The Writing on the Wall and Other Stories

by Penny Edwards

  She shuffled slightly and took another sip of coffee.

  “You see, Rosa, Hans is, well, he’s a very… artificial man.”

  She looked at the garden; the bird had gone and the clothes hung still and vertically. The wind must have dropped. Her face was burning, as if it understood her anger and felt both her embarrassment and guilt at this flagrant departure from all the loyalty to husband and family she’d held dear.

  “In that moment I could see that Stephen, their friendship, their life together, didn’t seem to matter somehow. It was the first time I openly accepted to myself that it wasn’t that Hans was someone who felt things but found it difficult to talk about them, it was simply that he didn’t feel them. The material world was so much more to him than I’d ever suspected. It wasn’t more, it was everything.” She stopped and began to cry and it was only when Rosa bent forwards and took her hand that Margot found herself, even now, defending him with the remark, “He wasn’t always like that. When I first knew him…” but she didn’t want to continue down a path of reminiscences that weren’t relevant to this conversation.

  She took a hanky out of her trouser pocket and wiped her nose.

  “You know, Rosa, our generation, we spent so much time convincing ourselves we wouldn’t have been part of all that in the thirties, we wouldn’t have joined the party, we were cleansed and we cleansed ourselves, hardly daring to ask questions of our families; who had done what to who was unbearable and secrets abounded. There were always whispers, of course, but no one ever wanted to start an argument because we all knew that the one thing we didn’t know was that our own family was completely clean, the obvious question being that if they were, would they still be alive? And for decades we knew visitors here looked at us. What did he do? Was she involved? There was a dirt you carried round with you that couldn’t be scrubbed off.

  “So I suppose I wanted a hero, someone my children could never wonder about; I’d done enough wondering myself and swore this wouldn’t be a legacy for them. Hans seemed the perfect man, with a genuine passion for Western freedom and his desire to ensure as many people as possible could experience it. So his involvement in the escapes was very attractive.” She paused and then sneered. “Hans my hero. No one’s going to look at him and question anything. His credentials are impeccable.”

  Rosa shuffled slightly, then asked Margot if she wanted another coffee.

  “No. Thank you,” Margot replied and drank the rest of the coffee she already had. “What I didn’t understand about Hans was that he wasn’t an idealist. He was someone who wanted to make a lot of money. And, of course, I didn’t complain. I had a big house, all the clothes and jewellery I could possibly wish for and holidays most can only dream of. A very desirable life, you might say.

  “The trouble was, it was all a bit more complicated than that. That’s an overused word, isn’t it? It’s almost as if something being complicated lets us off the hook, somehow.

  “Hans did help Germans like your father, Rosa, and at first his work, certainly when he was with Stephen, was exemplary, but then Stephen left for England and from that point things seemed to change. You see, Hans began to charge for his efforts. He saw a business opportunity, if you like. At first, not much, a tip almost, but he knew he was on to something and that people, and especially their families in the West, were willing to pay vast amounts to ensure their relatives’ freedom. It became very successful and Hans seemed to revel in his entrepreneurial luck.

  “I suppose I did the classic thing of not asking too many questions and I kidded myself that these people could afford what was being asked. And on top of that Hans was being a businessman in the mainstream world, working in property, which always seemed to me to be legitimate, and for Hans it even tied in with his work with escapees as a few bought properties from him. What I didn’t know then, though I’m not saying it’s an excuse, was that Hans became completely unscrupulous in his dealings with people who were desperate to get out of their difficult and, more often than not, frightening lives. Knowing this fear, knowing their desperation, Hans started to charge exorbitantly for his services. He knew he could do this; people in the West would do anything to see members of their families they hadn’t seen for years and even if they couldn’t immediately pay him, he entered into a loan with them.

  “But not long ago I discovered he’d become something of a loan shark, demanding cruel rates of interest that apparently turned him into a bully when they weren’t paid. Funnily enough, I found this out from a volunteer who came to the museum. She didn’t know who my husband was and began to talk about this man who’d helped her sister’s family over from the East, and the description she gave of him and the circumstances, well, I knew it was Hans, but it wasn’t the Hans I knew or for that matter the man our friends knew. I can’t imagine the picture I was given is the one you have of him. Or Helen, for that matter. I tried to think it wasn’t my husband, but then the woman said her brother-in-law had followed him home one night. Just to see what kind of a home he had. She said this man had threatened them when they had difficulty paying the money to him.

  “I thought that was bad enough, but then she said, despite what the man had done and the way he behaved, they asked him to help them get their cousin out. He agreed but reneged on his promise when they missed a payment, though they gave good reason – an illness making it impossible for her brother-in-law to work that particular month – and their cousin was shot climbing the wall.”

