the effect of the tremor, so that it looked as though his head were about to bob off his neck. ‘That won’t be necessary. You’ve been more than helpful. Besides, she lives on the fourth floor.’

  Well, this made my mind up for me. I leant forward towards the driver and instructed him to wait for me while I accompanied the gentleman upstairs. The driver shrugged and picked up a newspaper from the passenger seat.

  ‘Alfred,’ I said, getting out of my side of the taxi and making a show of scrambling through my handbag. ‘I’m afraid I shall have to come with you. This is most embarrassing, but I, um, I don’t think I have enough money for the extra fare after all.’

  Alfred straightened up and smiled, which seemed to lay the tremor to rest, at least for the time being. ‘Yes, all right. Well,’ he turned and tipped his head back to look up at the balconies adorning the front of the building, ‘let’s go then.’

  It seems odd in hindsight, but I can swear that neither of us noticed the police tape that sectioned off a few square metres to the left of the building, let alone the bloodstain it enclosed.

  1932 - 1934

  The summer of 1932 drew to a close languidly, almost as though it were offering an apology for its earlier severity. The temperature dropped gradually, one degree every couple of days, making the Werners’ outdoor chores on the estate – splitting firewood in preparation for the winter, digging out the last of the potatoes, repairing fences – less disagreeable than at any other time during the year. It rained gently and silently during the night, nourishing flora and fauna, turning the morning air clean and fresh, and bringing the heady, musty fragrance of mushrooms to the forest.

  The heat-bleached landscape began to recover its colour, and although there was occasional news of political rumblings in the nearby capital, for the Werner family, it was a mellow, peaceful, healing time. Day by day, they became better at coping with the painful loss of Martha; although still mourners by day, Freyja and Karl were once again lovers by night and the children dared to laugh loudly and uninhibitedly without fear of upsetting their parents. If truth were told, there was a wretched hole in Freyja’s heart that would never quite heal; Karl still had vivid and distressing dreams about Martha and the older children felt at times a stab of guilt when they noticed they had forgotten about their sister for a moment or two while playing – but these were little secrets they each chose to guard from one another.

  Only Alfred was somewhat at odds with the world. Ever since the voices had woken him that night and he had saved baby Marie’s life, he felt a coolness coming from his mother, or at least some alien feeling he couldn’t put into words. As the weeks passed, Alfred might well have come to the conclusion that she was somehow angry or disappointed with him, for whenever they happened to be alone in a room together, she would suddenly think of a reason to leave, or when she washed him in the tub, she would avoid looking him in the eye. On occasion, Alfred had caught her staring at him, just like that, across the kitchen table, or from the window when he was in the yard. And she had a sad, melancholic look in her eyes when she stared at him that way. Yes, he might well have come to the conclusion that she had even stopped loving him, had it not been for the fact that he had grown a good three inches over the summer and needed clothes that fit him before he began school in several weeks’ time.

  Thus, early one morning, instead of being sent out to feed the chickens, Alfred was told by his mother to stay behind in the kitchen after breakfast so that she could adjust two pairs of Emil’s shorts he had grown out of several years ago. He was surprised when she told him to stay, and at first hovered around the back door, thinking she might change her mind at any moment and tell him to go outside after all. But Freyja just smiled a distant smile and went to tuck the blankets firmly around Marie, who was lying fast asleep in a bassinet next to the hearth. Then she picked up a pair of grey shorts from the sideboard.

  ‘Here, try these on,’ she said, holding out the shorts.

  Alfred took off the too-small shorts he was wearing and stepped into the ones his mother had handed him. The fabric was scratchy and coarse, stiffer than what he was used to, and it smelled funny too, a bit like shoe polish. Alfred knew what shoe polish smelled like because his mother occasionally had to clean the riding boots of their landlord, Fritz von Markstein, when his housemaid Gretl was sick or busy.

  ‘A bit loose around the waist,’ Freyja said, slipping two fingers between the waistband and Alfred’s stomach and sliding them back and forth. ‘But they’ll have to do. Now, step onto the chair so I can pin them up.’

