Cleaver

by Tim Parks

  He decided once again to think about Ulrike and the Stolberg family. What motive could she have had for committing suicide? If she did. It must have been a year or two after Seffa’s birth. It was unlikely she did pills, as Craig and Angela no doubt had. Cleaver had invited various experts on post-natal depression to his talk show once. No one had dared field the idea that a woman with a newborn child might fear she was no longer attractive to her lover. She was stuck with her husband again. Cleaver was sure this had been the cause of Amanda’s depression after Caroline was born. She had lost her figure. Larry had slipped off the radar for a while. Or what if Jürgen had discovered the child might not be his? Was that why he insisted, Sie isch mei Tochto. Ulrike’s father-in-law, Jürgen’s father, had abandoned the family house around that time, to come and live in Rosenkranzhof. Cleaver chewed his lips. How old would the man have been? Sixtyish.

  There were cobwebs in the corners. Cleaver took a swig of whisky. When the thaw begins, I’ll hear dripping. He listened. Silence. This is the silence you always longed for, he told himself. Jürgen will have brought the cows into the stall. Perhaps Ulrike and the old Nazi used to meet here. In Rosenkranzhof. In this room with the lock on the door. The young woman and the father-in-law. Perhaps she was pregnant again. Or she met another lover here and was discovered by her father-in-law. He used the place for hunting, perhaps. He sat at this window with his gun, waiting for deer to come. Or he blew his whistle to attract some bird or other. Ulrike begged him not to tell. Then there was a secret in Trennerhof. And Frau Stolberg would have sensed that secret. She is that kind of woman, Cleaver thought. Did Ulrike confide with the town-dressed woman, her husband’s sister, the rebel of the family, the one who left? Did she tell her that baby Seffa wasn’t her brother’s daughter? Or the baby that was on the way? I was often sorely tempted by my elder son’s girlfriends, Cleaver remembered. He remembered in particular the neurotic girl who always fell ill when the two of them were supposed to move in together. I tried to warn him. What an extraordinary physical presence that girl had had, a knowing smile beyond her age. He couldn’t remember her name. But I never did touch them.

  Cleaver shook his head and drank again. I could mull over this stuff for eternity, he decided. On the other hand, there was the time when his elder son had tried to date one of his, Cleaver’s, girlfriends. Unknowingly, of course. Melanie had told Cleaver every detail, giggling her head off. Or perhaps she didn’t tell you everything, Cleaver thought. He wouldn’t have put it past her. He had never imagined his girlfriends were faithful to him.

  Cleaver moved his chair to the window and forced it open. The cold air flowed in. He leaned on the sill and looked across the clearing. His loo was half buried. The snow was deep. To the left the trees climbing the gorge were silent, their branches sagging with whiteness. Cleaver picked up the whistle he’d left there and blew on it. The shrill sound seemed to connect his thoughts with the world outside. The hunter mimics his victim, offering company, then, blam!

  Cleaver whistled again. My father was a wonderful mimic, his elder son had written in those spirited opening chapters, so much so that you sometimes wondered whether he really had a voice of his own. That famous voice, for example, that was to become the news voice of the eighties and early nineties was actually a studied amalgam of a thousand mimicked mannerisms.

  Cleaver blew again. He stared across the clearing. He blew once more, long and hard and stared. Sure enough, a young man has appeared, climbing the path that leads up from the ledge, from the charcoal burners’ cableway. He is a handsome, sombre young man, in jeans and denim jacket. For some reason his feet don’t sink in the snow. Suddenly, he raises his eyes to the window, the window of Rosenkranzhof. Cleaver stares. Is it Ulrike’s lover? The young man has a shotgun slung over his shoulder. Alex, Cleaver breathed.

