It wasn’t long before they ended up in Amy’s bedroom.
A melody had been playing in Kitty’s head the previous night, and all day she had been torturing herself with the new song, which wasn’t coming to her as effortlessly as usual. She set aside the guitar in irritation and went down to ask Amy’s advice. Amy really did have a remarkable feel for the right melody, and even if Kitty didn’t for one second hope that she could actually help her establish a music career, as she was always claiming, she had at least convinced her to believe in her own music.
But there was no one in the drawing room: the remains of a meal were the only indication that Amy was in the house. Kitty felt uncomfortable sitting there in her absence, and had just retreated to her attic again when she heard furious shouting on the ground floor. And an unfamiliar woman’s voice. Then she heard Amy swear, and the front door opening.
‘Do what you want, and see how you get by. I’m not your bloody cook; that’s not my mission in life, thank you very much!’ And Kitty heard the front door slam.
Cautiously, she opened her bedroom door and peered down into the hall. She quietly crept down a few steps and saw the figure of a woman going into the drawing room. The woman stopped when she noticed Kitty, then walked up to her and held out her hand. Kitty couldn’t move, didn’t know where to look, because the stranger was stark naked.
‘I’m still hungry. Would you like to keep me company?’ the red-haired woman asked casually. She went on into the drawing room, where she got stuck in to the remains of the food. ‘I’m Fred, by the way,’ she added.
Kitty didn’t want to appear rude. In her homeland, it would be outrageous to leave a guest to eat alone. But she was no longer in her homeland, and besides, in her homeland the guests weren’t naked. She followed her into the drawing room, silently, head bowed, like a faithful servant, positioned herself at the window, and looked out at the little front garden in order to escape the strange woman’s nakedness.
Fred smacked her lips noisily, wiped her mouth, and fetched herself a whisky from the drinks cabinet — clearly well acquainted with its precise location. She came up behind Kitty and offered her a glass.
‘Come on, what’s wrong with you? Haven’t you ever seen a naked woman before? I was in a hurry and couldn’t find my clothes. If you lend me your cardigan, darling, you won’t have to endure the sight of my divine body any longer.’
Kitty immediately removed her cardigan and handed it to her without looking round.
‘Thank you, darling.’ The red-haired stranger laughed and set Kitty’s whisky down on the window sill. ‘Cheers!’
Only now did Kitty dare to turn round and look at the guest. The woman was standing close to her; too close. She smelled Amy on her; she smelled Amy’s fury on her. The red-head smiled. But her smile was different from the friendly smile of the West that Kitty had come to know. It was cheerful, but cheerful despite, not because. The woman’s green eyes glowed unhealthily. Her thin lips were an artificial red, although she wasn’t wearing make up. She gave the impression of someone who wants too much and gets too little.
These red lips reminded Kitty so forcefully of the dark apartment on the Holy Mountain, the blood flowing from the cut throat, that she knocked back the burning liquid in one gulp and squeezed her eyes tight shut because she didn’t want to lose her equilibrium in front of this peculiar creature.
The proximity, the smell, the hand with which she propped herself up on the windowsill, the other hand holding the whisky glass: it was all too close, too disturbing. Perhaps it wasn’t even her nakedness that had so unsettled Kitty; perhaps it was this alarming intimacy. The moment was too much for her; it was dangerous, because here, standing in front of her, for the first time since she had left her country and her life behind, was a person who confronted her as an equal. Demanded that she look her in the eye, instead of up at her from below. It was not a look that wanted to change her.
The red lips and the dead baby. The birth that should have been a celebration of life, pledged instead to death. The hair curlers on the floor and the urge to vomit. Mariam, Mariam, Mariam, Mariam.
Kitty wanted this woman to leave right away. She hated her for her penetrating gaze. Hated her nakedness. Hated her presence in this peaceful house, which was like a declaration of war. She hated the role of museum exhibit that she, Kitty, had to play in this house, because this woman saw it for what it was. They were silent, and the red-haired woman’s face changed. It grew serious: the corners of her mouth turned down, her cat’s eyes narrowed to slits.