  Alfred climbed onto the kitchen chair and stood facing his mother. This way, he was almost the same height as her. Her hair was braided and pinned up into a crown at the back of her head, and the pale morning light picked out a few blonde wisps that had come loose. For a moment, she looked directly at him, and her face held a look so serious that Alfred felt a twinge of panic. He dropped his gaze down to the grey woollen shorts that came to just below his knees, and was wondering if he might mention to his mother that they were very itchy, when without warning, she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him gently on the mouth.

  ‘Sérstakt,’ she whispered in her native tongue, and she tilted her face forwards, resting her forehead against his so that he could feel her warm breath on his face.

  ‘Mama?’ Alfred felt frightened and thrilled all at once. The heat from her forehead spread across his face and down and through his small body. Although he had often experienced such physical closeness to his mother, what he was feeling now went beyond the normal corporeal affection of such a gesture. What he was feeling now was symbiotic – it was as though her brain were sending signals to his, his heartbeat drumming to her pulse, her skin stretching to meld with his.

  Then a clear voice: Careful, Freyja. Don’t you think he’s a little young?

  It was one of Alfred’s women-voices, but she wasn’t addressing him. His heart and her pulse began drumming a little faster.

  Freyja shook her head very slightly. ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘it’s good. Now is good.’

  ‘Mama?’ Alfred asked again, but this time his lips just formed the words soundlessly.

  ‘You hear them, mein Täubchen, don’t you?’

  Alfred wanted to nod, but was afraid he might disrupt the connection between them if he moved. He remained stock-still.

  ‘I know you can hear them,’ Freyja continued. Her voice was so soft and breathless that anyone standing more than a yard or two away wouldn’t have heard a thing. ‘They woke you that night, didn’t they? The night you saved Marie.’

  ‘Yes.’ He breathed the word.

  A noise escaped Freyja’s throat – a sound between a sigh and a moan.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Alfred said. He wasn’t sure why, but he thought he had disappointed his mother, and this made him feel profoundly sad.

  ‘Oh!’ Freyja threw her arms around him and hugged him so tight he could hardly breathe. ‘Oh, Alfred, don’t be sorry!’

  He hears us very well. Don’t you Alfred? A different voice, but definitely one of the three he had heard before. It is most unusual, Freyja. For one so young.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Freyja said, loosening her embrace but keeping Alfred close. ‘I wasn’t sure, but now . . .’

  ‘You’re not cross?’ Alfred asked. He wanted to be sure.

  Nobody’s cross, Alfred.

  ‘No, little one, nobody’s cross,’ Freyja echoed. ‘But please – ’ She looked up and arou
nd in the space just above Alfred’s head, and he realised that she was addressing the voices. ‘Please be quiet while I explain things to him. He might get confused, and it’s important that he understands things clearly.’

  And then – as the sun inched up ever higher in the sky, slowly turning the pale light into autumn gold; as Karl stood in the yard with Emil, teaching him how to split a piece of wood with a maul; as Johanna finished sweeping out the cow shed and went to feed the last of the corn to the chickens; as baby Marie kicked against her blankets in her sleep in the basket beside the hearth – Freyja began pinning up Emil’s old shorts and telling her son Alfred about the voices.

  She told him that he was one of a long line of voice-hearers in her family, reaching back many hundreds of years, to a time of perpetual volcanic eruptions and the Age of the Sturlungs, when her mother’s home country of Iceland was under the rule of violent and bloodthirsty chieftains.

  ‘During this time, there lived three sisters who managed to avoid capture by the chieftain’s men by luring them into the mists, where the men got hopelessly lost and died of hunger and thirst. When the chieftain learned of the women’s act, he sent out a hundred men to find them and bring them to him. After a year-long hunt, the sisters were finally caught and killed by the chieftain himself, who pierced each of their hearts with his spear and watched them bleed to death.’ Her pitch was melodious; the inflection the same as the one she used when telling her children bedtime stories. ‘Years later, the three sisters were brought to life again, but only as voices and not in body, by magic words spoken by one of the sisters’ sons, a renegade prince, to help him in battle against the chieftain. Since that time, the women – to whom you are related by blood – continued to appear to each generation as both agents and witnesses. And Alfred – ’ She paused for a moment and looked at him intently. When she next spoke, her voice was dark and cautionary. ‘They are very powerful. They spin the threads of life.’