When I came in from the balcony, she wasn’t in the apartment. Her things were still there, but she herself had disappeared. I went downstairs and looked for her on the street, on the surrounding streets, went to Nollendorfplatz, looked for her in the U-Bahn station. My nerves were in tatters. I went back and called my mother again. I complained to her, accused her of not having brought the girl up properly, and demanded that she talk to Brilka and persuade her to go to the airport with me.
‘She’s behaving like a lunatic. I don’t know what to do with her.’
‘Well, then make a bit more of an effort, Niza. I’m afraid I don’t have an instruction manual to give you.’
‘But Deda, no, you can’t do this to me. Talk to her. Do something! You brought her up, you must know how to deal with her.’
‘Maybe you can convince her to go back to Amsterdam. She might listen, and then she can travel home with the group.’
‘I don’t understand why you let her get away with all this. You were so much stricter with us!’
‘Yes, but you had a mother.’
The words made me flinch. I decided not to say any more. I clung feverishly to the suggestion she had made about Amsterdam; that might be a solution. But it was already starting to get dark, and I still didn’t know where she was. I decided to go out again, but as I was putting my shoes on the doorbell rang, and she marched up the stairs as if nothing had happened and walked past me into the apartment. I could already hear her calling from the kitchen that she was hungry.
I wanted to protest, to bring her to her senses, but I realised I didn’t have the energy for it, and went into the kitchen. Since there was nothing left in the fridge, I suggested we go shopping. Suddenly she seemed excited by this — very banal — idea, and even smiled at me.
‘And can I choose what we buy?’ she asked excitedly, as if we were talking about her Christmas list, not groceries.
I admitted defeat.
The previous year, I had bought a turquoise 1969 Ami 8 Citroën, with a wonderful leather interior and a dual carburettor. It was my pride and joy, and I had even risked playing in another anonymous poker game in Schöneberg to afford the restoration work, which wasn’t exactly cheap. I went out to the car with her. Going for a little drive would kill some time; plus she would find it difficult to escape once we were in it.
She seemed to like the car. She touched every button and knob, and wanted to feel the steering wheel. What seemed to delight her most of all, though, was the old cassette player. Without asking if I wanted to listen to her music, she took the tape out of her Walkman and put it in. The songs were poor quality recordings taken from the radio, which broke off in the middle or faded out in certain places. But I had to admit that, for her age, her taste in music was well-developed and quite good. When I started to turn into the supermarket car park, she murmured plaintively that it was a shame we were there already.
‘You like driving, then?’
‘Yes.’
At least that was one thing we had in common.
‘Do you want to keep going?’
‘Yes.’
I accelerated again. She wound down the window and put her hand out into the warm airstream. I looked over at her tentatively. All at once there was something young, naive, girlish in her face. Something about the sight of her moved me, and I was ashamed of my inability to deal with her.
‘Is the old cherry tree still standing, in the garden?’
I don’t know why I thought of the cherry tree, of all things, but an image of her suddenly came into my mind, playing in the garden, running round the cherry tree, in the same spot where Stasia’s ghosts played cards, and I liked the idea.
‘Yes. It’s still there. But it doesn’t really flower any more. Elene and Aleko aren’t very good with plants. Stasia used to do all that.’
‘Do you remember her?’
‘Of course.’
‘But you were still very young then.’
‘She smoked filterless cigarettes and talked to ghosts. She wore green boots and dungarees. Her hands shook, and when she was younger she wanted to be a great ballet dancer.’ She was watching the street, the passers-by, the passing cars, and humming along to her songs. When a song came on that she particularly liked, she rewound the cassette and listened to it again.
‘What else do you remember?’
‘Everything,’ she said confidently, and once again I was at a loss for words. Something about the way she said it gave me the sense that she was right, even if I didn’t know what this everything covered. The certainty in her voice piqued my interest.
‘You mean absolutely everything?’
‘Yes, but I don’t remember you,’ she said, snippy again.
