How I Lose You

by Kate McNaughton

  ‘Ah, well it was very different for me, then: I had to be driven everywhere. That’s what I mean by our town only having disadvantages: it was big enough that you couldn’t just walk everywhere, but not so big that it had anything exciting going on in it.’

  ‘Ha. We could not have been driven everywhere, not many people had cars. Actually, probably that was why we could walk everywhere on our own as kids, because there was so little traffic. Today you could not do it – too dangerous. We were very free, I think.’

  ‘It’s funny to hear you say that. That you were more free in East Germany.’

  ‘Well. As a child.’

  ‘I really feel it, you know – that this could have been my life. I could have grown up somewhere like this too, if my mum hadn’t left. It’s like you had this parallel childhood that could have been mine. Like, I can picture myself as a little girl, sitting in our living room watching Neighbours, and it’s like with just a click of a finger I could have been running around the Plattenbau of Marzahn with you.’

  ‘Do you think you would be a very different person?’

  ‘I don’t know – what do you think?’

  ‘I think probably yes.’

  ‘I feel like that little girl is in me, though – the little girl running around Marzahn. The person I would have been if my mother had stayed here.’

  ‘The East German Eva.’

  ‘Yes. She’s in here somewhere.’

  ‘But how your mother would have met your father?’

  ‘Well fine, yes, there would be a few details to work out in this parallel world … But still, it’s like I look at these photos and they awaken a memory in me that I don’t actually have. A memory of a life that could have been.’

  ‘Probably it would be very different from what you imagine. Such a life.’

  ‘But I do have this memory. This phantom memory. Does that sound crazy?’

  ‘No. But memories cannot really be trusted, even when we are remembering things that did happen to us, so …’

  ‘That’s funny, that’s the kind of thing Adam used to say.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  A photo of Adam in front of the tower block, long lines running up towards the sky.

  ‘Yes, we used to have this argument about what we’d both seen on 9/11. We were in New York – I guess he probably told you about it. And he said it wasn’t possible I’d seen some of the things I’d said I’d seen. The people falling. The second tower coming down. He couldn’t remember all those things. Whereas I have such a clear picture of them. He said I must have created those memories for myself from things I’d read or seen afterwards. But he wouldn’t accept that maybe his own memories were flawed, that he might have forgotten some of the things we’d seen. It used to drive me mad.’

  ‘Probably all memories lie a bit. Probably it is not possible to have a true image of the past.’

  ‘Exactly! I’m sure we were both a bit wrong, that’s what I would say to him. Which also, of course, meant that we were both a bit right. In particular, that I was also a bit right.’

  ‘Maybe he did not want to have seen these things, but you did? Like now you want to see yourself in Marzahn, even though you know you were never there.’

  ‘Now you sound like you’re siding with Adam and just saying I made everything up …’

  ‘No, I am saying we remember the past the way we need to remember it. The way we need to see it, to make sense of our lives in the present.’

  YOU LIVE. YOU live, and live, and live.

  And every breath that fills your lungs, every beat of your heart, every flicker of excitement you feel at the sight of something new, is a betrayal of Adam, who cannot breathe, whose heart was broken and stopped, who knows no novelty any more.

  You inch onwards through life limpingly, treacherously, guiltily, and you wish it didn’t, but it makes you resentful of him, that he has burdened you with this guilt, and you wish he would stop, with his lack of fault and his alabaster corpse peacefully lying there, dead and not caring, not needing to care, but of course it’s the guilt talking, you know that really, the guilt of the survivor, and so, because really, what else can you do, on you live, guilty and alive, guilty because alive – guilty but alive.

  THEY HAVE ESCAPED to Richmond Park. It’s hardly the ideal day for it: the weather has been unpredictable all morning, the sun ducking behind clouds and back again, short bursts of drizzly showers interrupting you when you least expect it. But they needed to get out, away from the mournful poses of Adam’s family gathered round the kitchen table, which, frankly, Eva was finding a little over the top – it’s not like anyone has died, after all.

