How I Lose You

by Kate McNaughton

  Adam strokes her hair, kisses her forehead. Eva thinks of the cocoons of intimacy created by walls: the walls of this bedroom around her and Adam, the intimacy of a husband and wife; and the walls of this house around her and her parents, the intimacy of a family. And once upon a time, how this room was hers and hers alone, the intimacy of a child with dreams and stories and anxieties and ever-expanding thoughts about the world; the intimacy of a teenager with a melodramatically exploding self. She has let Adam in, through all the walls.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK, Ad? You’re very quiet today. You’re very quiet generally, these days, in fact.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine – just got a lot on at work at the moment, with this new funding application. Sorry.’

  ‘You’re sure that’s all it is?’

  ‘Yeah, honestly.’

  It’s not, of course – Eva can tell it’s not. But sometimes you have to let the other person keep things to themselves. And Adam has closed up again now anyway, after this brief moment of softening – his body tense against hers, his hand paused mid-stroke, and now falling limp on to the new duvet.

  ‘Top-up?’

  ‘Oh, yes, lovely.’

  They are all four agreeably merry, having started drinking an aperitif earlier than is strictly reasonable. Eva’s dad is flushed from the wine and his excited monologue about the upcoming by-election; her mum is relaxed, refilling the bowls of nibbles and laughing at everyone’s jokes. Adam has relaxed too, although there’s a certain hint of hysteria to some of his interjections, and he is drinking very fast. Eva leans back against the Aga and feels its comforting warmth grow around her. When she was small she used to try and hug it, as though it were a family pet, and she would make up stories about the adventures it had been on before ending up in their house. It still feels like a living being, the pulsing heart of her family home. She watches Adam as he helps her mum set the table. He knows where everything is, the plates, the cutlery; he knows the ways of their house.

  ‘Hanna, I’ve been meaning to ask you: what church did your father work for, again?’

  ‘The Evangelische Kirche. It is like the German version of the Anglican Church.’

  ‘It must have been strange, growing up as the daughter of a pastor in an atheist country.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did it feel like a big deal, when you were growing up?’

  ‘Hard to say. I mean, yes, of course, it had a huge effect on my life later – but as a child, you do not always notice these things. Definitely, we knew that we should not say the same things outside our house as at home – but that is something many people who grew up in the DDR would say.’

  ‘And which church was it that he ran? It was in Pankow, right?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, I was just there on my last trip to Berlin – in Pankow, I mean – and I wandered into a church and it occurred to me it might be the one you grew up in. Sankt-Michaelis, I think it was.’

  ‘No, it was not this church.’

  ‘Oh. Which one was it, then?’

  ‘Actually, it was not a church at all. He used a room, in a normal building. The church that used to be in our part of town had been destroyed during the War, and there was not enough money to rebuild it. I remember we would play in the ruins. Sometimes, you could find strange objects in there: some burnt pages of a Bible, a piece of a crucifix. Some few things that were left, that had not been taken away by people. The bells, for example, had all been melted down for the metal.’

  Eva’s mother has a faraway look, as though she’s staring down a wormhole through time at those singed pages of the Holy Book. She looks sad, monumentally sad, filled with all the grief of her unfortunate home city.

  ‘What was the church called? The one that was in ruins?’

  Then she tenses, throws Adam a look that is a brick wall.

  ‘I do not remember. We just used to call it “the Church”. “Die Kirche”.’

  ‘Oh. Where was it, exactly?’

  ‘Adam, if you do not mind, I would rather we change the subject. It is not easy for me, remembering this time. I’m sorry.’

  ‘But, just – I’d just like to know where the ruin was, it sounds like it might be something worth seeing …’

  Eva feels herself be propelled forward, and sees her father move in too, both of them driven by an instinct to surround her mother, protect her from these questions she doesn’t want to answer.

  ‘Come on, guys, enough of the chit-chat, we’ve got a roast to carve …’

  ‘Yes, Mum and I wanted to try out a new recipe for the marinade today, we need you all to get stuck in and tell us what you think …’

  But Eva’s mother doesn’t want anybody to step in and defend her – she stays there, looking Adam straight in the eye.

