The German Room

by Carla Maliandi

  Joseph comes over and invites us to dinner. Mrs Takahashi immediately says: I know a fantastic Thai place nearby. Joseph smiles politely and says he had somewhere more modest and inexpensive in mind. Mrs Takahashi, gesturing wildly with her hands, says: ‘Dear God! It’s on me!’ I don’t have time to intervene, whether to warn Mario about my unease with Mrs Takahashi, or to make up an excuse and disappear. It doesn’t seem fair to leave them alone with her. After all she came to the show looking for me. Now we’re walking to the Thai restaurant. Mario seems to walk with a slight stoop and I wonder when that happened to him. In what moment did he stop being a young refugee from Argentina and transform into an ageing Herr Professor? His face however is radiant. He and Joseph walk ahead of us talking about the show and laughing like little boys. Mrs Takahashi and I follow a few steps behind. We’re silent, watching the couple in front of us and I think we’re both a little bit jealous, a bit envious. Mrs Takahashi suddenly breaks the silence with a sigh and says Joseph is beautiful. I answer with a weak smile, but I immediately realise that he truly is stunning. And although he has his back to me, I’m surprised to find myself imagining him naked, imagining the heat of his body next to mine, imagining our limbs entwined, rolling on the ground laughing like two teenagers in love. Joseph turns around and asks us if we’re going the right way. His teeth are white as a wolf’s and he has large, dark eyes with long lashes surely inherited from his Turkish mother.

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Takahashi answers, ‘We’re almost there.’

  VI

  Dinner passes uneventfully. Mario and Joseph keep the conversation flowing naturally. The dishes Mrs Takahashi recommends are pretty good. Maybe this life I’m living isn’t so bad. I’m in Heidelberg with these three people who are, you could say, my friends. No one who saw us sitting here eating and laughing would say this is a hard life. We’re about to order dessert when Mrs Takahashi gets up to go to the bathroom. The three of us are silent for a moment as we look over the options. I take the opportunity to tell them that I think Mrs Takahashi is having a nervous breakdown. They both think she’s a charming woman and a very strong, dignified person. ‘Yes, no, no, no, what I mean is that she’s…’. Mrs Takahashi returns from the bathroom. She gives me a cold, empty stare, the same stare she gave me the previous afternoon.

  I wish I could leave. Why am I here? What is this place? How can we order a dessert we can’t even pronounce? For a second even Mario seems like a complete stranger, foolishly grinning nonstop at another stranger. A Turkish man with a dazzling smile, who I keep imagining naked, taking me in his beautiful brown arms.

  Mrs Takahashi asks Mario where she should go to learn tango. Mario says he doesn’t know. But that it should be easy to find on the internet.

  Joseph stops a waiter and asks him a question about the menu.

  I tell them I have to go. The three of them look confused.

  ‘They still haven’t brought dessert,’ says Joseph.

  ‘What do you have to do?’ asks Mrs Takahashi.

  Nothing, I can’t think of anything. What could someone like me possibly have to do, someone with no responsibilities, who left home and everything behind. A useless person wandering around this unreal city. Nothing, I don’t have anything to do. But I’m pregnant and that’s a good excuse for anything.

  ‘I just remembered I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and I have to be up early.’

  ‘Let me go with you to your appointment,’ says Mario.

  ‘No, you don’t need to do that,’ I tell him.

  ‘Yes, yes I do. I’ll come and get you tomorrow and I’ll go with you.’

  SIX

  I

  I walk without thinking where I’m going and suddenly I realise I’m lost, that I don’t recognise the neighbourhood, that I can’t tell north from south, that I have no idea how far I am from the river. There’s no one around, the shops are all closed, it’s almost nine and the streets are totally empty. I search for Shanice’s mobile phone in my bag. It has hundreds of numbers saved in it but I only know two people, her mother and Miguel Javier. Of course I call Miguel Javier.