  22

  Freddy tapped the pockets on the front of his jacket, watched by Peter’s enquiring eyes. They were standing in front of one of those notices that nobody wanted to talk about but that made Peter want to be sick. Freddy seemed to have found what he was looking for – a crumpled piece of paper and a pencil – and it looked to Peter as if he was copying down the words on the notice. I can read, Peter thought. And I don’t need you to tell me I’m guilty. I’ve read it a hundred times. He started to walk away from the person he had thought was his friend. How nasty of him to write it out like that, shoving it in my face. I’m only twelve.

  He could hear Freddy shouting his name, so he quickened his footsteps, frightened in case Freddy was going to fight any resistance he might put up. They were both running now and Peter could hear Freddy’s pleas for him to stop. His German was pathetic, but he caught the word “friend”. That’s what you’ve been taught to say; you don’t mean it. But it did make him stop and turn round. He stared at the British soldier. Freddy caught up and breathless – something Peter was pleased about because it served him right – offered Peter a piece of paper. Reluctantly, he almost snatched it, throwing the soldier a contemptuous look. “You’re not guilty, Peter,” he read and he smiled, not because he was deemed innocent but because Freddy couldn’t even get that sentence right.

  *

  “I’ll murder you.” Elsa was standing over him. He must’ve dozed off. “I’ll murder you,” she repeated, as if condemning him once wasn’t enough, and he wondered what part of her mind reached for that sentence. Had the illness infected her with those dark words in a way it might, with a different ailment, infect her with spots? Or had she always felt this anger towards him and it had remained dormant all these years, caught in a web of polite social normality, even with her husband? Whatever it was, she was very angry. In his few minutes of reverie, he’d abandoned her and his care of her was the only thing that could matter to Elsa.

  He felt disorientated. His nap had taken him elsewhere and he wasn’t quite sure of himself. He’d always disliked sleeping in the daytime. It left him in a strange reality that had no truth to it for a while afterwards. As if to guide himself back to the day as much as anything, he took Elsa’s hand and walked her to the kitchen where he began to make coffee. She started one of her five main stories, the one about having gone with her husband to the posh hotel over the road for a meal.

  “It wasn’t like that years
ago, you know.”

  He said he knew. He always said he knew.

  The other stories ran like this:

  Her grandfather had been in Ypres in the First World War. Did he know her grandfather? No, he didn’t. He learnt some French there, you know.

  Her husband was an English teacher. The headmaster said he was one of the most popular teachers in the school. He smiled at this one but gave no response.

  One day, she’d gone out with Peter and halfway through the day she realised she didn’t have any knickers on. As this was a story she seemed to often leave for company, his response ran something like he was sure the waitress didn’t want to know, to which the confused, angry look on his wife’s face suggested why not?

  Her father was a very kind man. He always thought of others. “You are my beautiful little girl, aren’t you, Elsa? Such a wonderful smile.” Oh, yes, such a lovely man. Yes, he’d reply because she didn’t understand argument. But it would churn him up no end.

  He took their drinks and they both sat down on their easy chairs. She went with her husband to the posh hotel over the road for a meal once. It wasn’t like that years ago, you know.

  He put Beethoven’s Fifth in his mind, deliberately and loudly so that each instrument was reaching its full potential, a crescendo, bright and clear to try to erase the posh restaurant, which he was beginning to loathe; there they were, those beautiful notes, so lively in his mind that what was happening in the room mattered less.

  She went with her husband to the posh hotel over the road for a meal once. It wasn’t like that years ago, you know. Then she gave up talking, exhausted with her own efforts and just looked at him with the vacant expression of someone wanting something but not quite knowing what that something was. It was as if someone he didn’t know was sitting opposite him. The confusion was mutual. It felt as if they were both on a ghastly fairground ride that had nothing to offer but fear and there was no getting off. They couldn’t even face it together. There was a chasm between them, belying their physical proximity and serving as a punishment for both.

  *

  Peter could see Freddy patting the dog. It was one of a regular group that wandered aimlessly, scratching around for anything that was going, worn out, their bedraggled coats dusty and knotted. Most wore collars and some had names, but without owners they no longer knew who they were and had no purpose. They were both standing on a pair of railings, Freddy looking around, probably waiting to stop any trouble, the dog just looking around. The last time Peter had seen him, Freddy seemed to know a bit more German. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t all that bad and he was pleased that he was teaching himself a bit of English. It was his secret, his life that he kept quiet about because he was fed up of trying to share it with his mum and his aunt, who were stuck in their anti-English and -American chitchat. They seemed blind to the fact that some of them, like Freddy, were good blokes, but they just kept telling him he shouldn’t make a friend of an English soldier.

  But he enjoyed learning another language and he liked the world he’d made for himself around it. Now the bombs had stopped he walked about more, even though his mum talked endlessly about the danger of looters, rabid dogs and rubble – though what the danger of rubble was she didn’t say – and made sure he found enough reasons to escape what could only loosely be described as home. So on this Tuesday afternoon he’d walked across the rubble and through indistinct streets to where Freddy often was and as he got nearer he could see his English friend, feet slightly apart, standing straight, and he felt a similar reassurance he’d felt when he was with his father, a thought that brought a melancholy comfort because it could never be retrieved, lost on the night when, unbeknown to his mother, he’d got out of bed and watched two men put his father in a car, though he didn’t think for a moment then that this would be his last sight of him.