  Uli howled interminably all afternoon. There really is nothing left to eat now. You brought no emergency rations, Cleaver reflected. In films people always have emergency rations. No chocolate. No muesli bars. He gave the last strands of pasta to the dog. The whisky will do for me. Towards dark he was afflicted by a desire to go out and check on Olga, but he resisted. Suicide was a form of communication. He had read that somewhere. The very fact of the suicide, the timing, the method used, they were all forms of communication far more powerful than any letter of farewell. Aimed at one’s nearest and dearest, of course. The young mother who throws herself into the void is declaring her independence, Cleaver thought. One could hardly say, nearest and coldest, nearest and harshest, nearest and grimmest. She is cutting loose from a thick web, from a society that has decided that words like nearest and dearest must cleave together. It’s an independence that can come only at the cost of your life. That’s another thing I might have said to Loach, Cleaver told the dog. Uli was whining, scratching the floor. Whereas murder, dear doggie – he took the creature’s head in his hands and shook it – murder is an even more direct form of communication. Savvy? Uli? But all at once Cleaver was shocked by an extraordinary light of recognition in the dog’s deep eyes, as if you looked over the brink and found eyes in the void staring back. She understands. Cleaver pushed the creature away.

  During the night he dreamed again. This time it was a new dream. He was fucking a rat. A large furry rat with a great wet red vagina. But what appalled him was that he was doing it without a condom. Am I mad? He would contract some filthy disease. Cleaver woke. He was upset. It was the unnecessary ugliness of the dream that galled him. It was unpleasant. Life is waste, he thought, a waste of vivid and unhappy mental images, a waste of young lives, a waste of effort. I’ve wasted enough time, were Priya’s last sad words. Beloved. Goodbye Harold. What had become of all those years of televised debates, the screen filling and emptying? Even in your dreams you avoid your son, a voice said.

  Lying stock-still in the dark Cleaver was alert, electrified. It was the same feeling he had had that afternoon when he woke to find someone stalking round the house. Have the Stolbergs come, he wondered, in the middle of the night? Have I been tracked down? There’s a wind blowing now, he realised. There was noise. He limped to the window. A strong breeze had swept the snow from the tops of the trees. Even in your dreams you avoid your son.

  He hurried to get back under the blankets. It was true. But when had it begun? When did I begin to avoid him? From the day he smelt a rat. Cleaver felt about for the whisky bottle. My son became a sort of fundamentalist, he thought. Not religious. But he always knew what was right and wrong. He was always sure of himself. Selfish and priggish. Under His Shadow is the work of a fundamentalist, yet fundamentally self-serving. Cleaver waited. He heard the sound of snow sliding off the roof, but it wasn’t a thaw. The wind was rising. Perhaps you identified your son with a part of yourself that you wanted nothing to do with. Con-science, my father would quip to his dinner guests, equals the science of conning people into behaving.

  Drinking from the bottle, Cleaver tried to remember those scenes around the dinner table. His son would lean forward in dogmatic stance. He would repeat my ideas to whatever guests we had, but in crass form. Phillip and Caroline whispered and giggled together. They were too young to take part. When your son presented your ideas, Cleaver remembered, you suddenly realised how crass they were. You had to retreat from them, contradict them. He repeated them of course because he wanted your approval. You hated that. Angela never asked for approval. She did just what the hell she wanted. You hated the way your son always took Amanda’s part. It wasn’t necessary. She had no need of him. First he wouldn’t leave home, then he was constantly on the phone to his mother. God knows what about. And after fifteen years avoiding him, he writes this book. It was an ambush, an assassination. I had found a strategy that made it possible, despite everything, for me to live, to survive, and he blew it away. You must confront your son, Cleaver told himself.

  This is a trick. Cleaver lay very still, like some animal who still hopes to avoid the hunter’s eye. He is alone in an expanse of snow but
still hopes not to be caught. This thought is a trick to drag you back to the world, to have you lose all the ground you have gained here. You avoided your son from the moment the boy smelt a rat. He repeated your opinions in your presence, and at the same time he was accusing you of not really holding those opinions, certainly not living by them. The more he repeated them, the less you held them. The wind tugged at the house now. The cold trees creaked. For a long time, Cleaver lay silent. But he knew he was caught now. Alex, he said at last. Damn you.

  He waited till dawn. All at once his mind is made up. He was excited. He went back into the old Nazi’s room and retrieved the red mobile from the pocket of his jacket. We’re going, Uli, he told the dog. Move your arse. He dressed in the heaviest clothes he had, buckled the snowshoes to his boots and opened the door.