  ‘Another time, Adam. If you really want, we can talk about this another time. Yes?’

  And Adam stares at her squarely too, a flintiness in his voice that Eva has never heard before.

  ‘Yes, Hanna. Let’s do that.’

  ‘What on Earth was all that about?’

  ‘What on Earth was all what about?’

  ‘With my mum. In the kitchen. You had a kind of weird moment when you were facing off against each other … Have you had an argument with her or something?’

  They are tucked up in Eva’s new double bed. On the side table is the heap of books that Eva used to have just lying around on the floor. It’s like seeing someone you know out of context: your physics teacher at the beach, swimming trunks and knobbly knees. It doesn’t look right.

  ‘No, I just – I was just interested in knowing where your granddad’s church was. Don’t you think it’s weird she wouldn’t tell me?’

  ‘Look, you know what she’s like – she just clams up about that sort of stuff.’

  ‘But doesn’t it bother you? That she’s told you so little about her childhood?’

  ‘She’s told me lots of things – She always used to tell me about what things were like in Germany when I was a kid – like, what food people ate, what games they would play. She’s told me about the ruined church. She’s told me loads of stories about my grandparents, too – she just doesn’t like talking about the political stuff they were involved in.’

  ‘I wasn’t asking her about their political activities, Eva – I was just asking for an address.’

  ‘Well exactly, you were probably bringing back memories of the Stasi with that inquisition …’

  ‘You don’t think it’s weird she wouldn’t tell me what her dad’s church was called?’

  ‘I think she doesn’t like talking about that stuff, and she just wanted to change the subject.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Look, I mean, what are you even insinuating here?’

  ‘Don’t you wish she would tell you more about where she’s come from?’

  ‘I mean – sure. If she wanted to tell me, I’d love to hear it. But it’s her choice how much she tells me. What she tells me.’

  ‘Don’t you have a right to know?’

  ‘I have a right to ask. I probably will, one day.’

  ‘But what if there’s things she hasn’t told you? Important things?’

  ‘I think if there are things she finds it difficult to talk about, then it should be up to her to decide when she wants to bring them up.’

  ‘And what if she never does?’

  ‘Well. Everyone has a right to their secrets, don’t they?’

  Eva, who has been lying with her eyes closed, opens them to find Adam is looking at her. He seems about to say something, then stops, then seems about to say something again, then stops again, then thoughts left unsaid flit across his face like a thousand butterflies. She is about to ask him what he’s thinking about, but suddenly he draws her to him in a desperate, tight embrace, and they lie there squeezing their bodies into each other as closely as possible, as though Adam is trying to comfort her for some loss that she is not aware of.

  THERE W
AS NOTHING different about Mühlenstraße for most of the walk from the S-Bahn, except that there was no traffic: the wide street stretched out, grey and quiet, in front of the Wall, like an echo of the death strip. Eva had been expecting throngs – she remembered the Iraq War demonstration, how all the Tube stations had heaved with people, how you had to fight to get a few metres further down the street. How exhilarating it had been, how pointless.

  They walked along the so-called East Side Gallery: one of the last few remaining stretches of the Wall, now covered, on its eastern side, with graffiti of varying degrees of quality, where once the watchful eyes of the Grenzpolizei would have kept it a pristine white. On a normal day it would have been lined with a steady flow of tourists, but somehow word about the demo must have got out, or else the various strategically positioned police vans were off-putting, because there was hardly anybody around.

  ‘I still don’t get it, why the city council would be prepared to knock it down. I mean, even leaving history aside, even if you’re looking at it purely from a self-interested economic perspective, surely this is one of the main tourist attractions in Berlin?’

  ‘I think they would say they only want to knock down a small part of it.’

  ‘But isn’t that the beginning of the end, if you let that happen?’

  ‘That is why we are here, no?’

  Ulrich smiled at Eva. She smiled back. They smiled at each other a lot, these days.

