Alice

by Judith Hermann

  The holiday apartment was in the basement. The woman explained that it had been their own apartment; they had finished it with their own hands. The man said nothing, just smiled. Their daughter used to live upstairs with the grandchildren and they themselves, downstairs. Then the daughter and the grandchildren had moved out, had gone away to another city. Now they were living upstairs again, so they wanted to rent out the basement flat; it would be a shame not to. The woman gave this verbose explanation as if to apologise; she spoke in a heavy dialect, and Alice understood only half of what she was saying, but when all was said and done, it didn’t matter who had lived in the apartment or when or why. Alice walked behind Maja who was following the woman who had immediately taken the child into her arms, had taken off the little pink hat, and was now carrying the child as though it were her own. They all trooped down the stairs. First, the woman with the now silent, serious child, then Maja, then Alice, then the man, who was carrying the suitcase, overnight bag and bags of food. Very helpful. He was right behind Alice, breathing heavily.

  The house was built on a slope. Only half the apartment was below street level, and at the back it led out to the garden. At first glance everything seemed fine. It had a certain cosiness – a large room with a wall of fitted kitchen cabinets and built-in appliances and in the middle a table of light-coloured wood; there were shelves filled with cookbooks and bric-a-brac, a television set, and a corner sofa; leading off from this room there was first one bedroom and then another, both with beds in them, and the bathroom with a tub and a washing machine.

  But on second glance it wasn’t quite all right – small details, here and there. Maybe these people had moved upstairs only yesterday, hadn’t taken everything up with them, had left behind their personal stuff: framed photos, a collection of liquor bottles, crumpled magazines, and half-finished knitting. In the bathroom, a row of cheap shampoo and shower-gel bottles on the rim of the bathtub. And children’s toys – immediately discovered by Maja’s child. Clothes in the wardrobe, slippers under the coat rack. There really was nothing to object to, everything was comfortable otherwise, but it was also very intimate and personal, an additional burden. Alice felt a twinge of nausea, but then she remembered the depressing décor of the other holiday apartment, where everything had been practical but nothing more. The child was very happy here. She immediately swept all the bric-a-brac off the shelves and pulled down the tablecloth, emptied a washing-powder box full of building blocks, and rattled the refrigerator door. The woman cooed and laughed, trying to reassure Maja, who kept apologising for the child’s behaviour. The woman ran hither and thither showing off everything: the electric kettle, the coffee maker, the electric blinds, the television set, video recorder, bed sheets, keys. On the key ring, a tiny witch on a wire broom.

  Alice stood at the window in the kitchen, gazing out at the garden. A porch swing on the terrace was covered with a tarpaulin. Four white chairs surrounded a plastic table and in the middle, a furled patio umbrella. The trees were already nearly bare. Wilted dahlias, asters, sunflowers, a pergola, and red grapes. A nice view of other gardens up and down the hillside, then the first city houses, and far to the left, there was the hospital – a long rectangle with many windows. Too far away for her to identify the window of Misha’s room, but close enough to know: Misha’s there. And we’re here.

  Alice saw it and felt that if she didn’t immediately show Maja she would be guilty of a betrayal. But she kept it to herself a moment longer. Maja was busy with the woman and the child in one of the bedrooms. It sounded as if the child was jumping up and down on the bed, squealing with delight. Alice turned away from the window to look at the stainless-steel sink, at the shelf above it. Plastic containers of herbs and spices, half full, marjoram, rosemary, multi-coloured pepper, all of it a little messy, a sticky film on the jar tops; the sink wasn’t entirely clean either. She turned on the tap to test it and shut it off again. Then the man was standing behind her. He put his arms around her, his hands on her hips, pulling her towards him, holding her like that; then he pushed her to one side and let go. He said, The tablets for the dishwasher are under the sink, and he gestured vaguely downwards.

  Alice said, Oh, thanks, I’m sure we’ll be using them. She raised her hand to touch the back of her neck, astonished, and slowly turned to face him. As though it were possible to obliterate what had happened. To obliterate that embrace.

  He shook his head. He smiled out of the window and said, There’s no need for thanks. You’re having a hard time. You’re having a really hard time.

  Then he stepped aside as though he were already standing at the newly dug grave. He retreated with feigned modesty, his eyes cast down, still shaking his head. His wife came hurrying out of the bedroom carrying a pile of lilac-coloured sheets and pillowcases in her arms, red patches on her face.

  We’ll make the beds ourselves, Maja called out from the bedroom. Please don’t go to any trouble; we can manage by ourselves, really. The woman looked at her husband, then at Alice, but not back again. Alice went over to her and took the sheets. Are you sure? the woman asked. Yes, Alice said without knowing what she was supposed to be sure of.

  Maja came into the kitchen-living room; she leaned against the bedroom doorway. The door frame was cobbled together from old beams, an imitation of permanence. The child crawling behind her on all fours now pulled herself up on Maja’s hand and twined her little arms around Maja’s knee. Wearing only a shirt and tights, and hiccupping softly, she looked heartbreakingly tired.

