The German Boy

by Tricia Wastvedt

  ‘Go away,’ Karen said, and the waitress scuttled off.

  They sat holding hands over the wreckage of ham and potatoes and Elisabeth cried quietly although she wasn’t sure why. The pain went deeper than the little cut her surgeon had inflicted; she did not love him nor had she ever really thought she would, so why did the tears keep leaking out as if he mattered?

  After a while, Karen asked for the bill and fished in Elisabeth’s bag for money. They walked together to the station and Elisabeth was sick into the gutter.

  ‘Is it worse than you’ve told me?’ Karen asked.

  ‘No,’ said Elisabeth. ‘There’s an infection going round, that’s all. I hope you don’t catch it.’

  ‘I’ve got to get back to work or I’d take you home. I’ll come first thing in the morning and we can talk, I promise.’

  ‘Karen, you have to sleep. You’ll be out till midnight dancing.’

  Karen gave her new gloves to Elisabeth: ‘To punch him if he ever bothers you again.’

  They hugged and Elisabeth smelled the smoke and mustiness in Karen’s hair and felt the thinness of her body. ‘Tell Artur Landau he must look after you.’

  • • •

  Elisabeth leans her head and it bumps against the window to the rhythm of the train. She closes her eyes and more tears squeeze out and trickle down her cheeks. The carriage is empty so she lets them drip.

  She wishes she wasn’t going home and that the train would never stop. When she lets herself into the house in Catford, she will be careful to be quiet so it doesn’t notice her. It is a stale home where no one really lives.

  Her mother will be at work, but later the level chill of her will move like a cold front from room to room. Recently, a nice widower from down the road, Mr Mole, has been politely courting. When his name is mentioned, Elisabeth must look at her feet, her hands, the ceiling, but not at Karen, or they will both splutter and go red with laughing and that is childish silliness, their mother tells them as if they’re still at school.

  Mr Mole is hopeful and said as much. Their mother had almost given up the black but has taken to it again as a rebuff, a rebuke to Mr Mole.

  The train shakes hard and Elisabeth feels her body collapsing. Her eyes are shut; her bones have gone and so have her muscles. Her head beats on the glass and the air bangs in her ears as the train goes into a tunnel.

  Then all at once she is rushing upwards like a bubble, up out of the sickness and the thudding, up she goes, past the face of a huge smiling man who swings her and sits her on his shoulders. She holds his ears and she is safe, with her face amongst flickering sunny leaves. She reaches up and picks a giant pear. It is rough and dry and smells of pepper.

  Far below, Karen circles, bobbing, fingers splayed and blue eyes goggling up. Me, let me have it. Elisabeth puts the heavy pear on Dadda’s big creased hand and he passes it way down to Karen, who lines it up beside the others on the grass. The wooden pears will be laid out on trays, not touching, to ripen on newspaper under their beds. By Christmas, a magic spell which Dadda knows will have turned the wood to silky juicy flesh.

  Then Dadda leans forward, sideways, and Elisabeth tumbles head first into nothing. This moment – the moment when she’s falling and before he catches her – makes her laugh and scream together. His face, the sky and pears all whirl together.

  A bang of air, and a tunnel wakes her. He is dead and Karen hardly ever comes home any more. Now it is only her mother in the house and Elisabeth dreads the days when she must leave the hospital and go home. She never would if she didn’t feel guilty about her mother’s solitude.

  In the nurses’ dormitory Elisabeth has a locker and two hangers in a wardrobe, and the air is a fug of talc and cigarettes and scent. The kettle and the ironing board are always on the go, there are uniforms hanging up and at least two dozen lisle stockings pegged across the room. There are knickers over all the iron bedsteads.

  The girls laugh bawdily and raucously, half dressed in underwear and dressing gowns. They don’t care, they’ve seen it all, they know the words, and when Elisabeth is a part of it she feels a thrill that drenches her as if she’s standing in a summer downpour.

  She finds it easy to be one Elisabeth on the ward and another with the girls. Matron is impressed: Nurse Oliver studies conscientiously, works hard and is respectful.

  The girls are impressed too. Elisabeth Oliver is a dark horse: when she first arrived, she hardly said a word but she’s different now, she’s bold. She’ll look a doctor in the eye and not be scared at all.