  Now they were approaching the demo: in front of them, a small group of people were busy unfurling a banner which read MAUER RETTEN. Other than them, it was mainly policemen that you saw dotted at various points along the street – until they came to a small huddle of demonstrators in front of the offending section of the Wall. On the other side of it loomed a crane, poised to start its demolition work. A few cops clustered near to where Ulrich and Eva were standing; but the bulk of the police force was across from them, on the other side of the crowd, lined up already, riot helmets hanging ominously at their sides.

  Standing in front of the Wall, the huddle of demonstrators looked small and unlikely to achieve much.

  Ulrich touched a hand to Eva’s shoulder, lightly, and led her into the huddle.

  ‘There aren’t very many people here.’

  ‘Yes. I am surprised.’

  Up against the Wall, a sign read: MR OBAMA, TEAR DOWN WALL STREET. Their fellow demonstrators were a mixture of faintly threatening young men clad entirely in black, many of them with scarves and hoods covering most of their faces, and placid thirty-somethings. Here and there, a toddler perched on someone’s shoulders. Everyone was looking around in a sort of ill-defined bewilderment.

  ‘I would have expected there to be more people here.’

  ‘Me also. A lot of people signed the petition.’

  ‘I guess – maybe it doesn’t feel like a burning enough issue. Protecting a piece of wall that everyone used to want to knock down, when there are so many other problems in the world.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe it seems like it is not a big problem. But getting rid of history, just so some investor can make more money on luxury flats – I think it is a big problem, actually.’

  ‘No sure, I agree – I’m just saying I can see how other people might feel there are more pressing issues, you know: people dying in Afghanistan, the financial crisis, climate change …’

  ‘It is all part of the same problem: we let money ruin everything that is important.’

  The crowd around them started to shift nervously. The lines of police were taking form, spreading out and stretching so that they were almost completely encircling the demonstration. Eva felt her heart rate leap upwards. One of the cops was talking into a megaphone.

  ‘Achtung, hier spricht die Polizei. Wir weisen Sie darauf hin, dass Sie sich strafbar machen, wenn Sie den Platz nicht verlassen …’

  ‘What’s he saying? I can’t make it all out.’

  ‘That starting from now it is an offence to be here. It’s bullshit, don’t worry.’

  A voice was shouting competing instructions at the crowd:

  ‘Hinsetzen! Hinsetzen!’

  Little by little, the demonstrators sat down on the ground. The police now formed a solid, towering circle around them. The officer with the megaphone put it down – he didn’t really seem to care that no one had done as he said. For a while, a vigorous young woman led the crowd in a chant:

  ‘KRAN WEG! KRAN WEG!’

  ‘Kran weg! Kran weg!’

  ‘KRAN WEG! KRAN WEG! KRAN WEG!’

  Then eventually it died down, and people resumed chatting to each other. Eva kept the police line in the corner of her eye. They weren’t so tight yet. You’d still be able to get out if you wanted to – but it wouldn’t take them long to solidify into an impenetrable barrier. She found herself wishing that Adam were there, that she could seek refuge in the crook of his arm, solace against the firmness of his chest. Ulrich gave her arm a reassuring squeeze, and it felt strange, the touch wasn’t quite right, the pressure of it, and Eva felt that she was on her own in a strange land, with a strange man, fighting a strange battle which was nothing to do with her, and now this ring of policemen around them, telling them that if they wanted to leave they should leave NOW, and was she really just going to stay here, waiting to be beaten up for a piece of concrete in a foreign land? She felt her chest tighten. But still, she didn’t move.

  Instead, Eva looked at the other people in the crowd. Two young men with dreadlocks, smoking a spliff. A cluster of people in animated conversation. A few nervous faces that reflected Eva’s emotions back at her.

  Behind the police line, a squat little man in a high-vis jacket was leaning against the Wall, a cigarette drooping out of his mouth, texting: the crane driver, his day’s work interrupted by this small attempt to hold on to the past. He was beyond the border, in contact with the outside world, an integral part of it. And they were here, cut off by the barrier of the Law.