Kitty wanted her to leave, and at the same time she wanted her to stay. Wanted to claim this sincerity for herself. Wanted this woman to hold up a mirror to her, a mirror in which she could see herself in the woman’s pitiless light. Without false hopes. Without false aspirations and expectations.
Life had betrayed her; or she had betrayed life, it was more or less the same thing. In the mornings, in her attic room, listening to the city as it woke, Kitty would ask herself whether she was still human. Whether it still made sense to going on living. And whether all her songs were nothing more than failed, pathetic attempts to justify her existence.
Now she was even starting to wonder whether these months, these people, these streets, these places and hopes were perhaps all just a daydream. Perhaps she didn’t even exist any more. Perhaps she was just a body, forcing itself to go to the Underground station each day, and everything that she had ever been, that had ever made her who she was, had died: on the stretcher in the classroom, in the dark apartment on the Holy Mountain, or at the moment she received the news of Mariam’s death.
Perhaps the most tragic thing about exile, both mental and geographical, was that you began to see through everything, you could no longer beautify anything; you had to accept yourself for who you were. Neither who you had been in the past, nor the idea of who you might be in the future, mattered.
Fred had sat down on the window seat, her bare legs dangling. There was something profoundly childish about her as she sat there, looking at Kitty. She reached for the bottle and refilled Kitty’s glass. Kitty found this physical proximity uncomfortable, but didn’t dare break the moment. Because like this she could simply breathe, drink, be silent, look out at the foggy day. Not have to do anything else. The woman radiated a playful nonchalance that Kitty found reassuring. She could have gone on sitting there even if there had been an earthquake and the whole house had collapsed. She was just opening her mouth to say something when they heard the door open downstairs and Amy’s footsteps in the corridor.
Kitty turned abruptly and hurried out of the drawing room, shamefaced, as if she were afraid of being caught doing something forbidden. As she left, the red-haired woman threw the cardigan after her; it was as if she had guessed what Kitty was thinking, and was playing along.
*
Fred stayed in the house for the next few weeks. They all ate together and listened to music. Fred and Amy went out in the evenings, and only came back in the early hours of the morning. Amy seemed happy; she was making an effort to look more attractive than usual. She seemed rejuvenated, playful, joking, ready and willing to anticipate her beloved’s every desire.
At first, Kitty could barely overcome her embarrassment when she was asked to join the two of them for meals: in part because it was a scandalous thing for her, this openly expressed passion between two women, but also because she could not forget that first, wordless encounter in the drawing room. Fred played the charming, gallant, interested lover. Whenever Kitty entered the drawing room to borrow one of Amy’s many records, she would find Amy sitting on Fred’s lap, lost in a deep, warm ecstasy, running her hands through her lover’s hair or kissing the tip of her nose. Kitty would lower her eyes, excuse herself repeatedly, dash to the large cabinet where Amy kept her record collection, and vanish from the room again as quickly as possible. Amy seemed unconcerned; she asked her if she wouldn’t lik
e to stay, play a game of cards, or go with them to the cinema. Each time, Kitty thanked her and declined. After work, she preferred to wander the streets of the East End in the dark rather than head home, just so she wouldn’t cross paths with the strange couple.
*
It was Kitty’s day off. She had decided to stay in bed and learn vocabulary for her first English exam. She was excited because she knew that her nameless friend would be calling the following day: he would call her here for the first time, on her own private number. Amy had had a separate telephone line installed for her protégée. From now on, Kitty would no longer have to run to the telephone box; she would lie on her bed with the receiver pressed firmly to her ear, forming words in her mother tongue. She would be quiet, intimate; she wouldn’t have to keep turning round to make sure no one was watching them, that their words were safe.
The house was silent. Amy and Fred must have gone out for a late breakfast. Kitty sat up, picked up her guitar, and began to play, wildly, chaotically, plunging from one song into another without a break, singing along, stopping, starting again.
Suddenly, she heard a knock at the door. Amy never came up to her room. If she wanted her for something she would ring a bell downstairs; lately, she had even started calling her on the phone. So it must be the red-head who was at her door. She glanced cautiously in the mirror, pushed her hair out of her face, and threw on a dressing gown over her nightshirt.