  ‘Do you remember, we came here before I met your family for the first time?’

  ‘Oh yes, we did, didn’t we?’

  ‘You were so surprised that I’d never heard of Richmond Park, like I was saying I’d never heard of the Great Wall of China.’

  ‘You’d never heard of Richmond Park?’

  ‘No! Oh my God, let’s not have the same conversation again. I’d only been to London twice in my life before I went to university, why would I have heard of Richmond Park?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s the kind of place you just assume people know of.’

  ‘I felt so – clueless, so provincial … I was so nervous about meeting your family, too. Like you were this cool, big-city boy and I was the country mouse …’

  ‘You can’t possibly have thought I was cool! I am so not cool.’

  ‘You seemed cool to me.’

  ‘Well, you seemed cool to me. You were much cooler than I was. I was just a geeky boy – I couldn’t believe my luck when we got together.’

  ‘Seriously, do you not remember me being a nervous wreck back then?’

  ‘Absolutely not. You hid it very well, if you were.’

  Adam puts his arm around her, and they stop for a moment to cuddle. Eva buries her nose in his neck, smells the warmth of his skin mingling with the earthy scent of the path, the fresh, wet wood of the trees lining it. There is a melancholy to the moment, because of Bennie of course, but a sweetness to that melancholy, to the fact that they are sharing it with each other. It feels like the closing of a parenthesis, of this period when they were pulling apart and then slowly, warily, since she got back from the Congo, started moving closer again. She’s glad that they have this intimacy back now, this willingness to support each other – that she can stand next to Adam right now, and be of some support.

  ‘I remember being so struck by Bennie that day, too. Do you remember? All your brothers were sitting outside in the garden when we arrived at the house.’

  ‘I don’t know – maybe, yeah, vaguely …’

  ‘I remember being struck by how – sort of radiant Bennie was. Like he was this angel.’

  ‘We all thought he was an angel.’

  Bennie, the baby of the family, has fallen into disgrace. He started university this year and has, in the few months since then, it seems, managed to build up a small drug-dealing empire. He has now been sent home while the university decides whether to deal with the matter themselves or take it to the police, and the Lorvener family has rallied to come up with a line of defence, and also to try and understand this new development in the character of their cherished youngest son and brother. Bennie has responded by switching off his usual charm and growing broody and monosyllabic.

  ‘He will be fine, you know. I mean, even if they do press charges, with your mother’s connections there’s no way he’ll get into any real trouble. And even if he gets sent down, he’ll get a place at another university. You’ll all be laughing at this in a couple of years’ time, honestly.’

  ‘I know. I know he’ll be fine. That’s not what I’m worried about.’

  They have resumed walking down the tree-lined avenue, green buds pushing out of the bare branches above them.

  ‘I’m worried – I’m worried that he’s not himself. I mean, what the fuck? Playing at being this ga
ngster, putting his education on the line just so he can make some money he doesn’t even need – and look at him now, he’s behaving like a total jerk. Where’s my little brother gone?’

  ‘He’s just afraid. Of what might happen to him.’

  ‘That’s no excuse to lash out at Mum the way he did this morning, though. It’s like he’s a different person – how can you change so much in just a few months at university?’

  ‘Maybe it’s not that he’s changed, though. Maybe it’s just that you’ve found out about an aspect of his life that you shouldn’t have found out about.’

  ‘Come on, Eve, he’s dealing drugs, for God’s sake! He deserves to get into trouble for it.’

  ‘Sure, I’m not disagreeing with that – but what I’m saying is, he also could have got away with it and still be your sweet baby brother when he’s around you and it would all have been fine.’

  ‘…’

  ‘We all behave slightly differently in different contexts – it doesn’t mean we’re not who we claim to be. And come on, he wasn’t off killing people or beating them up or anything. Dealing a bit of dope when you’re eighteen doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to turn into some kind of criminal mastermind.’