  The Tucumano listens to me carefully as I spell out the names of the streets I see and he gives me directions to get back to what he calls ‘our house’. When I arrive he’s waiting for me at the door, dressed in a jacket that’s too small for him, rubbing his hands together because of the cold and before I can even say hello he tells me that we have to talk.

  ‘Fine, Miguel, but let’s go inside, it’s cold.’

  ‘Before we go inside I want to talk. There are two things that upset me in life. One I can’t tell you, the other is people messing with my family. And because of you my sister’s got it into her head that she has to go see Feli, and nothing good is going to come of it.’

  ‘Who’s Feli?’

  ‘Feli! The psychic.’

  ‘I didn’t ask her to go see any psychic.’

  ‘Yes, it was her idea. But you have to call her and get that plan out of her head.’

  ‘Call her now? In Tucumán?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what do I tell her?’

  ‘That you remembered who the father is so she doesn’t need to ask the psychic. And that she should stop going into the slum to see that witch. You have no idea how dangerous that freaky old lady is, not to mention her whole family of junkies. Come on, please, call her now. Please.’

  The Tucumano is so upset that I agree without asking any more questions. I feel ridiculous calling Tucumán, to talk to his sister who I don’t know, to make up some kind of story. Miguel Javier dictates the number as I punch it into Shanice’s mobile phone. I ask him to go away, to let me talk to her by myself. The Tucumano walks slowly to the end of the block and as he turns the corner and disappears from my view Marta Paula answers. I can hear dogs barking, a baby crying, and another noise that sounds like a football game playing on a badly tuned radio. I say hello, I ask her how she is. She’s elated when she recognises my voice. She first tells me some things I can’t hear, then she quiets the dogs and starts talking nonstop, as if there were too many words to explain something she herself doesn’t understand.

  ‘I was just going to call you. I was thinking about going to the phone booth because I can’t talk with all the noise at my house. And you just called, and you were right on time… because, ya know? I was about to call you! And I just asked my mum to watch the kids, because ya know, there are a bunch of important things I have to tell you…’

  ‘Oh, I wanted to talk to you because I was thinking and well, I think I already know who the father of the baby is, and so… you don’t need to ask anyone.’

  ‘I already went to see Feli.’

  ‘Oh, you already went? What did she say? Anything about the father?’

  ‘Not at all. Nothing about the father, no idea. But she looked at my shoes as soon as I walked in. I thought she was jealous of them because she looked so serious, but that wasn’t it, it was something else, some psychic stuff. I told her about you, the pregnancy, and she starts in about the shoes. They were the blue ones you sent me, I never take them off. When I finished telling her everything she started shaking in her chair and said that the woman is bad, she’s dangerous.’

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘I asked her that too. And then she tells me that the shoes aren’t mine. Yes they are, I tell her, they were a gift. And she starts smoking and she says the shoes came from very far away. Right, I tell her, and then I tell her that first they were in Japan and then in Germany, and now I have them here and I wear them every day because I like them a lot. And she says, “The girl is dead but the mother is alive. The girl knew that the mother was dangerous.” She was talking about your friend, ya know? The Japanese girl! And about her mum. “And do you know why she killed herself, Doña Feli?” I ask her. And then she looks at me and she asks about you. She says that this woman is follow
ing you, that you need to come back, that you’ve got yourself in a mess there. Luckily you called me so I could tell you.’

  The Tucumano has returned and is making gestures with his head. I make gestures with my hand for him to let me finish the conversation. On the other side of the phone the dogs have started barking again and Marta Paula seems to be in a hurry to hang up. I ask her what else the psychic said. I should tell her not to go back, but I want her to give me more information about their meeting, to figure out how Feli knows all this.

  ‘I need to go back where?’ I ask. ‘To Argentina?’

  Now she doesn’t seem to hear me, she’s talking to a little boy, telling him to turn off the TV and she tells me she has to go.

  I’m left frozen with the phone in my hand. Miguel Javier stares at me in silence. Frau Wittmann peeks out from the door, when she sees us both standing there she sighs with relief and says:

  ‘The Argentinians! You finally showed up! That Takahashi woman is waiting for you in the lobby, she came to talk to you, but since you weren’t here, I had to put up with her all evening. Come in, please!’

