The Watcher

by Monika Jephcott Thomas

  It was Rodrick, the man who built her mama’s examination table in the surgery. He was an enormous man with arms like the branches of an oak tree. She remembered thinking that, the first time she saw him when he hauled the heavy table through the front door and into the doctor’s room, which her Opa had made by putting up a new wall in the middle of their living room. Opa had tried to help bring in the table, but Rodrick didn’t need any help. He could do it all by himself. He was very strong. Netta quite admired this mountain of a man then, but at the same time she never liked the way her mother smiled at him, or the way she put her hand on those branches of his. However, after that first time, he only came to the house on two more occasions and on the last time he looked really unhappy as Netta peeked through the window to see her Oma turning him away at the front door.

  ‘What are you doing here anyway,’ her mama was saying. ‘Following me?’

  ‘Don’t be like that. I live just down the road.’ He flicked his fingers towards the village. ‘Or have you forgotten that so soon.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I was coming out of the pharmacy there and could see you needed assistance, so I came to help. That’s all.’

  Netta looked from the carpenter to her mama. They both had the same look on their faces. The look Netta herself had worn on the autumn afternoon her Opa had caught her standing on tip-toe trying to sink her teeth into one of the pears dangling tantalisingly from the tree in the middle of the garden. There was no way she could deny her crime. Her little teeth marks were there in the pear for all to see, so she got a huge telling off and had to stand under the pear tree for hours and hours in tears.

  Netta watched Rodrick grasp the frame of the bike in his huge knobbly fingers. She watched her mama reluctantly let go of it.

  ‘And how are you, little princess?’ Netta was surprised to find the adult was talking to her as he began to push the bike up the hill, a lot faster than her mother had been.

  ‘I’m… I’m a bird,’ Netta said and turned herself back to face the front and enjoy the flight to the top of the hill.

  ‘A bird indeed!’ the carpenter chuckled.

  Netta flapped her wings and the adults were silent for a while. Until Rodrick said:

  ‘And what about you, Erika? How are you these days?’

  ‘Everything is fine. My husband is back.’

  ‘Oh, I know that, but what I—’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Well, here we are. I think you’ll be all right from here. Nice and flat now. And I’m going that way. So, I’ll see you around, no doubt.’

  ‘I think you know as well as I do it would be better if you didn’t.’

  ‘Goodbye, little bird!’

  ‘Bye.’ Netta turned to see a rather jubilant Rodrick wave and plod off towards the village, and her mama’s eyes darting around the street as if the only place they were not allowed to rest was on the receding back of the big tree man.

  Erika had invited Edgar over for dinner. As Max’s best friend, as his only surviving friend and colleague from the labour camp, perhaps it was Max’s place to invite him, not Erika’s. But that was the point. Ever since they had arrived home, the only time Max saw Edgar was in the corridors of Dortmund hospital at work. It wasn’t only his wife that Max was distant from. Max hadn’t socialised with anyone since he’d been back. And, on the rare occasions she had managed to get him to go out for the evening, for a meal or a drink, he always insisted on sitting with his back against a wall and spent the entire night in the restaurant scanning faces as they entered, for threat, Erika supposed, as if he were back in the ruined streets of a besieged Breslau or the damp draughty barracks of the camp where Russians circled like wolves. Given that Dortmund, like the rest of West Germany (as it had recently been named) was still occupied by Allied forces, she couldn’t help feel a similar way when she saw armed British soldiers sauntering down the street.

  Max’s parents, Martha and Karl, whose house this was, and who had the bedroom below Karin’s, loved the idea of Max’s friend coming over, and consequently had food preparation all under control in the kitchen, whilst Karin cleaned the dining room and set seven places at the oval oak table. Erika felt almost redundant by comparison, but at least she could enjoy her in-laws’ chatter as she loitered between kitchen and dining room in a pseudo- supervisory role.

  ‘Edgar,’ Martha was reiterating, ‘the young man who played the organ at Max and Erika’s wedding.’

  ‘Oh, I thought that chap’s name was Edward.’

  ‘No. Edgar. He’s the very talented musician. And very tall.’

