Reparation

by Gaby Koppel

  “Doesn’t matter any more.” She strokes her fur, pensive. “You know, it was for you.”

  “What was?”

  “All this rubbish – claiming the money.”

  “But you need it to live on.”

  “I’m OK. Get state pension, small savings. I can sell house, no big deal.”

  “So why have we been doing it?”

  “Say sorry.”

  “You want the Hungarians to apologise. Well, they bloody well should.”

  “No. It’s for me. I need to say sorry too.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “To you. I wasn’t great mother. I loved you but it wasn’t enough.”

  “You did your best.”

  “Sometimes that’s not enough. You will do better.” She thinks the poison gets diluted through the generations. I wish it was that simple. But you can’t unstitch the past that easily and put it back together. I’m the product of her damaged childhood, just as much as she is.

  “You don’t need to say sorry, and I don’t need your money. We’ll be OK.” She squeezes my hand. “Though to be honest, I will be glad to get my flat back. I hope you don’t mind me admitting that.”

  Mutti goes to bed, while I sort through the compensation file late into the night. There must be a loophole, a clue, something. When I stop, it’s nearly midnight and the shared hallway is dark. All my neighbours are safely locked in their flats.

  Before turning in, I put my trainers back on and go outside. The front of the property looks secure, bathed in the glow of the street lights. All of the windows are sound. At the side of the building it’s dark and the security light with a movement sensor which should go on automatically, doesn’t. I wish I’d brought a torch. I scan the side and back of the house in the gloom, it all looks OK, but I still can’t shift the horrible feeling that we are being watched. Of course, I should let DI Jenkins know what’s happened, but that’ll wait until tomorrow.

  I’m just pulling my pyjamas over my head when I notice there’s something on my pillow. It’s one of those little plastic snowstorm shakers, featuring a tiny model of the admirable Hungarian parliament with its Romanesque, Classical and Gothic architecture. And underneath it, a bundle of letters tied up with a stained silk ribbon. I untie the bow, and release a wad of paper sheets so thin they are almost transparent. Letters with several different dates, the pages criss-crossed by crease marks where they have been folded and folded. Though the ink has faded to brown, and there’s a scattering of blurry splodges from tears or snow, the words are still clearly legible. If only I could read Hungarian.

  There’s one other sheet with the bundle. It’s torn from the type of lined, ring-bound reporter’s notebook that Mutti uses for her shopping lists. In pencil, in her favoured capital letters is written:

  December 1943

  My dearest girls, Be happy for me!

  I compare it with the top letter in the bundle which is headed December 1943. Mutti’s note continues:

  I have managed to come by a greatcoat from one of our fallen comrades, when so many others are left with nothing but rags. By night we lose several of our number worn down by the cold, the meagre rations and the endless marching. The officer in charge of food supplies is an old friend from university days. He favours me with extra bread. So you see, my situation is improving, and I am strong. You must not worry….

  Who is this from? My dearest girls. From my grandfather to whom? Mutti and my grandmother I imagine. In the margin, there’s a pencil scribble. The word Munckaszolat, I’ve seen that before. Of course, the forced labour divisions of the Hungarian army. If my grandfather was conscripted he must have got back to Budapest. He was shot in 1944. That would be ironic. In a bad way, a truly appalling way. He escapes the horror of the front line, only to be shot by fascists when he manages to get home. There’s a line, and Mutti’s written the word MORE, and then,

  I miss you both so much, my two lovely girls. At night, I think about what we will do when the war is over. We will travel to Paris and Perugia. We will eat the greatest delicacies, the tenderest meats, the most delicate pastries. All that matters now is that we get through, and find each other once more when this hell is over.

  It peters out there. It’s a fragment of a fragment. I shake the snowstorm and look at the letters again, the wobbly attempt at copperplate. While the flakes are settling on the miniature architectural marvel, I finger the worn sheets, where they are coming apart on the creases. These letters have been eroded by handling, the pages ripe with love and grief. I read it and read it again into the early hours, running my eye over the puzzling Hungarian sentences flecked with accents, and try to imagine the grandfather I never met.

  Chapter 29

  I must drift off, because I’m woken by the phone ringing. I jerk myself up and lunge at the bedside table, but when I get the receiver to my ear, all I can hear is dialling tone. This is getting creepy, but I don’t know what to do. Hoping that the noise hasn’t woken Mutti, I sink back on the pillows and watch the pink-tinged daylight breaking over the rooftops. I put on my dressing gown and drift into the lounge, gazing through the new pane in the French window across the dense maze of terraced houses and council blocks that stretch away, till scruffy Lower Holloway gives way to leafy Tufnell Park. I won’t tell Mutti for now.

  The nausea is still there, but it’s accompanied by a ferocious physical energy. The only way of getting rid of any of it is the gym. The place is humming with the kind of successful people who have to exercise early in the morning, because that’s the only ‘window’ they have left in their busy diaries. I’m not even sure whether pregnant women are supposed to run on treadmills, but I don’t care. I hide myself among them, hoping nobody will spot that I’m a fraud, running until my thighs are seizing up and sweat has saturated my bra. I heave weights above my head, watching in the mirror as my muscles contract into sinewy shapes, lifting and lowering again, and again, until I lose count. At home, Mutti’s is probably just shaking off the sleeping tablet fuzz. I hope she’s OK. Make mental note to call DI Jenkins about the stone through my window.