  Frau Wittmann goes inside and waits for us to follow her. I tell the Tucumano we’re leaving and as I drag him down the street, I tell him about the conversation I just had with his sister. I don’t know why Mrs Takahashi has come to see us but I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to see her ever again.

  II

  It’s very late and everything around the square is closed, all except for one restaurant. The menu displayed outside is too expensive for us. I think we should go in anyway and share the cheapest dish. Miguel Javier says I’m crazy, he looks at the menu and calculates the percentage of his monthly stipend that the meal would cost. He’s in a bad mood.

  ‘Let’s go in Miguel, please,’ I beg him.

  He must be able to tell how cold and tired I am because he suddenly seems to feel sorry for me and agrees to go inside.

  A waiter in a tuxedo leads us to a table. He makes an unintelligible recommendation and leaves the menu.

  ‘Thanks, Miguel. I know I seem crazy dragging you around town and making you come in here. Your sister got me worried. How could some old lady in Tucumán know that in a city in Germany there’s an Argentinian chick being followed by a Japanese woman who’s the mother of the former owner of the shoes your sister was wearing?’

  As I say the words I realise that as much as the situation scares me, it also fascinates me. The Tucumano gives me a grave look from over the menu and tells me that it’s because she’s a witch. We find the cheapest dish, pasta with meat, which we point to on the menu for the waiter.

  ‘We’re going to share it,’ Miguel Javier says to the waiter in impeccable German, then turns to me. ‘My sister loves getting herself into messes like this. For over a year she’s been finding any excuse to go and see that witch. It started when her drunkard of a husband took off. And Feli told her the truth, that the guy was hopeless and that their relationship was over. One night she was really sad, she said she was never going to get her life together, and she asked me to go with her to see the old lady. The place is a hellhole. There are like twenty people living there, selling drugs, women, it’s a disaster area. How do you think I feel ten thousand kilometres away knowing that my sister’s mixed up with those people?’

  Miguel keeps talking and I listen until something suddenly distracts me. Out of the corner of my eye I see the outline of a slim body dressed in black entering the restaurant. I don’t need to turn my head to know that it’s Mrs Takahashi. I interrupt the Tucumano, I ask him to turn around and take a look. He does. I fix my gaze on my plate and repeat a kind of prayer to make us invisible.

  Miguel says slowly: ‘It’s her and she’s coming over. Play it cool,’ he orders. ‘Don’t let her see that we’re scared of her.’

  Mrs Takahashi sits down next to me.

  ‘Look where I had to come to find you!’

  ‘How did you know we were here?’ I ask, unable to pretend I’m pleased to see her.

  ‘I have dinner here every night, dear. I hope I can sit with you. I’m always so alone… What luck that tonight you’re here too.’

  Miguel and I look at her perplexed. She runs a finger over the menu and calls the waiter. She orders the most expensive wine, and three plates of tenderloin with sauerkraut. Miguel reminds the waiter that we’ve ordered the pasta to share but Mrs Takahashi laughs and says: ‘I’m paying tonight and you two look hungry. I don’t want to hear any arguments about it.’

  The three of us fall silent for a while. How could this woman do us any harm? She’s so small and seems so fragile. She rummages in her purse, takes out some pills, breaks them up, and swallows them in little pieces. I try to glimpse the name of the medication but she tucks the bottle away before I can make it out. Now she smiles at us and says:

  ‘I was waiting for you two all evening.’

  ‘And why is that?’ asks Miguel.

  ‘Because you guys have to tell me what I should do when I travel to Argentina. I want to know everything. First I want to dance tango. I learned some steps in Japan but there I’ll learn for real.’

  Miguel rubs his head with his knuckles. I’ve seen him make this gesture before when he’s nervous or confused. ‘I don’t know anything about tango, madam.’

