How I Lose You

by Kate McNaughton

  Thorsten pauses and looks up at her. His eyes are dark, almost black, just like hers, just like her mother’s. The family eyes.

  ‘She had done a deal: she would get a place at university, if she became an IM – you know? Inoffizielle Mitarbeiterin, an “unofficial employee” – the people who watched other people for the Stasi. This was not so unusual. A lot of people did it, and sometimes it was difficult to say no. But still. Hanna was spying on her own parents.’

  ADAM IS IN the sunshine. She is not sure where. He is laughing, and gold flecks his hair.

  His eyes reflect the blue of the never-ending sky.

  She walks up to him, and he puts an arm around her shoulder, and she feels the weight of his bone and muscle, the warmth of his blood.

  She’s not sure where they are or when, but it is a sunny day and they are in love, and Adam is there, by her side, pulling her into him and smiling enigmatically.

  EVA WAS FROZEN, unable to react to what Thorsten had just said – this demotion of her mother from freedom fighter to informant. The pettiness of it, double-crossing your family for the sake of a place at university.

  Despite her lack of reaction, Thorsten seemed to read her thoughts.

  ‘You must understand, Eva, these were not easy times – and your mother was young, still a teenager. She felt her family was ruining her life, she felt it was unfair. And probably she was not expecting that our parents would get arrested.’

  ‘…’

  ‘I think that when our parents were taken away, she panicked – realized that what she had done was very serious. Or maybe she thought this GDR project is not so great after all. Or she felt too guilty. Maybe all of these things. And maybe it was easier to leave.’

  ‘But – why did you think she’d died? And why did she lie to me about her parents dying? Why lie about you? Why change her name? Why – why break off all contact?’

  ‘I asked myself this question a lot, especially after Adam came here. You need to ask her, of course – but I think probably she was ashamed. At that age, things can seem black and white. I imagine she paid the smugglers to tell us she was drowned. That she was worried we would find out she was the one who had informed on us.’

  ‘…’

  ‘We didn’t find out, actually – not until after the Wende, as I said. So, in a way, she was worrying for nothing.’

  ‘…’

  ‘But I was very angry when I found out that she had pretended to be dead. When Adam told me this. To disappear … This was very painful for my parents. Much more painful than finding out she had reported on us for the Stasi. This, I think, we could all understand, in a way. She felt she had no options – and also, she thought she was fighting on the right side. Just like we did. But for my parents, to lose their daughter – this was terrible. Until they died, they suffered from this.’

  Eva feels the pain that has been hers since losing Adam. Imagine giving this pain to your own parents, letting them think you were dead. Imagine poisoning their lives with this grief.

  ‘When did they die? Were they still alive when Adam came to see you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Yes. But they were both very ill, they were not strong. I was worried it would be too much of a shock for them, to find out that Hanna was alive, had always been alive. That she had abandoned us.’

  ‘…’

  ‘…’

  ‘So you didn’t tell them?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry, no. I was angry, also. That she could have done this.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Probably I was wrong not to tell them. But anyway, my parents died quite soon after Adam came here, maybe a few months or so. They died quite close to each other.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Sometimes I think what Hanna did not realize was how much my parents loved her. How much we all loved her. She thought these politics were dividing us, but they weren’t. We still loved her. I think if she had realized that, she would not have disappeared like she did.’

  ‘You know – she told me a lot about your parents. In a modified version of the story, it seems – but she loved you all too. She loved you so much she pretended to have done what you did. Maybe she was trying to rewrite the story, to make it into what she would have liked it to be.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And … Did you tell Adam not to talk about what he had found out?’

  ‘I told him he should decide, of course, what to tell you, what to tell Hanna. But that for me, I did not need to see my sister again. I was so angry.’

  ‘…’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘…’

  ‘But I see things differently, now. Time has passed, you cannot be angry for ever. Or I cannot, at least. I am glad now that he has led you here.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Welcome back to your family, Eva Stein.’

  WHEN SHE GOT back, Ulrich was having a nap.

  And it was at precisely this moment that her mother chose to call her back. Eva stared at the display flashing on her phone, felt it vibrate heavily, urgently in her hand. ‘Mama.’ ‘Mama.’

  Eva had tried to call her as soon as she’d walked out of Thorsten’s front door, fired up with anger at everything she had discovered, brimming with questions she wanted to fire at her mother like bullets. But the journey back had numbed her. She felt overwhelmed, now, by her new history, not ready to receive yet more new answers to new questions.

  And besides, she didn’t want to have to keep her voice down for fear of waking Ulrich next door, afraid of him overhearing what should be a private matter, strictly between her mother and herself.

  She rejected the call. They would have this conversation soon enough.

  For now, she walked softly into the bedroom. Ulrich was in his jeans and T-shirt, half under the covers. His hair was fluffed into dissonant angles, and his face, smoothed by sleep, seemed ageless. And looking at him, a thought occurred to Eva: did he know about what Adam had found out?

  And anger rose inside her again.