‘Well, that’s not exactly surprising. Shall we go back? I mean, the supermarkets will be closing soon.’
‘No, keep driving.’
We drove around aimlessly. Into the balmy summer night. Gradually, my tension eased. I stopped feeling so overwhelmed and harassed.
‘So, what do you remember?’
Brilka put her head out of the window and shut her eyes.
‘I don’t really like remembering.’
‘Why not?’
‘Maybe I just don’t enjoy it.’
‘Well, there are a lot of things I don’t enjoy, either, but I do them anyway.’
Once again, I was taken aback by her precocious manner. For a moment I wished she were a docile little girl who loved dolls, wore frilly dresses, and stuck pony posters on her wall. ‘What don’t you enjoy? Give me an example,’ I said.
‘Well, the fact that you fetched me back, for example. I mean, I knew Elene would phone you, and that you’d come and get me. I was just hoping I would make it before you found me, that I’d make it to Vienna. I don’t enjoy going to school, I don’t enjoy going to church with Elene, I don’t enjoy having to invite a load of schoolfriends to my birthday every year so Elene doesn’t worry about me. I don’t enjoy listening to stupid music, either. I don’t enjoy dancing the girls’ parts in our dance troupe. I don’t enjoy it when people answer my questions by saying: that all happened a long time ago, it’s of no interest to you.’
‘Aha. And what are the questions people give you that answer to?’
‘Most of them.’
‘For example?’
‘For example, whether my mother killed herself or whether it was an accident when she fell off the roof terrace.’
Luckily, we had stopped at a red light, otherwise that would have made me slam my foot down on the brake.
‘What would make you think that?’ I asked her, still looking straight ahead. ‘I mean, that she wanted to kill herself?’
‘Well, you don’t fall off a roof terrace just like that, do you?’
‘Did Elene tell you that? That she fell off the terrace?’
‘No, someone at school told me. Elene just said she’d had an accident. But my mother was the most beautiful actress in the whole of Georgia, did you know that?’ As she said it, her face lit up and her tone softened.
‘It was an accident. She didn’t want to kill herself.’
Somebody sounded their horn behind us. The lights had been green for some time.
Later, we went to a kebab shop, and I waited almost half an hour for her to start eating, because first everything had to be neatly separated and sorted into colours on her plate. Red cabbage and meat were immediately placed on a side plate and pushed away.
When she had finally fallen asleep on the sofa-bed, I crept into the living room and studied her soft face. Only my sister had slept so peacefully, so blissfully.
The sun is in mourning
The springtime glitters
We have slept away wakefulness forever
STANISLAV POPLAVSKY
I couldn’t get hold of anyone in Amsterda
m; they had already moved on. The next morning, when Brilka went for a shower, I snuck a look at her passport. Her tourist visa was valid for another two weeks.
After breakfast, which took her an eternity, as I’d expected, she sat out on the balcony with her Walkman and her notebook and wrote.
I trusted her, left her alone, and went to my lecture. Aman hadn’t reappeared, and I didn’t know whether this was a good or a bad sign. He had to prepare for the tour, and would have less time now.
In the early evening, I persuaded her to go for a walk with me. She kept her headphones on and trudged along behind me with an air of boredom. The next evening, I took her to the cinema. She seemed to have a pretty fair grasp of English, and we watched a Hollywood blockbuster in the original language. I had been on the internet, researching other ways of getting her home safely. But the huge distance meant that a plane was really the only option. When I explained to her that her visa would soon run out and she couldn’t stay in Germany any longer, she shrugged again and retorted in her usual insolent manner that I was clever enough to come up with something.
In her regular phone calls with Elene, she talked about me and Berlin with exuberance, laughing repeatedly, as if her stay here were an entertaining holiday. She told her about her discoveries and the things we had done together with an enthusiasm she never displayed to me. She merely accepted all my suggestions, everything I showed or told her, with a nonchalant indifference, as if nothing in the world could impress her.