  Just next to them was a young family, the parents about Eva’s age and a little girl of about three, warmly wrapped up against the grey day. Eva worried about the girl: would the police take care not to harm her if they did close in on them all? Could kids that age cope with tear gas? Her parents didn’t seem too anxious, anyway. They were keeping her entertained by teaching her political chants, clapping along to them. Eva looked at the mother and wondered what it would be like to be this German woman in functional rainwear teaching her child anti-capitalist chants under the nose of riot police, and wouldn’t it be wonderful to be that woman, rather than me, Eva, without my Adam.

  And maybe her mother had been like that woman. But maybe not. Since meeting Lena Bachmann, she had imagined all sorts of fanciful explanations for why there might be no trace of her here. Sometimes the uncertainty made her reel: her mother could be anybody, which meant of course that she, Eva, could be anybody. Sometimes she thought it was all nonsense, didn’t prove anything, probably just a file put back on the wrong shelf and hey presto everyone thinks the Krantz family never existed.

  Sometimes she thought of telling Ulrich about it, but something held her back – she didn’t want to let him get that close. This was still an affair for Adam and her.

  Suddenly, there was a scuffle behind them, and the crowd pulsated like a flock of starlings changing direction, some people half rising to their feet, others ducking instinctively or shouting warnings. Ulrich put his arm around her and pulled her into him, and she buried her face in the warmth of his chest, inhaled the comforting scent of him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the young black-clad men slip through the crowd, pursued by two officers, until he was forced into the police line and swiftly packed away into the back of a van.

  The crowd relaxed, and Ulrich’s hold grew softer around her, but he kept her against him, his hand sketching the faintest of strokes down her arm.

  Eva felt both an urge to let herself sink into the tenderness that Ulrich was offering her and to push him off her, run away from him, e
ven if this meant ending up in the back of a police van.

  She gently disengaged from under his arm, turned her back to him slightly.

  ‘Achtung, hier spricht die Polizei …’

  The announcement-making policeman had picked up his megaphone again.

  Ulrich leaned into Eva’s ear.

  ‘He’s saying we can leave. The owner has agreed to stop all building works for today.’

  The police line loosened, but stayed in place. The demonstrators looked at each other in some confusion.

  ‘What – that was it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought demonstrations in Germany were meant to be really hardcore.’

  ‘They can be.’

  ‘This is really weird.’

  Little by little, the people in the crowd rose to their feet. They chattered excitedly. The squat little man in the high-vis clambered up into the crane on the other side of the Wall.

  ‘KRAN WEG, KRAN WEG, KRAN WEG!’

  He gave them a wry wave and pulled some levers. The crane started to edge away slowly.

  The crowd erupted into a triumphant cheer, then returned to standing around uncertainly. The cops had all dropped back now; some were standing lined up against the Wall, others had assembled into more amorphous configurations that echoed those of the protesters. The guys in black stood mutely on the sidelines, watching them with wary eyes.

  ‘So – what – really? They’re just going to stop?’

  ‘At least for today. That’s what he said, and I think they can’t do anything if they have made this public announcement.’

  ‘So we’ve won?’

  ‘For now.’

  It felt too easy. Eva watched the crowd dissipate like bacteria seeping out of an exploded cell. On the other side of the Wall the crane had stopped at a safe distance, and its rotund operator was climbing out of the cabin.

  How could it be this easy? They should have had to put up a fight. They should have something to show for their struggle: bruises on their bodies, broken bones. She thought of Adam’s bloodlust and let it well up inside her, the rage, let herself feel the need to hurl herself against the police, feel the crack of their batons against her shins. She thought of her grandparents and how their lives had been circumscribed by this Wall, how her mother’s life had been divided by it, how this trauma had been handed to her, Eva, before she was even born, and now she didn’t even know what the trauma was exactly, just that it was there, and she looked at all these people who were going back to their daily lives, who were from here, and yet they were treating it like it wasn’t that big a deal – Oh OK, well that’s done then, let’s get out of the cold – and she thought, do you realize what this Wall used to mean, the impact it had on so many people, do you realize how important this is?