  There is a surgeon who speaks to her when he need speak only to Matron. He has a seriousness darkening his handsome brow, which Elisabeth sees as sensitivity. His name is Mr Caffin. Charles. He has a flat in Pimlico.

  He assumes that certain things are ordinary and although she has believed that they are special, it is almost a relief to realize she is wrong. He says that sex is for fun and secondly for reproduction, and although he loves her and this is not just fun, they must be careful that it isn’t reproduction either. Charles is kind and also organized; he checks that Elisabeth’s calculations are correct.

  Elisabeth is apprehensive but mostly curious, so it’s odd when at the moment she should be having fun, at the moment that interests her most, she feels as if she’s slipped out through the scullery when he’s come into the parlour.

  Afterwards she smokes the cigarette he gives her. They lie in bed in Pimlico and Charles stares at the ceiling with his jaw silhouetted by the lamp. Elisabeth puffs her cigarette and finds that although the taste is disgusting, she can do it without coughing. This, more than what has gone before, is proof that she is now a woman.

  Six weeks later, Charles Caffin tells her he was mistaken. He wrings his skilful hands and explains that he cannot marry her or take her to his house in Shropshire. He must go home to his wife and ask for her forgiveness.

  Elisabeth is dazed by so much information. He has never mentioned marrying her, or Shropshire, or a wife.

  ‘You need not tell her, need you?’ says Elisabeth. ‘There’s nothing much to tell.’

  ‘I must. I always do,’ says the surgeon. ‘The tea is ready,’ he says. It is snowing in the room and Elisabeth is wearing woollen gloves. He looks up and he is Michael. He sees her, far back where no one else has ever found her, and she is running to him but not moving on the sparkling snow. I think of you often, he whispers, but it is too late because her feet are carrying her away. Goodbye, Elisabeth.

  The air bangs in her ears. A tunnel wakes her.

  When she lets herself into the house, she is careful to be quiet. The house smells faintly of a scent her mother hasn’t worn for years, a ghost perfume.

  Elisabeth is sick again and although she’s certain it’s no more than an infection, at this moment she wouldn’t care if she was pregnant and had taken another turning into a life that isn’t hers.

  The surgeon deceived her but she sees now that she deceived him too. There’s a deeper hurt she has inflicted on herself and it was done for nothing. Michael is not erased. She meant to scour him away, but she sees that her stupidity can never be undone now, because she’s altered and a door is shut; the memory of the studio belongs to another Elisabeth.

  She meant to punish Michael, but punish him for what? For not bringing back the book himself? For preferring, as of course he would, the lovely Mrs Brion, who is sophisticated and American?

  I think of you often. A hundred times, she has read the chilly note from Amsterdam he sent a year ago, searching those five words for clues. What thoughts does he have? Is often as often as she thinks of him?

  If he remembers her at all, he’s thinking of a girl who’s gone.

  • • •

  Downstairs, the front door opened and street sounds came into the house along with the flap and rustle of an umbrella being shaken out. The door slammed. Elisabeth heard Karen sing out, ‘Hey! Where are you?’ and her heels clicked on the lino in the passageway.

  Elisabeth had just
drawn back the bedroom curtains to a white sky laden with rain. Her eyes wanted darkness again and her skin felt bruised as if she had been fighting in a dream, but the nausea of yesterday had gone.

  ‘It’s me!’ Karen shouted up the stairs. Elisabeth didn’t answer. It was a habit of Karen’s to call out when she came home so whatever small activities or private contemplations were in progress would be interrupted.

  She needs to have us pay attention, Elisabeth thought crossly; Karen likes the audience to be ready for her entrance. The annoyance and the happiness of seeing Karen always came together.

  Karen pushed open the bedroom door. ‘You’re not dressed yet.’

  ‘No, I’m not. You were coming to look after me.’

  ‘I hoped we might walk down to Cullens for a cup of coffee.’ Karen’s face was wet. She sniffed and shook back her damp hair.

  ‘I’ve just woken up, for goodness sake, and I still have a headache.’

  ‘In that case, I shall make us tea and toast and tell you all about the Locarno last night to take your mind off things.’ Karen sat down on the bed. ‘Oh, Elisabeth, he’s a dream! I had just the best, most delicious time and he did too.’