  Alice said, we’re really glad to be here. It’s lovely; the garden alone – she searched for a gesture and found none – but it didn’t matter at all. The man and the woman finally left, finally dragged themselves upstairs. Heavy animals, shy and curious; they went up the stairs backwards, kept calling out reassurances, consolations, directions – until they disappeared from view, the man first. Maja pushed the door shut with the palm of her hand; then leaned her head against the glass pane.

  That afternoon Alice went to see Misha once more. For an hour, while Maja and the child slept. She left the development, then walked along the street into town, downhill through the woods. It was no longer raining, just misty and cold. She had her hands in her jacket pockets and a scarf around her neck. It was peaceful in the hospital. A mosaic in the entrance hall showed a monk with his arms spread in a blessing under a sky of thousands of tiny blue tiles. Next to it a coffee machine was humming. Alice walked past a bulletin board full of passport photos of the hospital’s doctors, nurses, and nuns. She could have looked for the face of the little wrinkled nun who had asked what sort of man Misha had been. Could have looked for her name, but something kept her from doing it.

  She took the lift up to the seventh floor and could hear Misha’s breathing as the doors slid open. The door to his room was slightly ajar. Misha lay there as though he hadn’t moved in all the hours she’d been gone. On his back, arms extended to the left and right, face turned to the fading light, mouth open, eyes open. Alice placed the chair she had pushed against the table that morning next to his bed again. She sat down and cautiously said his name. He didn’t react. Still, Alice had the feeling that he knew she was there. Whether it mattered to him that she was there, whether it was a strain for him – that she didn’t know. There was no longer anything to which he could have reacted. Whatever there had once been was gone. All the things that had once existed between him and her were gone too. Nothing left. It was all over; she could say goodbye now. Nothing but the pure, shining present. Alice kissed Misha, as she hadn’t kissed him during his lifetime. She knew that he would never have put up with that kind of kiss were he still conscious.

  They ate together that evening, Alice, Maja, and the child. At the table of light-coloured wood, Maja and the child sitting on one side, Alice on the other. Fish and potatoes. The plates with pictures of yellow baby chicks, the glasses with flowers on them. Maja had done the cooking; she cooked with little salt, nothing fancy, a sort of biblical mea
l; you could call it bland or plain; the child seemed to like it.

  Did you eat together often? Alice asked.

  Now and then it was possible to ask a question, and Maja would answer, or vice versa, if Maja asked, Alice would answer. But it didn’t go beyond that. Questions and answers don’t make a conversation. And that’s how things stood, Alice thought. A focused emptiness.

  Yes, Maja said. Not in the beginning, but later on, we did. When we were living together. Misha liked rice.

  Oh, Alice said.

  She had seen Misha only rarely this past year, had never visited him in the apartment where he lived with Maja. Actually she hadn’t known anything about the child, and wouldn’t have wanted to. A different Misha? Maybe not.

  With the palm of her hand the child batted once resolutely at the plate with the mashed potatoes and fish. Maja took the tiny hand and wiped it gently with a towel, each of the five little fingers individually. The child watched, nodding. After the fish, there was plain yogurt without honey. And lukewarm fennel tea. The child drank the tea from her bottle, which she could already hold by herself. She was sitting in Maja’s lap, looking intently at Alice while she drank.

  Well, Maja said, time to go to bed. She carefully set the child on her feet, waiting till she had found her balance. Then she began to clear the table and said, If Misha gets better, if his temperature doesn’t go up again or something, we could order an ambulance next week. Go home, to Berlin. I want him back home. Misha wants that too. He wants to go home.

  She rinsed the plates in the sink and put them into the dishwasher, having found the detergent tablets on her own. She moved around the kitchen matter-of-factly and confidently. No hesitation. Maja didn’t shy away from anything; nor did anything seem to disgust her. She wiped the table and switched on the kettle.

  She said, Was his temperature up today?

  Then, squatting in front of the dishwasher, she briefly studied the buttons and symbols, pushed the door of the machine shut, and turned one of the knobs firmly to the right. Soft gushing sounds. Did he have a fever today?

  No, Alice said. She returned the child’s dreamy gaze, grateful for her neutral quiet. That morning, a pale young nurse had anxiously and awkwardly felt for Misha’s pulse and had taken his temperature with a digital thermometer, flinching as if someone had yelled something into her ear at the soft sound – like the chirp of a cricket – that the thermometer made. She then entered some made-up, shaky numbers on a chart and hurried out of the room. The nurse seemed afraid Misha might die while she was taking his temperature. A sudden drop in temperature. Tumbling digital numbers. Plunging towards zero. Alice had the feeling that the nurse’s touch, her fingers searching for a pulse on his wrist and then on his neck, had caused Misha pain; after that Alice no longer held his hand in hers.

  She said, No, he didn’t have a fever. Then she got up and said, Let me clear away the rest. I can do it.