  His aunt generally referred to his father afterwards as brave and stupid, a confusing concept for a boy used to adults referring to you as one or the other. The trouble was that nobody seemed to want to talk to him about his anger towards someone so close to him and so important, who’d apparently abandoned him without even bothering to say goodbye.

  That afternoon, in broken languages, he and Freddy talked a bit about music and football, both lending themselves to a certain amount of mime, and Freddy picked up an old tin from the rubble and they kicked it around for what must’ve been half an hour or so. Then Freddy said he was sorry to tell him that he would be leaving Berlin the following week. He had to go back to England. But at least they could have a few more games before he left.

  23

  Margot tried to imagine what it would be like not to turn the double lock of the front door, not to have to pull it towards her and turn the key harder when it rained. She tried to imagine not putting the keys on the small octagonal table in the left-hand corner of the hallway and not putting her coat in the cupboard under the stairs. Not placing it on the third hook on the right. The first one was Hans’s, the second and third had belonged to the children and she had been the fourth but had moved up one after they had left home, the hook next to Hans’s left for visitors. It was easier to access. She tried to think what it would be like not to make coffee in the kitchen, go and sit down on the large sofa, kick off her shoes and wait for it to percolate. She could time that without reference to any watch or clock. She tried to imagine an evening when she was out and not returning here. The truth was she couldn’t.

  She sipped her favourite South American coffee, savouring every drop, and then started the business of writing a letter to Hans. She looked at the garden. It was as beautiful as the house and she’d miss it just as much. Had he ever really loved her? She thought about Helen and how Hans had always said it was the German girl who Stephen had truly loved. But these days she didn’t believe much of what Hans said, so this was another story she couldn’t be sure of, like the excuse he gave for them not attending Stephen’s funeral. It had absolutely nothing to do with an illness in the family. Rather, a greedy deal her husband didn’t want to miss.

  She looked at the blank piece of paper and thought about all the things she could have written – the amazing children they’d given one another; the lifestyle she’d had and how, despite everything, she’d enjoyed being able to write a cheque or draw money and never had to doubt it was there for her taking; the beautiful house where she thought she would live forever; all the memories only both of them knew – but feeling so awkward with Helen, knowing they should have been with her at Stephen’s funeral was the last straw.

  She wrote a note, not a letter. It read, “Hans, you’re a bully and I can’t be by your side any longer, Margot.”

  As she walked away from it and saw it lying on the table, she thought about Hans’s response. Would he view it as a deal that hadn’t quite come off?

  He’d probably have a few drinks, then conclude it was life. There was always tomorrow.

  24

  Peter had been told by a nurse that there were certain colours people with dementia responded to. Many, like blue, would have probably already disappeared from Elsa’s mind, she told him. Red, on the other hand, was one of the last to disappear and it was a good idea, for instance, to use red cutlery on a white tablecloth. Black was a hole, she said. “I hope you don’t have a black toilet because she might be very frightened of using it if you have.” They didn’t, he replied; it was white.

  Elsa was happy hugging her photo. She rocked herself like a child. It was hers and hers only. Well, he was more than happy for that to be the case. He was in his own world where he was still reeling from an argument he’d had an hour or so ago with Karl, who’d had the audacity to suggest that he couldn’t go on looking after Elsa like this. It was a fine state of affairs when an old pupil was telling him how to lead his life. He just kept coming back to the point that Peter needed more respite. Respite. What was that? Worrying himself sick about Elsa somewh
ere else or worrying about her here because she was somewhere else? Didn’t anyone understand there could be no respite, no rest, no peace of mind? These were all things that had deserted him long ago. Karl had said, what about the football match? Well OK, but that was a national event, something that he almost had an obligation to enjoy and he thought to himself there were the English conversations he’d had with Helen. But there, that was his point. They had ended in catastrophe. Karl said, “Peter, you need to look after yourself,” but he had no idea and had raised his voice to tell Karl so while Elsa asked who Karl was. He wanted to turn to his wife and say, “To be honest, I’m not sure,” but such a thought was far too complex.

  He had to grapple single-handed with the notion that Karl seemed to have changed from someone who was sympathetic to a person who was hectoring him to do something he had no intention of doing. He could only put together, “How dare you?” which in retrospect perhaps sounded a bit childish, but it came from the heart.

  The last time he’d been anywhere near angry with Karl was when his pupil had rejected further study and university. Peter had said the usual things – he was bright; he’d be wasted leaving school now – but Karl had retorted that not everyone’s passion lies in study, which, because it was said calmly and with great maturity, had felt particularly hurtful.

  Why should anyone else care for Elsa? He wasn’t ill, just a bit tired, that was all. Everyone gets tired. What about Elsa? How could he let his wife be looked after by strangers, washing and dressing her, seeing parts of her that were meant only for his eyes? He’d like to see them try.