*
‘You can’t hang around here forever. You have to go back, go to school or your dance classes, or whatever,’ I said, making another attempt to persuade her over breakfast, a week after she had arrived in my apartment.
She peeled a radish until the red skin had disappeared entirely, then calmly popped it into her mouth. Completely ignored what I had said. I snatched the plate from her hand and stood over her, forcing her to look at me.
‘Listen when I’m talking to you.’
‘I don’t want to go home. I have to go to Vienna. And you either have to drive me there or let me go by myself. I’ll come back, don’t worry.’
‘How likely do you think that is? I can’t let you go to Vienna by yourself. And I can’t go with you, either. Nor do I want to have to look after you the whole time. As you may have realised, I’m not that keen on children.’
‘I’m not a child.’
‘Of course, you think you’re all grown up. Besides, I promised your grandmother I’d get you back in one piece.’
‘You always say “your grandmother”, you never say “my mother”.’
‘What does that have to do with anything? Are you even listening to me?’
‘I don’t have school. It’s the school holidays in Georgia and my dance troupe is still travelling. I’m free.’
‘But I’m not, for crying out loud!’
I slammed the plate back down on the table and left the kitchen.
When I came back to the apartment that evening, I found Aman on the stairs, his saxophone case beside him. He was reading one of the free advertising papers that had been lying around on the staircase, and he looked exhausted: the last few nights, which he had obviously drunk his way through, were etched into his face. I was sorry for him. I felt unkind.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘There’s a kid in there.’
‘Yes, I expect you’re right. It’s my mad niece, who doesn’t want to go back home.’
‘I was hoping you’d get in touch.’
‘Where’ve you been sleeping all this time? You really need an apartment, Aman.’
‘I thought I had one.’
I was annoyed; I got my key out and opened the door. He placed his saxophone case carefully on the hall floor. Brilka was sitting on the balcony with a plate of peeled apples, her eyes closed as she listened to her music. She hadn’t heard us come in and thought she was alone. She was swaying rhythmically back and forth, her bare feet tapping on the floor to the same beat. In ripped shorts, her long, thin legs looked like they belonged to a grasshopper. Her hair was standing up in tufts. Her deliberate effort at relaxation was almost moving.
I went into the kitchen with Aman, made him some tea, and sat down opposite him. It was a humid evening and our clothes were sticking to us. I wanted to take him in my arms, ask him to play me something, get drunk on the sight of him or on his music, fall asleep wrapped in each other’s arms with no promises, no plans, no admissions on my part.
‘I’m a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing,’ I said, when I had explained the situation. ‘I have to get her home somehow and I don’t know how to do it. But whatever happens, I won’t be able to come on tour with you.’
‘Bring her along.’
How I hated this naivety. Everything was so simple: he had a solution for everything.
‘She’s only twelve, Aman. Come on, I can’t just take her on tour!’
‘This isn’t because of her. It’s you,’ he said, taking a sip of his tea.
‘Aman, this is too quick for me, all this.’
‘Too quick? Too quick? How long have we known each other? How long has this thing been going on between us, Niza?’
‘That doesn’t mean anything. How long you’ve known someone. That’s something else.’
‘You’re a coward. You’re just a coward.’
He lowered his eyes ruefully. The way he admitted defeat so quickly was something else I couldn’t stand about him. This maxim that he hadn’t come into the world to change anything, but to make the best of it.
‘But we were fine. We had a good thing going.’
‘No; I wasn’t fine with it.’
‘My God, Aman. I always valued the fact that you spared me all this sentimental crap, and now you go and do just what people always do.’
He turned his oily eyes on me. I hated this look. This sad, all-accepting look.
Suddenly, Brilka was standing over us. She eyed Aman uncertainly, then strode up to him and put out her hand in a very grown-up way. She introduced herself in English. Aman seemed amused; he took her hand and shook it and said his own name as well. She went to the fridge and got out one of her bottles of Fanta, which I had bought in bulk and lugged up to the apartment. She drank from the bottle, scratching her knee with her left foot as she did so. She looked like a yogi practising a Fanta meditation. I couldn’t suppress a smile.