  You always use so much water, Maja said. You just let the water run when you’re doing dishes, I’ve noticed that before. Misha used to do that, too. But I cured him of it.

  Maja put the child to bed. In the room with the big matrimonial bed in front of the mirrored wardrobe. Lots of blankets and pillows. Alice sat at the table in the kitchen, listening.

  Where’s the rabbit?

  Where’s the rabbit?

  Here’s the rabbit. Here it is.

  The child’s laughter turned to exhausted crying. Maja hummed, snatches of lullabies, Morgen früh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder geweckt – If God will thou shalt wake, when the morning doth break … Now go to sleep. Sleep. Then it was quiet. Alice drank some fennel tea, soundlessly setting her cup down on the tabletop, a kind of meditation. After a while Maja came out of the bedroom, gently pulling the door not quite shut behind her. She sat down on the other side of the table, took a sip of tea, and, like Alice, gazed through the patio door into the dark garden. The glass pane was like a mirror.

  Did he say anything to you? Maja asked.

  No, Alice said. He was sleeping, the entire time. He scarcely moved. Sighed sometimes, heavily. Nothing else.

  Maja nodded. She said, Well, then, I’ll be off now. I think I’d better comb my hair.

  Alice said nothing. Maja washed her face in the bathroom, combed her hair; she put on a different sweater, grey with green stripes, fluffy, soft wool; it was like going out in reverse, Alice thought.

  You look beautiful, she said.

  Maja did look beautiful. With those distinct dark rings under the eyes, slender, pale, and tired; her hair firmly combed back off her face and pinned up. A pulsating, dark glow all around her. They went back into the bedroom and together looked at the child. She was sleeping soundly in a sleeping bag patterned with baby lambs. Lying on her back, her little arms extended in complete surrender, clutching the ear of a soft-toy rabbit in her left fist.

  Call me if she wakes up and won’t stop crying, Maja said. Otherwise I’ll be back around midnight, we’ll see.

  Yes, Alice said. I’ll wait for you; I’ll wait up till you come.

  Alice escorted Maja to the door. They didn’t turn on the light, tiptoed up the stairs. The door to the couple’s apartment was slightly ajar; through the gap came the noises of the TV – loud applause and the glib, cynical voice of a game-show host. The hallway was cold. It smelled of supper, washing powder, and unfamiliar habits. Alice touched the handle of the front door and for a moment felt sure it would be locked. But the door opened. The evening air as overwhelming as if they hadn’t been outside for months. The light in the hallway went on, the woman was standing behind Maja; she wore a tracksuit but no shoes.

  Going out so late?

  Yes, Maja said. I’m going to the hospital. I want to visit my husband. I haven’t been to see him all day.

  The woman grimaced as if she’d been stung, as if something had suddenly caused her pain. She had completely forgotten Maja’s husband.

  Oh, I’ll drive you there.

  No, thank you, not necessary, Maja said, smiling politely.

  Yes, yes, the woman said. Come on, I’ll drive you there; this is no place to be walking around in the dark.

  She wouldn’t take no for an answer, disappeared into her apartment as though sucked in by the blue light of the TV, said something to her husband; he said something to her, all of it drowned out by the noise of the game show. Maja rolled her eyes. Alice didn’t know what to say. The woman came back; now she was wearing shoes and a heavy cardigan. She pulled the cardigan down over her broad hips and held up the car key.

  Come on. Let’s go.

  All right, Maja said, see you soon. She briefly touched Alice’s arm, then disappeared behind the woman into the front yard.

  Alice closed the front door. She felt dizzy. From the couple’s apartment came the same blue-cave illumination, the TV spitting out hellish laughter. She went back downstairs, into the basement apartment, locking the door behind her. The door had a frosted glass pane set into a wooden frame. Alice went into the bathroom, opened the window above the tub, a window facing the street. She could hear the car engine start, the car driving out of the driveway, turning, setting off down the street, getting fainter; then it was quiet.

  Twenty minutes to walk to the hospital, twenty minutes back again. By car, five minutes. Traffic lights. Traffic at the intersection. A few scraps of conversation. Possibly the woman would decide to go in, too, for whatever reason, she just might. Then five minutes to drive back. Fifteen minutes, all in all, one long, eternal quarter hour. Alice stood in the bathroom and listened. She counted the seconds, starting at one hundred, counting down, was almost sure and yet was still surprised when she heard him. The seventy-fifth second. He came out of the apartment upstairs, did something or other at the front door. Then came down the stairs, clop, clop, clop, his feet in slippers. He turned the corner in the hall, knowing his way, no need for the light. Alice quietly left the bathroom and saw him on the other side of the frosted glass, his lumpy, heavy body. He
was listening, listening just as she was. Then he knocked on the wooden door frame.

  Alice pulled her plaited hair tight with both hands. Tugged the sleeves of her sweater down over her wrists. Should she open the door or not? Should she open the door or talk to him through the locked door? Show her fear or hide it? Fear of what, exactly? She cut short the stream of crazy thoughts, turned the key, and opened the door.