  The waiter brings the wine. Mrs Takahashi tries it. I wish I’d stayed with Joseph. No, I wouldn’t have been able to sit through dinner with him and Mario. I don’t think I can see them together again and not feel awful.

  ‘I can’t have wine,’ I say.

  ‘A little bit won’t hurt,’ says Mrs Takahashi, and she tells the waiter to fill my glass. The Tucumano interrupts her.

  ‘It’s better if she doesn’t drink. Pour me some, please, I’m curious to see what this wine is like.’ He takes a sip. ‘It’s very good, I’m no expert on wine, but it’s very good.’

  ‘So you don’t know anything about tango, young man? What kind of Argentinian are you?’

  ‘I don’t know, I just don’t like tango very much. I listen to a little bit of folk music, I don’t know.’

  ‘What should I see in Buenos Aires? I want to go as soon as possible.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know much about that either. I think it’s probably a very complicated city.’

  I hear Miguel’s words, his accent, I see him squirming in his chair, dutifully answering the Japanese woman’s questions and I don’t feel like we come from the same place at all.

  ‘You’d have to ask her since she’s the one from Buenos Aires.’

  Mrs Takahashi looks at me and repeats the question like a robot. ‘What should I see in Buenos Aires? I want to go as soon as possible.’

  ‘Why? Why do you want to go to Buenos Aires? What’s in Buenos Aires that could be of any interest to you, Mrs Takahashi? You should go back to Japan. Back to your husband, do you understand? Go home.’

  Mrs Takahashi starts to cry and pulls a handkerchief from her purse. The Tucumano looks surprised. I’m surprised too. What I just said or maybe the tone I used was cruel. I’ve never talked to Mrs Takahashi that way. But tonight, at this table, I feel cornered, stuck in some strange trap. I’m not going to let myself be taken in so easily.

  ‘Travelling to Buenos Aires was one of Shanice’s dreams,’ she says as she wipes her eyes, smudging her mascara.

  ‘It might’ve been one of Shanice’s dreams but she wasn’t able to fulfil it. She stayed here. You came to say goodbye to her, to make arrangements and do what you had to do. And now you need to go home. It’s not easy to lose someone. You can’t mourn properly if you’re running around everywhere all day. Go home. Things will be better there.’

  Mrs Takahashi cries harder. Miguel looks horrified. I don’t think I said anything mean. Maybe the tone was mean, maybe it was the tone.

  After a small heartbroken sob Mrs Takahashi seems to pul
l herself together. She smiles and begins talking to us as if what I’d just said was what she’d been waiting for all evening.

  ‘Of course, Shanice dreamed of going to Buenos Aires but something stopped her. Do you know what it was?’

  Miguel Javier and I shake our heads.

  ‘She died,’ she says. ‘We’re all masses of chaotic little particles, little leaves blown around by the wind. You want to go to the east but the wind blows you west. You want to go north but the wind pushes you south. It’s not up to us.’

  The waiter comes over with the three plates of food. As he sets them on the table the Tucumano says he thinks the opposite is true, that everything, absolutely everything, depends on us, that we’re victims of our own decisions. He takes a bite of meat and talks with his mouth full. He arranges his napkin on his lap and he explains to Mrs Takahashi that his entire life he’s seen the direct consequences of his own actions. For example, being here now is the consequence of the long nights he spent studying at his parents’ humble home. He could’ve slept more, or gone out dancing or done drugs like other kids, but no, he stayed in to study and got a scholarship and now he’s here, he says. Shanice made a decision. It was her own doing, not destiny’s.

  The portions are large and even though the meat is a little underdone for my taste I devour it steadily. The secret is to smother every bite in sauerkraut so I can’t see the blood, which would disgust me if I weren’t so hungry.

  But once I’ve eaten almost the entire plate a wave of feverish nausea comes over me. I smile, but it’s a reflex induced by my repugnance. Mrs Takahashi is talking and the Tucumano is tapping his fork on his plate spattered with juice from the meat he just finished.

  ‘Stop with the fork!’ I say. Miguel looks embarrassed. ‘Sorry, but please stop doing that.’