  Leaving my kit in a locker, I walk the pavements for miles until I reach Holborn. It’s mid-morning by the time I’m standing outside the office of a smart legal firm. It’s a cliff face of glass and steel, refracting a dazzling broken jigsaw of the building opposite in the morning sun. A receptionist with a painted-on smile and geometric hair looks unblinking at me.

  “Mr Andris Kovács, please.”

  “Is Mr Kovács expecting you?”

  “No, but I think he’ll want to see me.” She picks up a phone and dials a number.

  “And who shall I say is calling?” Before she’s had a chance to write down my name, I’ve pushed through the turnstile with a girl in high heels and am hurtling up through the atrium in a glass lift. When I get out, I find myself facing a long glass wall with a row of offices. Helpfully, there are name signs on each door. Less helpfully, there’s another dragon with savage red lips outside the office of Andris Kovács LLB, partner.

  “I’m sorry, you don’t seem to have an appointment.”

  “I don’t need one,” I say and walk past her open mouth. I’d like to bang the door shut in her face, but it’s got one of those hydraulic mechanisms which makes it shuffle to a silent close. He’s wearing a pin-stripe suit every bit as well cut as the jeans he was wearing yesterday and has a phone tucked between ear and shoulder.

  “Er, you might have to bear with me one moment,” he says into it, and turning to me. “Miss Mueller, this isn’t at all convenient.”

  “It’s convenient for me,” I say, sitting down in a chair opposite him, putting my bag on my lap, and looking him straight in the eye.

  “Look, I’m sorry about this,” he says into the phone, “but something’s come up.” I wait for him to put the phone down. He straightens his blue silk tie. In any other situation, I’d be too overwhelmed by his devastating looks to even say hello.

  “
Mr Kovács,” I say, “or should I call you Andy? Anyway, I’m fed up of playing games of cat and mouse, and pretending to be pally. It’s all a front, and I want to know the truth.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The pictures, Mr Kovács. Where are they?”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “Really? I reckon you and your father would make quite good mug shots for our rogues’ gallery on The Crime Programme. Or maybe you’d like to see yourself in a dramatic reconstruction film telling the story of a major art theft.”

  “Don’t talk such rubbish.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “And I am too. I presume there are professional guidelines even for your tawdry profession and barging into my office has got to be breaking every rule in the book. Not to mention making wild allegations without an iota of evidence.” He picks up the phone. “What’s the name of the person in charge there?”

  The thought of Sarah hearing what I’ve said takes my breath away.

  “Well?”

  “The series editor’s name is Sarah Phillips,” I say, trying to look as though I don’t care whether he calls her or not. I dictate her direct number, one digit at a time. He scribbles it on a pad. And looks at me.

  “First I’m going to phone my father.”

  “There’s nothing he can tell you that you don’t know already.”

  “I’m just trying to find out what’s going on.”

  “Really?” I say. “Either he or my mother is lying, and I know who I’d put my money on.” I’m on his side of the desk now, trembling with anger.

  I grab him by the lapels, and I’m shaking him, spitting in his face as I shout. “My mother trusted your father!” – by now I’m blubbing out of control. “And he took advantage of her in the vilest way possible.” I shake him, screaming at the top of my voice, “And now you are both trying to fuck us over again.”

  Andy tries to push me away, but I’m gripping him with superhuman strength. “Have you got any idea,” I yell, “what it’s like growing up with a mother who is so disturbed that she’s got to anaesthetise herself with booze all the time? Have you?” My nose is an inch away from his. “So that you couldn’t count on her getting through any routine event without completely losing it? Not a school play, not a birthday party, not a trip to the swimming pool.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see somebody else enter the room, and as that happens Andy pushes me again. This time I lose my grip because by now I am shuddering and crying, my strength vaporised. One push is enough to put me off balance. I stumble backwards and hit the floor with a thud, jerking my head back. A bolt of pain shoots down my neck. I’m struggling to get back onto my feet, but somehow it’s difficult. I feel as though I’m at the bottom of a swimming pool with Andy towering above me, and the other person looming into view. I struggle to focus. Shiny brass buttons on a blue jacket. I feel a big hand clamp round my arm and pull me. But I’m not sure who it is.

  “That’s enough now. Come with me, please.” I can hear snatched bits of conversation, but none of it makes sense.

  “Hold on… her head…” The voices are muffled. Nobody finishes a sentence. It’s like a bad edit, with shots cut in half and spliced together randomly and stray bits of audio popping up out of sync. I hear a groan, and realise it’s my own voice. Then, “She’s bleeding…” I flop back down, the ground swinging beneath me.

  The next thing I know, I’m sitting on a sofa holding a wet compress on the back of my head. And Andy’s there with a cup of hot, sweet tea. He’s terribly solicitous and, of course, still fantastically good looking.

  “I’m sorry”, I groan. “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s OK, just forget about it.”