‘Is that your saxophone in the hall?’ she asked.
‘How do you know it’s a saxophone? Did you look inside?’ I snapped at her in Georgian. But Aman had already gone out, and came back with the saxophone. He beckoned her over and showed her some of the fingering. Then he let her blow into it. I took my chance and escaped into the bathroom; I needed to be alone, to stand under the shower. I was grateful to her for coming into the kitchen just then and ending that unpleasant conversation.
When I came back out, still damp, the two of them were standing by the door ready to leave.
‘What’s going on? Where are you off to?’
‘Down to Nollendorfplatz. We’re going to make some money,’ Brilka announced proudly.
‘What? What are you going to do there?’
I cast an admonishing glance at Aman.
‘She dances like a second Mata Hari, she says, so we’re going to see if that’s true. I’ll play, she’ll dance, and if we’re good then people will throw piles of money at us. And then your niece can buy cassettes and ice cream. That’s the deal.’
They were out of the door before I had a chance to object.
For a brief moment, I felt something like jealousy of Aman. It had taken him just a few minutes to make a connection with my niece, while she put me to the test every day, stretching my patience and strength to the limit. I got dressed, initially decided to stay in the apartment and sulk, but didn’t hold out for long and went dow
n to Nollendorfplatz. I stopped at the corner, where they couldn’t see me, and watched from a distance. They had positioned themselves outside the entrance to the U-Bahn. He was sitting on a step, playing with such abandon that it inevitably drew me in, swept me along, as he always did, even when I was listening to him not in a large concert hall but in a dingy bar that stank of urine. At first, Brilka stood off to one side, looking nervously at the passers-by. Gradually she ventured closer to Aman. When he started up something rhythmical, she finally stepped in front of him and began to dance. Initially she was tentative and uncertain, a little self-conscious and bashful, but soon her tension vanished and she too was in her element, just like Aman.
Of course, what she performed wasn’t rehearsed choreography. She was reacting to his music with her body, becoming lighter and lighter, as if she might start to float, becoming freer, more uninhibited, until something like happiness spread across her face. Captivated by the unusual sight, I stood motionless, spellbound as I watched this ecstatic, oblivious pair, wishing I had the same means at my disposal for forgetting the world around me.
People stopped, applauded, threw their coins into Aman’s case. There was an intimacy about them, as if they had been in tune with each other for decades, their light-footed tightrope act floating between two worlds.
What did she want, what should I be seeing, recognising — guessing, even? What was she hoping to find in Vienna? What would this answer mean for me?
Thinking about it today, I can’t fathom why I didn’t see the fundamental, obvious thing here; why I asked her only the wrong questions. The question I should have asked wasn’t what she hoped to find in Vienna. The question was why she was here. With me.
Watching her, I tried with my whole body to stem the flood of images. I didn’t want any comparisons, parallels, overlaps. The longer I watched her, the closer the others moved towards me again. The dead and the living. And I stood somewhere in between, still not knowing to whom I belonged.
*
Later, the three of us strolled through the streets as she ate an ice cream, coins jangling in her pocket. She kept putting her hand to them, clearly proud of her haul. She walked a little way behind us, hopping over potholes, missing paving stones or kerbs. In Genthiner Strasse she caught up with us, walked beside Aman, and hooked her arm through his. He took a bite of her ice cream. She squealed in delight and pulled it away from him. She spent the whole evening trying to convince him to take their ‘show’, as she called their joint performance, to other parts of the city where there were more people. I didn’t want to spoil the peaceable atmosphere, and relied on Aman to take an adult approach. But he was already suggesting other U-Bahn stations that might be good for playing and dancing. Maybe they could test the waters with a little gig at the club where he usually played, he said; the audience there was open to anything, and his band were sure to be just as keen on the idea, and seeing as it was a Friday, they could go there right away. Of course, she was immediately full of enthusiasm.
The Eighth Life Page 110