  ‘So – what? You’re saying it would be better if he hadn’t been found out? For us as his family not to know about it?’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be? What have you gained from it, really, apart from a legal headache and everyone feeling really disappointed with him? Whereas if you didn’t know anything, he’d probably grow out of it as soon as he got a proper job, and you’d all still have your happy family dynamic.’

  ‘But – wouldn’t it be a lie? Wouldn’t we not know who he really was?’

  ‘Do we ever know who anyone really is? Do you know what’s going on in Carmen’s head, for example? I mean, would you have been able to predict when we were at university that she’d lose her grip on reality?’

  ‘No – but that’s not who she is. When she has these – phases. It’s not her.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Who is it, then?’

  ‘…’

  ‘Or, I mean, come on, Ad, do your parents know every single thing about what you get up to? You take drugs yourself.’

  ‘Only, like, once in a blue moon at a party – and it’s hardly the same as dealing them …’

  ‘Imagine if you took a dodgy pill, though, and ended up in hospital and your mum had to come and pick you up – wouldn’t the same thing happen to you as is happening to Bennie now? Perfect Doctor Adam is revealed to have a drug problem? When actually it’s quite a small, irrelevant part of who you are?’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘All I’m saying is the fact that people have their secrets doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re being bad or dishonest.’

  Adam gives Eva an anxious, searching look, walks on in thoughtful silence. Then he turns back to her.

  ‘So – you’re saying that you’d rather not know? If there was something – some information that someone close to you was hiding from you. Something important. You’d rather not know about it?’

  ‘I mean – it would depend what the information was.’

  ‘According to what criteria, though?’

  ‘I guess – I mean, I guess depending on how the information affected me, and how directly. Whether the knowing or not knowing would be harmful to me. Or not.’

  ‘So if finding out might be hurtful to you, you’d rather not know?’

  ‘Adam, is this some roundabout way of trying to tell me you’re having an affair?’

  Adam looks aghast, and Eva realizes, of course: their reconciliation is still fragile, she shouldn’t imperil it by being too robust.

  ‘No! Jesus! Of course not!’

  ‘Joke! Joke! I’m sorry. I was just being facetious.’

  ‘Jesus …’

  ‘No, I mean – look, of course it’s complicated. Including the present situation. Maybe it is good all of this has come to light – maybe Bennie was on a dangerous path and this is allowing you all to intervene, to avoid him losing his way. But maybe also everything would have been fine if he hadn’t been found out, and you’d still have your baby brother.’

  ‘…’

  ‘I guess what I’m saying is, he still is your baby brother. His having this one thing you didn’t know about doesn’t have to change that.’

  ‘…’

  ‘And people have secrets. It’s OK. Or sometimes it’s OK. For people to keep some things to themselves. As long as it doesn’t hurt others.’

  ‘Define “hurt”.’

  ‘Ah, well. That, of course, is a whole other, thorny matter. But, I mean – don’t we all know? Deep down? When something should be revealed, and when it shouldn’t?’

  That anxious look from Adam again, and Eva wonders if it is her secrets he has been talking about all along, if it is her integrity he’s worried about.

  ‘Ad, are you asking me if there’s something I’m hiding from you? Because, really, I was just talking about—’

  ‘No, I know – really, I know. That wasn’t what I meant at all.’

  ‘Oh. Good.’

  ‘I get what you’re saying. I think.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Yeah. I think I get it.’

  THE LIGHT DIFFUSED gently over the dawn-time buildings, pulling them into the day with its glow. They have spent the night talking, unexpectedly: they were just going to go for a nightcap, but the words dragged on, words and words and words deep into the night, words that made them forget the passing of time apart from when it meant the bar they were in had to close and they would move on to another, and another, and another, until now, at the time when other people are emerging from the depths of rest, they are walking around Berlin, closing their eyes to feel the sun bathe their faces over pink and orange and gold façades, closing their eyes to feel the warmth of the moment, the presence of the other at their side.