  “What I mean is I just got a bit carried away.”

  “It’s understandable.”

  “It is?”

  Andy excuses himself and lets the first aider take over. She examines my head and checks my reflexes. My hair is wet with congealing blood at the back, but the cut is small, perhaps I haven’t got concussion after all. She gives me some painkillers and puts some liquid plaster on the cut. After she’s gone, the red-mouthed dragon puts her head round the door. And gives the sweetest smile.

  “Mr Kovács is just finishing his conference call. He’ll be with you in a minute.” She disappears, leaving me alone. I look around. There’s lots of white light, and it’s hurting my eyes. I take a make-up mirror out of my bag and clean up the smears of mascara. Then I put on my coat and find my way back to the lift.

  I start walking down High Holborn, feeling hot and limp. It’s still quite early, the morning is clouded but close, and heat is radiating up from the pavement making me sweat. That constant queasiness pursues me, as though I’m trapped in a rocking boat. And now I’m exhausted too. I look round for a cab. The paracetamol must be wearing off because my head’s beginning to throb again, and now I’ve got stomach cramps as well. Where on earth is a taxi when you need one? I keep walking, with an eye on the traffic. I see one, but as it comes closer I can see it’s full. Then there’s another, empty and coming straight towards me. I step out into the road, just as it sails on past. The backdraft slaps me in the face. There’s a tight spasm in my stomach.

  I crouch on the edge of the curb holding my tummy. I think I’m about to be sick. There’s a tap on my back. I turn to see a policeman.

  “Are you OK, madam?”

  “It’s nothing,” I say. He helps me to my feet, and scrutinises me. Oh God, he thinks I’m drunk. How loud do I have to say that Iam not like my mother, for Christ’s sake.

  “Officer,” I say, speaking as clearly and unslurringly as I can, “I don’t suppose you can help me find a cab?”

  I tell the driver to take me home. I’ll just clean myself up and lie down for a few hours. Everything will be fine. Then we hit a pothole and my stomach sends out another spasm. I feel my pulse shoot up. Something disgusting and wet creeps down the inside of my leg.

  “Tell you what,” I call up to the driver. “Take me to the nearest hospital.”

  On the pavements of Farringdon Road, girls in neat little suits and pumps are rushing between offices. They weave their way through the stationary traffic carrying loaded cardboard coffee cup holders. There’s a billboard advertising a new film, an Evening Standard vendor shouting out the headline news. We’ve trundled under the railway bridge, towards the traffic lights before I’ve clocked “Arrest in Stamford Hill murder” on the newspaper placard. That is what it said, isn’t it? I crane my head round, but it’s disappearing behind us. There don’t seem to be any more newsstands, along the miles and miles of pavement. I call Jenkins, but his number’s on voicemail.

  At the hospital, I lever myself out of the cab, thighs pressed together and trying not to breathe. No sudden moves. Hurrying as slowly as I can, it’s an agonising waddle from the forecourt into Accident and Emergency. I reach the main entrance through a curtain of cigarette smoke. Inside, I pass a fat woman bursting out of a minidress with her head bent over a grey cardboard bowl. I steer a wide circle around her, fearful that the odour of vomit is going to make me heave too.

  “The current waiting time is three hours,” says the receptionist. “As you can see, it’s very busy.” Really? I can only see a only few people sprawled out over the metal benches.

  “I’m bleeding.”

  “The triage nurse will come and see you,” says the girl with a flat, impassive expression that makes me want to slap her. On TV medical dramas they seem to get very excited about people who are actually bleeding. They run around “resus” looking concerned, and put up drips, measure blood pressure and exchange many meaningful looks over the patient as they are working. It doesn’t seem worth pointing this out to the receptionist.

  A man with an impressive cut on his forehead makes space for me to sit down. I sit there for a long time, listening to a woman in stiletto sandals and tight jeans complaining in a screechy voice about “that Shaylah”, and h
ow she “turned round and told her what she thought of her”.

  The stomach cramps are still there, though at least they don’t seem to have become any worse. There are a few ragged old magazines lying around with straplines like “My cross-dressing son murdered my daughter” and “Five-year-old’s ten foot tapeworm”. My eyes settle on a television that is suspended high up on the wall. It’s playing some kind of game show.

  After just one hour, a nurse calls my name, but it’s a false alarm. A further hour and I’m ushered into a cubicle. I lie on the bed because there is nowhere else to sit. And as I do so, the cramps worsen. Over the next twenty minutes, the pains get more and more intense, and there’s still no sign of a medic. Then the curtain is pulled aside, and a nurse puts her head through.

  “Do you think I could have something for the stomach ache?” I ask. She gives me a disparaging look, as though she knows that I’m suffering the morning-after effects of too many pints of lager and a curry.

  “The doctor won’t want you to have anything until he’s seen you,” she says.

  “How long do you think that might be?”

  “I’m sorry but we’re very busy,” she says, as she disappears.

  As the curtains swing back together I get a feeling as if someone has plunged a screwdriver into my guts. Churning cramps. My knees pull themselves up to my abdomen of their own free will. Sweat has broken out on my forehead, but my mouth is dry. The sense of loneliness is desperate.