  Her new family history was like a crack that had opened up under her feet, just wide enough for a body to plummet through, and unfathomably deep. She couldn’t let herself fall into it, not yet. It turned out she had not been told the true story. It turned out Eva had an uncle, and cousins. It turned out her mother, far from being a refugee dissident, had betrayed her own parents to the secret services of her country. It turned out her mother had lied to everybody, in guilt and shame. It turned out her mother had let her own family, her own parents, her own brother, her own flesh and blood, believe she was dead. It turned out she had murdered them, in turn, in her mind.

  All the way back from Pankow, she had thought of how Adam would have had these thoughts – poor Adam, not knowing what to do with them. Wanting to surprise her with good news – a distant relative, some family heirloom to replace the tea cup he had broken – and finding himself uncovering an uncomfortable truth, a story that was meant to remain untold. Being told by Thorsten to leave it alone. Thinking he needed to think about it. Thinking he had more time.

  But not having that time. Poor Adam, who had been robbed of time.

  Ulrich shifted in the bed, turned towards her.

  ‘Hey.’

  And she felt herself suspect him of having hidden the truth from her, felt herself ready to hate him.

  Although Adam was the one who had been snooping around. Adam was the one who had decided not to tell her.

  But she and Adam – they had a history. They knew each other as well as two individuals can, perhaps. Adam had made a call that had been his to make.

  And Adam was dead, and she loved him. It is hard to stay angry with the dead for too long, when you love them.

  Whereas Ulrich.

  ‘Did you know about my mother?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I’ve just been to see Thorsten Stein.’

  ‘…’

  ‘My uncle.’

  Ulrich’s body
dropped ever so slightly, as though the air had been let out of it.

  ‘You knew.’

  She felt her hands tense into claws that could rip his eyes out, a boiling rage in her belly.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Eva …’

  ‘You knew …’

  ‘I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘…’

  ‘I didn’t know, what is the right thing to do.’

  Ulrich doesn’t know her. Ulrich is a stranger. He has no right to have known these things about her, to have withheld them from her.

  ‘I talked about it a lot, with Adam. When he found out. He really did not know, should he tell you or not. What it will be like for your mother. What it will be like for you. He wished he had never found out all this.’

  ‘And so the pair of you decided it was better to keep little Eva in the dark, not upset her too much?’

  ‘Eva. I am not even knowing you then. And actually, I thought he should tell you. I do not think hiding the truth is a good thing.’

  ‘…’

  ‘But this was Adam’s decision. This was his discovery. And when you came here … I felt it is not my place to go against this decision.’

  ‘But all this time … We’ve been talking about things, I’ve been telling you things, and you knew they weren’t true.’

  ‘Yes, I hated that. But tell me, what I should have done?’

  ‘You talked to Adam about all this. The conversations you had with him – he should have been having them with me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But it was his decision.’

  ‘I need to get some air.’

  Eva bolts out of the flat, and out into the city. The day is waning, returning Berlin to what seems its natural state: dark, shadowy, hard to decipher.

  An energetic charge down the street is enough for her body to rid itself of the anger she feels for Ulrich. He has, after all, only been caught in the crossfire. He is, after all, in the grander scheme of her life, not necessarily that relevant, a blip over the past few months that may not settle into anything permanent, that may not be here to stay.

  Whereas Adam.

  Eva wishes she could talk to Adam about what she has just found out – what he found out. She wishes she could hear the tale of his gradual discoveries, what he thought when he first saw the photo in the exhibition and recognized her mother, whether the world seemed to collapse around him like it has around her. She wishes she could tell him that he knew her so well, better than she knew herself, better than anyone will ever know her again. She wishes she could tell him that he loved her so well.

  She pauses for a moment and looks up at the buildings around her, the warm glow of lights being switched on in kitchens and living rooms, all of these lives, these families, and she wonders how many of them are like hers, broken, riven by history, by secrets and lies and untimely deaths.

  Quite a few, probably. This is Berlin, after all.

  She starts when she looks down again and sees, about twenty metres ahead, Adam crossing the road towards her. Her reaction is so electric that he pauses and meets her eye, and in that moment assumes the form of a man whose height and body shape look vaguely, from a distance, like Adam’s. They hold each other’s gaze for a moment. Then the man walks on, and away. From behind, he really does look exactly like Adam, so much so that Eva has to stop herself from calling over to him. But she doesn’t. Instead, she says to herself, maybe if he turns around, he will really be Adam. If he turns around. Maybe. If he turns around. And he can take her with him.

  But Adam doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t take her with him.

  EVA FUMBLES IN her pocket for the change she’s just been given at the newsagent’s. Puts in 50p, since when you call a mobile the money bleeds away at haemophilic speed anyway, punches in Adam’s number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Where the hell are you?!’

  ‘Ah. Yes. I’m running late. Sorry.’

  He doesn’t sound like he’s even outside.

  ‘Are you still at home?’

  ‘Um. Yes.’

  ‘Oh fucking hell, Adam. Couldn’t you have called me or something?’