  The wind was whipping up the snow. The sky was a frozen pewter. The peaks were huge all around. Uli howled. The ice in the breeze stung the eyes. The dog plunged out into the snow and at once turned back. Come on, Uli! The creature plunged again, and again turned back. Cleaver lifted the big snowshoes and thrust them forward. He tried to lean on his walking sticks but they sank deep. You would need ski poles. He left them sticking in the snow. I’m going anyway. He slid the snowshoes across the white surface and tried not to lower his weight too suddenly. All the same his ankle sent jabs of pain up his spine.

  He walked, crossed the clearing, entered the wood. His mind swung wildly. This is a terrible mistake, a trick. This is absolutely necessary. His body pressed on, regardless. The pain didn’t touch him. It was happening to someone else. On the track beneath the trees, snow was tumbling all around as the branches bent in the wind. Cleaver’s moustache and beard were brittle. The snowshoes were heavy. He pushed forward with the right foot and pulled the other up alongside. The hell with the dog, he thought. She can go back and hide under the eaves. She won’t die.

  Amazingly, the wind was growing stronger. It was being funnelled up the gorge behind him. The snow rose like smoke. It swept past his feet. But I’m making decent time, Cleaver thought. Now there was cloud again. He smelt it coming. He smelt the weather turning again. Far from feeling cold, he felt extremely hot, feverish. Before leaving London, you should have confronted your son. Then you could have bowed out in peace. Then you could have spent your time here more profitably. You could have meditated quietly, in Rosenkranzhof.

  Alex! Cleaver shouted. He felt excited. You have decided now. You will rise to his bait and confront him. Under his shadow indeed! The pain made him grit his teeth. I’m glad the weather is so harsh, he thought. This is what you came to the mountains for, after all. For harsh weather. Did Frau Schleiermacher really imagine I didn’t realise the winters were hard at six-thousand feet?

  Half an hour later, as Cleaver reached the top of the gorge and came out of the trees, the gale almost swept him away. The ice flew in his face. He glimpsed the plateau. Great puffs and spirals of snow were racing across the horizon. He had to turn his back. He was absorbed in whiteness. He tried to face the path again. Where was it? Where are the poles? he wondered. Hadn’t there been tall poles that should mark the track when it snowed? Why can’t I see them? He couldn’t see Trennerhof. Cleaver advanced a few paces. They had been yellow, he thought, yellow and black. The snow was deep and constantly moving. It tugged at the big shoes. He pressed on, an arm over his eyes. I can see nothing. Then the left snowshoe came off his boot. That was his strong foot. The straps were old and rotten. His leg sank in thigh-deep. Jesus! Cleaver sat and tried to put the shoe on again. The strap had broken. His gloves were too thick to work with. He took them off. His fingers were stiff. They were blue. He was sitting deep in the snow. Keep calm. You must confront your son.

  He got the strap fixed, but couldn’t get to his feet. He was half sitting, half on his back deep in the snow. Hilfe! he shouted. Help. Eventually he got to his feet. He stumbled on for perhaps five minutes. Trennerhof should be visible now. Where is it? He could barely open his eyes into the wind. The lids burned with cold. There seemed no end to the whiteness. Now the shoe was lost again and he sank down. Hilfe, he called. Hilfe! You never sound like you believe it, Paps, when you sing. Hilfe! Cleaver didn’t believe anyone would hear him. He had the sense to dig himself deep, to keep out of the wind at least. Doing so he realised his feet were numb. His hands are numb. My lips are numb. Some minutes passed. I can’t get up. For Christ’s sake. This is it, Cleaver decided then. It’s happening. He didn’t feel angry or desperate. Only yesterday you dreamed of it. Now it had come much sooner than he imagined. There will be no confrontations, he muttered. Hilfe! Cleaver called. Weakly. The world all around was astonishingly white and shapeless.

  XV

  CLEAVER IS IN a state of beatitude. Everything is empty, painless, thoughtless. Yet there is a faint muttering in the background. He’s noticed it now. Fortunately, it is in a language he cannot understand. Everything is white, muffled, quiet, yet from time to time a baby’s nagging cry ruffles the blank surface of his mind. This is not my baby, Cleaver thinks at once.

  The muttering is louder now, it is German. It is conversation. No, it’s a quarrel. There’s a smell too. Then Cleaver is aware that he is lying on his back. He is aware of warmth. Don’t open your eyes. Don’t move. He fears if he opens his eyes he will be seen. It’s a smell of cooking. I don’t want to eat. I don’t want them to know I’m here. Some kind of stew, it smells like. Then he distinguishes a voice. Frau Stolberg.