  ‘Please don’t bounce. You mean the German boy, I take it, not Stanley.’

  ‘Stan? Heavens, no! That’s another story.’ Karen jumped up. ‘But first I’ll fetch us tea. You look done to shreds. I shall make a fuss of you. I said I would and here I am. Was Ma kind to you last night?’

  ‘She went to her Canasta evening. She didn’t even come in before she went to work this morning. I could have died in the night and she wouldn’t have known.’ Talking made Elisabeth’s head pound.

  ‘She does her best,’ said Karen softly. ‘Dadda died in the night and she can’t bear it. Really. I know. Death does that to people sometimes, it closes them up.’

  ‘She’s nice when you’re here – more cheerful than she ever is with me.’

  ‘I fool about to make her laugh, that’s all. It’s you she worries about.’

  ‘She hardly even looks at me.’

  ‘You were Dadda’s favourite,’ said Karen simply, ‘and Ma loves you too much because of him.’

  ‘Karen! That’s not true – it really isn’t. They love us both the same.’

  ‘I don’t mind, I honestly don’t. We all love you the best. In any case, it doesn’t matter now.’ Karen sat down on the bed again, leaning against the footboard. She kicked off her shoes, put up her legs and pulled across the eiderdown. She yawned. ‘I’m done to shreds as well.’

  ‘Here, have a pillow. I told you you’d be tired if you went out dancing. Perhaps I should fetch the tea.’

  ‘We didn’t get back to the hotel till half past one, then I had to see to Artur’s hand. I couldn’t find the first-aid box and we made a dreadful noise.’ She gazed up at the ceiling, smiling. ‘We didn’t get caught, thank goodness.’

  ‘I should hope not.’

  ‘Must you be so starchy? You sound like a shrivelled old aunt. Oh, Elisabeth, I just want to be with him all the time, every moment, as if something’s tugging at me. You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘I might understand perfectly well. Anyway, how did Artur hurt himself?’

  ‘Oh, there was a fuss with Stanley.’ Karen yawned again and stretched up her arms. ‘It wasn’t Artur’s fault.’ She closed her eyes and let her head rest back on the footboard. ‘Rub my toes, would you? They’re freezing.’

  Elisabeth felt under the eiderdown for Karen’s feet. ‘You should wear boots when it’s wet. Tell me about Stanley. Quick. I can’t bear it.’

  ‘Well, Artur and I had been dancing for a while and …’ Karen opened her eyes and they were shining. ‘He can dance, Elisabeth, really dance. Most boys push you about like a sack of spuds and they step on your feet and look scared to death of being close. When Artur had his arms around me … I can’t describe it … It’s as if … as if I don’t need to worry about anything any more, or do anything, and I’m safe because I know he’ll never let me go.’

  ‘But what about Stan?’

  ‘He tried to cut in. He was squiffy and I asked him nicely not to make a scene. Artur told him to go away and he did.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘It was until we were going home. Stan was outside, very drunk and silly, and he just wouldn’t let up. He was dreadful, Elisabeth. Stan, I mean, cursing and putting up his fists, but he’s such a weedy thing, people were laughing at him. I know your type, he was yelling at Artur, you won’t treat her right and I’m not standing by. Get your something hands off her, you filthy Kraut. Come on, you something coward. And he took a swing at Artur.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘He did. He missed and fell over on the pavement right at our feet and then he tried to drag himself up with his arms round my legs and I would have been down on the pavement too if Artur hadn’t stepped in.’

  ‘Poor Stanley.’

  ‘You say “poor Stanley” but he was behaving dreadfully, Elisabeth, and his language was filthy.’

  ‘He’s in love with you, Karen. Anyone can see it. You’ve broken his heart.’

  ‘Well, more than that’s broken now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Artur hauled him off and stood him on his feet, and Stan was swaying about, cursing and yelling and throwing punches, so Artur hit him. I don’t think it was hard but there was an awful sound and another crack when Stan hit the pavement. His mouth was bleeding or it might have been his nose, but he was still saying frightful things, on and on. So Artur put his foot on Stan’s neck. You will not speak, he said. I think maybe it was too hard because Stan started gurgling and wheezing, and a man said, That’s enough, mate, and someone else said, He’ll break his neck. Then a woman was crying and other people were asking Artur to stop, but no one tried to pull him off. I think they knew they shouldn’t.’