  ‘Oh, the lanky bloke! I know! Can never be serious about anything.’

  ‘Very entertaining.’

  ‘A bit loud.’

  ‘Sociable.’

  ‘Always on his own.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, he never brings a girl to any of these events,’ Karl said, dipping a finger into the bowl in which Martha was mixing up a Silesian fruit cake.

  Erika couldn’t help but smile at Karl’s obliviousness and Martha’s blushing silence.

  ‘It’s not as if he has a face like the back end of a tram, does he?’

  ‘Well, perhaps,’ Martha hesitated as Karl dipped his finger into the bowl again, ‘perhaps he’s not interested in girls,’ she offered before beating the cake mix with a heretofore unseen vigour.

  Karl continued to speak as he sucked on his doughy finger. ‘What kind of a man isn’t interested in…’ And he froze, his eyebrows hitting his hairline as the puck on a strongman game at the funfair strikes the bell when enough force is applied with the mallet. He slowly drew his moist finger from his lips and it seemed the fruity mixture in his mouth had turned suddenly sour.

  ‘Delightful to meet you, Tante Bertel,’ Edgar chimed, shaking the old lady’s arthritic claw warmly and taking his place at the table between her, at the head, and Max, whilst Karl looked on horrified much to Erika’s amusement. Well, she said to herself, it’s not as if Edgar is going to start recounting to Bertel his exploits down dark alleys in Dortmund with first year med students, is it!

  ‘Max has told me so much about you,’ Edgar continued, putting his long arm easily around his best friend’s slight shoulders.

  ‘Well, we thought for a special occasion,’ Martha said, ‘that Bertel would like to come and join us at the table for once, instead of spending all her time stuck upstairs in her bedroom. I know you’re not as steady on your feet these days, my love, but we don’t want you wasting away up there, do we,’ she said loudly and slowly, as one might do to the Allied soldiers who never understood a word of German.

  ‘You’re Martha’s sister, is that right?’ Edgar asked the old lady with great interest.

  ‘Am I? Who’s Martha?’ Bertel croaked, and Martha didn’t know whether to be amused by her dotty big sister or deeply hurt that she didn’t recognise who was sitting right next to her.

  Edgar, as was his manner generally, ploughed on regardless. ‘And when Max was a boy of sixteen you were both at the theatre when this tram collided with a beer lorry in the street outside. Max said you were the first to get out there and start helping the injured. You told him to grab a ladder from beside one of the shops, wasn’t that so?’

  Max nodded, a hint of a smile on his lips, his eyes glazed with the memory.

  ‘And to help you carry the injured up to the Klinik, where we both work now in fact.’

  Bertel looked bewildered and a little offended by this long, loud man at her dinner table.

  ‘You were Max’s inspiration. That night made you want to become a doctor, didn’t it, buddy?’

  Max couldn’t help but be buoyed by his Yankeephile friend’s gusto. ‘It certainly did,’ he said, pouring Edgar a large glass of wine and another for himself. Erika noted the way his spirits had lifted since his friend’s arrival and she felt her own shoulders relax in a way she hadn’t for a long time.

  ‘Carrots, sir?’ Karin said, playing the part of butle
r, as a favour to the family, just for this evening.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do, thanks,’ Edgar said, looking the housekeeper up and down in a manner which made Karl think Martha was completely wrong about his lack of interest in girls.

  ‘From our garden,’ Karl piped up, feeling more comfortable about engaging the man in conversation now. ‘As are the potatoes and parsnips. Well, the parsnips are from the school plots next door, but since I’m the headmaster…’ He chuckled with a benign arrogance.

  ‘Of course you are.’ Edgar slurped gratefully on his wine. ‘Teaching the youth, tending to the sick, what would Mengede do without this family, eh? To the Portners!’

  ‘The Portners!’ they all chorused, even Netta right down at the end of the table opposite Karl.

  ‘I don’t know what we would have done if we didn’t grow our own food,’ Martha sighed. ‘What with inflation since the war.’

  ‘Well, now we have the Deutschemark things are looking up, aren’t they,’ Karl said somewhat dismissively, as he tended to do of any political comments from his wife.