‘May I come in? I’ve never been up here.’
She walked in without waiting for Kitty’s answer. She was wearing white linen trousers and a white vest. White suited her. Her red hair, which hung in waves across her forehead, contrasted beautifully with her white clothes.
She looked around, taking in the furnishings and the personal items. The rail with just a few items of clothing (Kitty refused to accept the clothes Amy tried to give her), the two pairs of polished shoes lined up neatly. The guitar case. The plates spread out to dry on a kitchen towel.
‘You don’t have to stop. I was standing on the landing the whole time, listening to you. You really do sing very well.’
Kitty said nothing. She hesitated a moment, then went back over to the bed, sat on it cross-legged, picked up the guitar, and began to play. Although she never refused when Amy made this request, because it was her rent, she never played as uninhibitedly as she did now.
Eyes closed, lost in her own world, she sang in Georgian. It was a long time since she had sung with such relish, had been so completely at one with her music. When she opened her eyes, Fred was kneeling in front of her. Her face was serious and concentrated, as if she had been studying Kitty’s features the whole time. It was an expression she never wore in Amy’s presence.
Kitty put the guitar aside, stretched out her legs, and turned her face away. She didn’t want to be looked at in such a penetrating way.
‘Is everything all right?’ she stammered, when the tension became too much for her. She started to get up. Suddenly the red-haired woman seized her wrist, forcing her to remain seated. Then she pressed her nose against Kitty’s, and stayed like that. Kitty didn’t trust herself to move her head. This closeness was not soothing; it was like the look they had shared when they had first met. Binding. It was a closeness born of knowledge, not of lust. And it was serious. They were so close, she couldn’t focus. The contours of the other woman’s face dissolved. Kitty didn’t know what she should say or, above all, how to say it. And it would have been the same even if she had been able to say it in her mother tongue. For the first time since her arrival in London, she didn’t feel that the foreign language was the crucial barrier.
But before she could formulate a sentence, Fred had pressed her lips to Kitty’s. She didn’t move; her tongue stayed in her mouth, and the kiss was dry and circumspect. As if they were two young girls, practising kissing for their boyfriends. Kitty reached out an arm and pushed Fred away, then shuffled back up the bed towards the wall.
‘I don’t think …’
Kitty interrupted herself. What was it she didn’t think? That it wasn’t right for Fred to kiss her because she was with the woman who provided Kitty with a roof over her head, or because she herself was a woman, and this fact was an insurmountable hurdle? Or simply because she thought that this woman would not be good for her; not because she was so brazen and uninhibited, so egocentric and inconsiderate, but because with all her splinters and scratches, her wounds and hopeful forlornness, the two of them were too alike? Kitty knew nothing of the path this woman had travelled, and she didn’t think she wanted to know, but there had certainly been a landslide in her life, a colossal, brutal landslide that had torn the ground from beneath her feet and taught her to fly. Of this, Kitty was convinced.
‘You’re close to me; that frightens me. I’ve been asking myself why that is. I’ve been asking myself that all this time and I can’t find an answer.’ Suddenly Fred was speaking German. The language took Kitty by surprise. It felt familiar to her, more familiar than English. It was a language she had studied in school; she had wanted to learn it with Andro. For Vienna. She didn’t know what to say.
‘You understood me, didn’t you? You understand German?’
‘No.’
‘Yes, you do. You know exactly what I just said.’
‘No.’
Kitty drew up her legs and wrapped her arms around them. She wanted the woman to go. She wanted the woman to stay. Perhaps right there, in this gap, in this intermediate state, she could escape herself. Not think of the house on the Holy Mountain. Not sing about death. Not miss the curls on Andro’s head. Not regret anything. Not hate her brother. Not hate herself for sacrificing Mariam. For surviving — for this survival, this miserable existence. Not think about her mother, her aunt; not have to worry about them, about those she had left behind. Not have only one nameless and faceless friend. Not be here. Not be there. Not be herself.