  ‘But Artur did stop, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, of course. After a while, he took his foot away and people came crowding round Stan. They were sitting him up as we left. Artur said he knew Stan would be all right. He’d lost a tooth and maybe his nose was broken, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s all!’

  They both fell silent and Elisabeth saw Karen look away across the room, stretching up her arms again and shaking out her hair. Her face was difficult to read.

  ‘Weren’t you scared?’ Elisabeth said at last. ‘Poor Stanley.’

  Karen turned on her at once. ‘Must you keep saying that? I just wish I could forget it, get it out of my mind.’

  ‘If I’d been there, I don’t know what I should have done.’

  ‘Afterwards, after all the noise and shouting, Artur wasn’t shaken up at all, as if he didn’t really mind.’

  ‘How ghastly. How cruel and horrible.’

  ‘Not horrible at all. Artur says this kind of thing will happen when a girl is beautiful.’

  ‘Oh, Karen! So punching a man who’s drunk and silly is forgivable?’

  ‘Artur didn’t start it. Stan had been provoking him all night. Artur was protecting me and why shouldn’t he? For goodness sake, Elisabeth, you’ve no idea about people – about men – at all. You haven’t a clue.’

  ‘No. I don’t think I have,’ Elisabeth said. ‘If that’s how they are, I don’t understand them in the least.’

  They glared at each other across the eiderdown. The argument could flare or they could both decide to turn away.

  The bedside clock ticked and heavy drops of morning rain splashed on the window. After a time, Elisabeth said, ‘What about the tea?’

  ‘Yes, tea!’ Karen got up quickly and slipped on her shoes. ‘I’m so neglectful, chatting on and on when you’re not well. And toast too. You’re wincing, you poor darling.’ She pulled the curtains across. ‘Shut your eyes for a while.’ She stood by the bed and touched Elisabeth’s hand. ‘I can’t bear it when you’re ill. I just want to take it all away. Shall I fetch you an aspirin? Would that help?’

  ‘
Yes. It really would. Thank you.’

  She heard Karen running down the stairs two at a time as she always did. She would swing on the newel post and slide on the drugget, which would rumple and skid on the floorboards, and when Ma came home she would tut and prod it back in place with her foot.

  In a while, Karen would bring up a tray and there would be more toast than Elisabeth could eat, it would be too thickly buttered and the crusts would be burned. The tea would have too much sugar, and the cup would be overfilled so it slopped in the saucer. But Elisabeth knew the breakfast would seem lavish and miraculous like a banquet served on a ship in a stormy sea. It would restore her and seem more delicious than anything she’d ever tasted, because food Karen made for her always did.

  Downstairs, the pipes groaned as the kitchen tap was turned, then Elisabeth heard the kettle crash down on the hob.

  11

  Herr Gunther Landau was not displeased to see his son hand in hand with the pretty hotel key clerk although he never would have tolerated a foreign Freundin for his son if she were anything but English. Herr Landau admired the English. It was a pity she was in unsuitable employment, and she was a little coarser than he would have hoped, but Fräulein Karen Oliver could be polished, she could be refined – but not too much. Her raw flirtatiousness could make her an interesting and enlivening daughter-in-law, and when she smiled her quick and generous smile, Herr Landau felt an unaccustomed lightness in his chest and wistful longing for the jolly shining girl his wife once was.

  His son had not shown a particular preference for this English girl, although he seemed to like her well enough; they drank cocktails together in the lounge when her shift was finished. Management disapproved and would have reprimanded her if Herr Landau Senior had not intervened.

  ‘Come, come. My son is on holiday, and after all who would deny the young their magic times?’

  Fräulein Karen Oliver smiled winningly and perhaps a touch triumphantly, and Management withdrew.

  Artur was easy and politely rakish in female company. He took his pick, just as his father had in his younger days. But Herr Landau was growing weary of Artur’s indecision and uneasy that he did not seem to be outgrowing a young man’s natural zeal for new ideas and politics.