  ‘She should be properly dressed to serve the food,’ Bertel blurted out, her eyes boring into Karin’s pale face, which suddenly became flushed with colour as everyone at the table turned to look at her.

  An excruciating moment unfurled itself, with only the nervous click of the serving spoon which Karin held inside the bowl of carrots to fill the silence.

  ‘What on earth do you mean, Bertel?’ Martha giggled unconvincingly.

  ‘The maid should have her lace cap on. What’s the world coming to when the servants are allowed to be so lax about their appearance?’

  ‘Bertel, we don’t have…’ Martha began.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Edgar announced, trying to avoid a scene or perhaps even spotting the opportunity to create one, ‘Tante Bertel is of course right. What is the world coming to when the,’ he coughed, ‘servants can’t even dress appropriately?’

  He rose, and grabbing the table napkin from his lap, walked over to Karin and said in a whisper all were meant to hear, ‘Here’s your cap, young lady. I don’t know what it was doing between my legs, but don’t forget to wear it in future whilst carrying out your duties. Starting now,’ he said, winking at Karin in such a cordial way, she hardly hesitated in putting the table napkin on top of her head and continuing to serve the vegetables.

  Bertel was satisfied, Martha and Karl could barely chew on their food, their mouths were hanging open so, and Erika was delighted to see Max and Edgar snorting with barely contained giggles like little boys at the back of the class.

  Just then the doorbell rang and Karin shot a look at the clock on the wall before snatching the napkin from her head, which was now as red as the second glass of wine Max was finishing off.

  ‘Is it all right if I’m excused now, Mrs Portner? It’s a little bit later than I thought. And I think my friend is here to take me out.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Martha said. ‘You have gone more than the extra mile for us tonight, my dear, and we shan’t forget it.’

  Karin did a little jig of indecision with the bowl of carrots and the erstwhile cap.

  ‘Give those here!’ Erika smiled. ‘And run to the bathroom if you want to fix yourself up. I’ll get the door for you.’ She suddenly felt sorry for the poor girl and utterly grateful to her for the part she had just played in lifting her husband’s spirits.

  Until she reached the front door and found Rodrick standing behind it.

  She was speechless.

  He wasn’t.

  ‘Oh, so sorry to disturb you in the middle of dinner,’ he said, nodding at the napkin still in her hand.

  This was a scene that could never happen. Erika had no words or actions rehearsed for this because in her mind she had never allowed it to be an option. The man she’d had an affair with, while her husband was in a labour camp, turning up on the doorstep while Max was inside at the table with his best friend and his parents, who, if they hadn’t suspected something was going on, knew it for sure when he’d begun pounding drunkenly on this same front door in the middle of the night, a few months ago, just hours after Erika had told the carpenter it was over between them.

  ‘It’s over. It’s finished,’ she’d hissed again, but this time at the disappointed faces of her in-laws as they stood on the landing listening to the fool bawling through the letter box:

  ‘I love you, Erika. You cannot do this! You come back to me this instant! Open this door! Open this door!’

  ‘Does that sound like something that’s finished, Erika?’ Karl had winced, praying that neither Tante Bertel nor little Netta, both sleeping soundly at the innocent poles of life, would be disturbed.

  And now she knew what he meant.

  ‘What the hell do you think you are doing coming—’

  ‘Invite Karin’s friend in!’ Martha called from the dining room in the back of the house. ‘Don’t keep her waiting on the doorstep.’

  And then it dawned on Erika. And if it hadn’t, Rodrick was about to elucidate anyway:

  ‘Hold your horses!’ He put his hands up as if she might strike him at any minute. ‘I’m not here to see you,’ he said with a new tone of defiance, ‘I’m here to take Karin out.’

  ‘Karin?’

  ‘Yes, Karin. She’s a lovely girl, and if I’m not mistaken she’s free to go out with whomever she chooses.’ He grinned, then quickly swallowed the smile and added conspiratorially, ‘I’ve always asked her to meet me away from this house, but tonight she insisted on me coming here ’cause she said she was working late, helping out with some dinner party or something.’