  ‘I tried, but you’d gone already. Now see, if you had a mobile …’

  ‘Oh, so I should get a mobile just so you can flake out on me at the last minute?’

  ‘I’m not flaking out on you, I was literally just leaving – now. I’m leaving now.’

  A closing door bang, and the whoosh of street air in the background.

  ‘Well, it’s going to take you at least half an hour to get here, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Um. Yeah. I might not get there in time for the start of the film, actually.’

  ‘No, you clearly won’t.’

  ‘Hm. Sorry – it’s just I suddenly realized I had to send off an email today about my summer placement and—’

  ‘Yeah, whatever. Listen, I’ll just go to the cinema and see if there’s anything on a bit later – just come and meet me there.’

  ‘Yes, great, good idea. OK, I’m going down to the Tube now. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

  ‘Yeah. Great.’

  What a twat. Eva gets the hell out of Embankment, cursing the ditherers blocking the entrance to the station, and walks up the steps on to the Hungerford Bridge. She sneaks a peak at the Houses of Parliament through criss-crosses of steel before a train clatters past, blocking them from view. Then she turns to the skyline of the City, unreal in its cleanliness, cranes sprouting all over it like a fungal infection. It’s a beautiful evening, still light despite the time, and she has to struggle a bit against the atmosphere of springtime good cheer spilling over from the South Bank: the tinkle of buskers, the wafts of caramelized nuts. Bloody Adam. Does he just take her for granted now or something?

  She usually loves this part of her trip back to uni from her parents’: getting off the train at Waterloo and wandering up to the river to kill a few hours – she has resolved to always leave herself a few hours – before catching the Tube to King’s Cross. She loves the South Bank, with its bare concrete and promise of music, art, theatre, the refinements of world-class cultural events. She loves the hours she has spent here on her own, watching a show or whiling away the time with a book in one of the cafés.

  But to Adam, who lives just a short Tube ride away, this probably seems like a shamefully obvious place to have suggested as a meeting point. And what possessed her anyway to stick her neck out like this and suggest they go on basically a romantic date, thinly disguised as a hey why don’t we make the trip back up to Cambridge together, we can share a taxi from the station that way?

  It is all so unbelievably embarrassing.

  And it’s been weird, really, since they got back from Henry’s ridiculously extravagant holiday pad. She replays all the elements in her mind, as she has done already so many times. Those two weeks in the South of France, so perfect, how well they were getting on, a bond forming between them without her even noticing it. That last evening in his room, the feel of his hand as he tended to hers, the look in his eyes that was already asking her if she wanted him to kiss her, and she comically oblivious to it, the penny dropping only when she got back to her own room, and it would just have seemed too weird to go back at that point …

  Except maybe she should have. Maybe she’s blown it now. Since they returned, they’ve been unable to recapture the magical complicity that united them during the holiday, and while her desire for Adam has kept on growing, he seems to take another step back from her every time they meet. Maybe she wounded his pride by not kissing him that evening. Maybe he wasn’t really that interested anyway, just thought it would be fun to have a bit of a fling over the holiday. Or maybe she misread the situation completely and he actually didn’t want to pull her at all. Oh, who knows? Who knows what goes on in other people’s minds?

  ‘Hi. So. Hi. Sorry – I’m really sorry.’

  Eva lifts her eyes from her book to find Adam towering over her in
the dusky sunlight, looking breathtakingly sexy.

  ‘Oh. Hi.’

  ‘Are you still angry with me?’

  ‘Well, now that you’ve reminded me …’

  ‘OK, so, look, tickets and drinks and everything on me, and for the record it really wasn’t my fault, I just suddenly realized today was the deadline for sending off my form for this placement, you know …’

  ‘Well, not tickets – the other screenings are all too late for us to make our train.’

  ‘Oh. Oh well. Why don’t I get us dinner then?’

  ‘I guess we could do that.’

  Eva necks the last of her wine and gets up; Adam gives her an awkward hug which fires through her body like quicksilver. She feels herself blush and hurries ahead of him; a friendly hug, he obviously doesn’t expect anything to happen between them, she just needs to calm down about the whole thing.

  They walk off towards Gabriel’s Wharf, and somehow the mildness of the evening, the hand-in-hand couples that pass them by, dissipate Eva’s anger, relax the air, break down the invisible barrier between them. They walk in silence, but it’s a relaxed silence. Every now and again, they look at each other and smile, and Eva wonders if Adam feels it too.

  ‘I’ll have the Pizza Napoli, please.’

  ‘And I’ll have the Quattro Stagioni.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  ‘God. I can’t eat Quattro Stagioni.’

  ‘Really? I love it.’

  ‘I mean, I know, I can see how in theory it should be nice, but we always used to get them frozen when I was a kid and they were kind of disgusting, I can’t really escape from the taste-memory of it.’

  ‘What was it like, when you were a kid? You never really talk about it.’

  ‘Huh? What do you mean I never talk about it?’

  ‘Well – just that. You’ve never told me much about your family life.’