  Eva felt an urge to take Ulrich’s hand in hers: it seemed the natural thing to do, when you were walking through the dawn of a city, the only two souls out on the streets. She wanted to feel the swing of that hand in hers. She wanted, absurdly, to lift it to her lips and kiss it.

  She had wanted to kiss Adam’s hand that morning, after the ambulance had arrived to take him away. She had taken hold of it, but it was so cold already that she had recoiled from it, could not bring herself to let her lips touch it.

  She tries to pull herself into the moment; to be here, now. She looks at the long shadow thrown by the trees, crooked where they wrap down from the pavement on to the street, at the bicycles and pot plants and empty clothes racks on the balconies above them. She listens to the birds announcing the new day, to Ulrich’s footsteps as he walks along beside her. She tries to be here, and when her mind makes to go back to the past, she tries to stop at last night, last week, rather than last year, last decade. She tries to rewrite history.

  They turn on to Bernauerstraße, and Ulrich points dismissively at the ground.

  ‘Die Mauer.’

  Two lines of bricks run along the side of the pavement, tracing where the Wall used to be. You wouldn’t even necessarily notice them without someone to point them out to you. But if you do, you suddenly understand certain things about the space of the city around you. Like why over there, on the other side of the street, stand ugly specimens of fifties and sixties social housing blocks; why here, just on the other side of the phantom Wall, is a stretch of urban bracken. Over there, the working classes and Turkish Gastarbeiter of West Berlin in their rooms with a view on to, here, the death strip, with its bright searchlights and snarling dogs.

  Up ahead of them, a large band of revellers stumble down the street, their loud drunken chatter piercing the silence. They cross over from East to West without seeing the trace under their feet, without sensing the density of the barrier that once stood here, hearing the grunts of the watchdogs. Eva thinks of the wall she has seen in Palestine, how grey and impenetrable it seems, how impossib
le to imagine that it might one day be removed. That it might one day be nothing more than a faint mark in the pavement, easily overlooked.

  And then they turn into a side street, and because Eva is scanning the ground for more signs of the city’s divide, she notices other marks in the pavement.

  ‘What are those?’

  In front of a stately front door, a cluster of gold squares has been worked in between the cobblestones.

  ‘Stolpersteine. You have not seen these before?’

  ‘No. What did you say they were called?’

  ‘Stolpersteine. Er – how you say? When you walk and you fall over?’

  ‘To trip? Stumble. Stumblestones.’

  ‘They are for Jewish people who were deported. They have the name of the people who used to live in the house. You really have not seen these before? They are everywhere in Berlin.’

  ‘No. Or I guess I’d never noticed them.’

  Eva walks up to them and reads:

  HIER WOHNTE

  HERTA ABRAHAM

  GEB. MICHAELS

  JG. 1895

  DEPORTIERT 1942

  THERESIENSTADT

  ERMORDERT IN

  AUSCHWITZ

  HIER WOHNTE

  RICHARD ABRAHAM

  JG. 1895

  DEPORTIERT 1942

  THERESIENSTADT

  ERMORDERT IN

  AUSCHWITZ

  HIER WOHNTE

  RUTH NELLY

  ABRAHAM

  JG. 1934

  DEPORTIERT 1942

  THERESIENSTADT

  ERMORDERT IN

  AUSCHWITZ

  ‘My God.’

  ‘Yes. There are a lot of these around here. It used to be the Jewish quarter.’

  ‘…’

  ‘…’

  ‘1934 to 1942. So young.’

  How can one city have seen so much suffering? Traces upon traces of the dead and oppressed, pale traces which in their insufficiency drive home how justice will never be done to them, how the present with all its forgetting will always be cruelly indifferent. And yet these pale traces will remain, hammered as they are into the very fabric of Berlin, trodden upon and ignored, but ultimately still there, still under our feet.