  ‘You’ve been out with her before?’ Erika was stunned. Stunned by the ever-shifting state of affairs over the last few seconds of her life, and stunned by her burning jealousy at the thought of Rodrick seeing another woman. And not just any other woman, but her own housekeeper. The girl who looked at her husband with a sympathy she still found so difficult to muster.

  Rodrick was grinning his bovine grin again and Erika knew he was enjoying every second of this. She doubted he had resisted too strongly when Karin had insisted he come here to meet her tonight. He’d clearly hoped he’d bump into Erika here. She doubted that he was even really interested in Karin, but instead he was probably using her as a means of staying close to Erika, of making her jealous. Although it was her vanity that told her so, Rodrick’s smug face corroborated the notion. And it was working.

  ‘Erika, did you hear me?’ Martha was coming down the hallway. ‘Invite… Oh, it’s you,’ she said, pulling the face she usually reserved for sour milk.

  And since Martha had no script for an occasion like this either, Erika decided the best solution was to play the director and take back control. ‘It’s OK. Rodrick has just come to see Karin. In fact they’ve been going out for some time, isn’t that right, Rodrick?’ But before he could answer she was ushering him inside, much to his surprise. ‘As Martha said, come in and wait for Karin, she’ll be out in a moment. She’s been doing such a wonderful job preparing the table and serving the food tonight. She deserves a nice rest and good night out.’

  And suddenly they were all in the dining room and Karl found himself unable to chew on his food yet again. Rodrick and Netta exchanged a childish wave across the room, and Edgar and Max rose to formally shake the hand of the man Erika introduced as the carpenter who’d made the examination table in the surgery and as Karin’s gentleman friend.

  ‘Oh,’ Max said, well lubricated now, ‘that is a fine piece of work, that table. I’ve never seen anything like it. We should get you up at the Klinik, shouldn’t we, Ed? They could do with some decent equipment up there.’

  ‘Oh, thanks very much,’ Rodrick said, a little overwhelmed by this unexpected turn of events and by receiving such a cordial welcome from the man he cuckolded.

  ‘I’m here! I’m ready!’ Karin came bouncing out of the bathroom, smoothing down her hair with one hand and her dress with the other, not a moment too soon
as far as both Erika and Rodrick were concerned, not to mention the cuckold’s parents.

  But this was the perfect opportunity, as far as Erika was concerned, to show the in-laws just how finished she was with Rodrick, that he was such a fragment of the past that she could happily send the housekeeper off with him for a romantic evening out, whilst she, unaffected, resumed her dinner party with her husband, best friend and family.

  ‘And where are you two off to tonight?’ Erika was positively beaming now.

  Karin faltered, partly because she had no idea, and partly because of the lady’s uncharacteristic geniality towards her. ‘Well, I’m not exactly…’

  Rodrick took the reins, as was his duty as the man. ‘I thought we’d go to the pictures first, then perhaps have a spot of dinner at that new American restaurant in town.’

  Everyone let out a suitable Ooh or Ah to denote their appreciation of the exoticness of this gesture, the greatest of which came from Edgar, who wanted a full report on the ambience, food and music played as soon as possible.

  ‘Well, we better get going.’ Rodrick gestured towards the door.

  ‘Yes, we better.’ Karin was as flushed now as when she’d had that napkin perched ridiculously on her head earlier.

  And suddenly the couple were gone and Max and Edgar were talking about swing music with a volume they would never have dared to ten years ago, whilst Erika mused over how ridiculous such a waif of a girl looked next to such an oaf of a man.

  ‘Brecht!’ Bertel squawked, silencing everyone.

  ‘I beg your pardon, darling?’ her little sister ventured.

  ‘It was Brecht we were watching that night in the theatre. When the tram crashed.’ She was speaking to Max, but her eyes were fixed on Erika. ‘The Threepenny Opera, it was. The one about crooks and whores.’

  Another silence ensued, decorated with the delicate ring of cutlery against crockery as Erika tried to find something to allow her to disentangle herself from the old woman’s glare.