  Cleaver won’t open his eyes. Frau Stolberg is angry. His whole body, he appreciates now, is thrilling with heat. The skin wants to be scratched. Yet his arms don’t move from his sides. A man’s voice is answering. It’s not Jürgen. The bustle seems to be coming from below him. I’m onstage, Cleaver thinks, about to begin my show. There is a silence, his skin is smarting and tingling, then another angry exchange, another woman’s voice. Or am I a ghost hovering in the air? Frau Stolberg speaks again. She is sharp and grim. Crossfire. There is a clatter of plates and chairs.

  Cleaver listens. He realises now that he has been listening for some time and that he has no choice but to go on listening to the sound of chairs scraping, the banging of doors, furious voices, the nagging cry of a baby. This is not my baby. I have no responsibility. Then he hears cattle. His legs are itching to be scratched but his arms are still by his sides. The cattle are moaning to be milked. I will not show I’m awake, he decides. I will melt in the thaw and trickle away down the mountain. Skandal, he hears Frau Stolberg shout.

  Herr Cleaver! A voice is speaking close to his ear. Cleaver is lying quite still. It is dark now. He senses that. I must have fallen asleep. Herr Cleaver? It’s a woman’s voice. A hand is holding his wrist. Herr Cleaver, are you awake? The doctor is here.

  Warily, Cleaver opens an eye. This is strange. A ceiling of square wood panels is just three or four feet away. It is lit from below him. He tries to pull himself up. The light seems orange. At eye level, to his left, is a shelf with half a dozen dusty valve radios. Trennerhof. Beneath the shelf is a door. I’m on the stove, he realises. He is lying on a thin mattress on the pine planks over the stove. In the far corner he glimpses the crucifix with the corncobs. The old woman in her armchair is below. He can hear her snoring.

  Herr Cleaver! To get near him, the town-dressed woman has to stand on the pine bench that runs round the bottom of the stove. A short ladder is built against the side. Cleaver recognises her now. I don’t know your name, he says. Speaking, he realises his lips are cracked. They’re sore. The woman exchanges a few words with a man who is on the floor below her. The doctor wants to look at you.

  Cleaver was aware of his legs being uncovered and handled. They felt at once numb and fiery. Are you okay? the woman asked. Her face was lit obliquely by torchlight. You are warm, ja? It is very warm here. She patted the mattress. The doctor was inspecting his legs with a powerful torch. It was all strangely pleasurable. What’s your name? Cleaver asked again. She smiled. She has apple cheeks that have aged and
weathered, soft eyes, bright blonde hair tied back tight. My name is Rosl. You have luck, Mr Cleaver, my mother has found you in the snow.

  I have to speak to my son, Cleaver said. He struggled to his elbows. Then the doctor spoke again. His face was hidden behind the torchlight, but Cleaver caught the gesture of a young man pushing back his fringe. He wants to know if you can feel when he puts his hand on you. Cleaver nodded. It’s itching, he said. The woman didn’t understand. It makes me want to scratch. She spoke in German. The doctor wants you to drink something now, she said. At once the two of them disappeared.

  Cleaver managed to sit up and look about the smoky room. Did the old woman always sleep in front of the fire, or have I taken her bed? There was just one oil lamp over the table in the centre of the room. Now there are voices raised in the corridor. A man shouted. It was very loud and fierce. Perhaps somebody kicked something, the wall or a cupboard. Cleaver needed to pee. A woman protested and began to cry. Then there was barking. It’s Uli, Cleaver realised. They have recovered Uli. How long have I been here? While the man shouted in another part of the house and other voices were trying to calm him, Cleaver tried to look at his watch, only to discover that his hands were wrapped in woollen scarves. His watch was gone.

  He had just lain down again when heavy footsteps came hurrying into the room. All at once another face was beside him, blond and moustached. Englishman! The mad Englishman! Bright eyes were laughing in the frame of a woollen balaclava. There is someone who is asking for you, Englishman, in Luttach. He wants to speak to you.

  Hermann!

  You are warm now, ja, you feel good? You are lucky. Hermann was zipping up his jacket. He was in a hurry.

  Someone for me? Cleaver asked. I don’t want to see him.