Fred came and sat with her on the bed. She wasn’t looking at her any more. She reached out her hand, took Kitty’s, and Kitty let her, didn’t pull her hand away. Fred’s hand travelled up her arm to her collarbone, then to her face, up into her thick hair, down to her neck. She was sitting beside her now, but not looking at her. It was better that way.
These caresses made Kitty feel melancholy. Fred’s caresses were easier to bear than her gaze. She stroked Kitty’s torso, her face, without stopping; as if summoning up heathen gods, as if driving the fear out of her body. It was as if her thoughts had been blown away. Kitty felt an inner emptiness that came as a relief; an emptiness that was completely calm. Her body merely sensed the gentle caresses without her head contriving to categorise, to judge them.
What happened next happened quickly and was shockingly easy. This red-haired woman seemed to be so shamelessly accomplished at what she was doing. There was something about the feeling of these hands all over her body that was like healing. Kitty asked herself how that was possible. Why her body wasn’t outraged at being touched in this way by a woman. Why nothing in her rebelled. Why she surrendered without a struggle, without a word. Perhaps her body believed that what this woman was doing was a healing ritual.
When Fred’s hand reached her crotch, she pressed her legs firmly together, as if protecting a secret, and turned her head aside. There was something unfamiliar to be celebrated, but Kitty had been unable to celebrate anything for a very long time. Certainly not anything unfamiliar.
‘It’s all right,’ said Fred, leaning over Kitty. It was a muggy morning, and the room was airless. They could hear cars driving past outside, pedestrians walking by. ‘My father was from Vienna. My mother from Stockholm. They met in Vienna. He was still a medical student at the time. Later, he became a psychiatrist. She was interested in psychoanalysis, which was why she’d come to Vienna, but then she fell in love, married, and got pregnant. I was born and grew up in Vienna.’ She spoke quietly, in German, leaning on one hand next to Kitty’s hea
d while the other ran over Kitty’s skin. ‘I had a younger brother. A late arrival. Eight years after me. I think my parents were happy. Yes, they were, in their way. They weren’t religious. I mean, yes, we celebrated Hanukkah and Passover; my brother was circumcised; but that was all. The only thing they fought about was Vienna. She hated the city; he loved it. I loved it, too, but only because I didn’t know anything else; and Stockholm, where we sometimes went to visit my grandparents, frightened me, so northern and aloof.’
Kitty’s breathing grew calmer. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine Vienna; not her and Andro’s Vienna, but this woman’s city, this woman who was, at this very moment, embracing her. Kitty didn’t understand all the words, but she could follow the context; she could sense, feel the words she didn’t know, taste them on her tongue and draw out their meaning. As if a foreign language were no barrier between herself and this woman. As if it could not be a barrier.
‘At the same time, they must both have been unhappy in their own way, but on the whole they were more happy than they were unhappy; at least, I think so. Perhaps just because I want to think that. And they were good parents to us, they loved us in the way they thought we wanted them to. And perhaps they were right: this kind of balanced, composed, chastising yet gentle love. Perhaps it was the best love for us.’
Fred’s hand explored Kitty’s waist and slowly wandered lower. Kitty felt her stroking her scars. She didn’t want Fred to stop talking, to stop touching the hardened skin where once the stitches had been. Mariam’s stitches. Mariam, seared into Kitty’s body for ever and ever. The hand paused.
‘I still remember exactly how it began. How it started, with that nauseating Jewish star. With my father being barred from his job. With my mother’s panic attacks. She wanted to go to Stockholm, all along she wanted to get away, but he told her that was no escape. If they came to Vienna, they would come to Stockholm, too. He had no illusions about what awaited us, but neither did he make any attempt to leave the country, to flee. Many of his friends had already left. If he hadn’t waited so long, perhaps we too could have … But he simply didn’t believe there was any point in running away. My mother couldn’t understand it. I still remember very clearly what it was like when they came. Dressed all in black. Posturing with their guns. The sharp tone of voice. As if they were speaking a different language, not my mother tongue. The papers, the stamps, the train journey. First it was to the ghetto in Theresienstadt. Then we were split up — men there, women here.
The Eighth Life Page 43