He’d fallen in love with Elsa and they’d married. Elsa, of the hysterical laugh, the passion for dogs, Sofie, Karl and anyone she could look after, the person who told him not to get so worked up about things, it would be all right. The woman who’d courageously turned her back on a Nazi father and said her life would be completely different. She had led a different life. She had enough optimism for both of them, which left resentment at what life threw at them in a corner somewhere, never to be found, so her inability to have children was not something she dwelt on and they both got on with a reasonable life, despite living in the East with all its restrictions and, not least of all, the Stasi.
It was an illness, then, that had brought everything to naught. He kept telling himself that. It wasn’t them. They were still OK, they still loved one another, didn’t they?
But it was like loving a child. This was probably what it was like, he told himself, but without the joy and the satisfaction the parental role held.
As reciprocity diminished in their relationship, he’d learnt not to ask the questions he’d been used to and what he’d always thought were part of a civilised way of caring for someone. For instance, he’d stopped asking her what she wanted to eat anymore because anything he suggested would always be met with a “no”. It sometimes felt as if this was the only word she knew with its sense of rejection severe. Nor did he allow her the privacy of showering now because this invariably led to a lot of aggravation. Instead, he held the shower handle over her, watching her vacant expression as water cascaded down her body. He didn’t think she would even know how to wash her hair. It was something that was probably impossible for her to contemplate. So they held one another prisoner, the one taking away the other’s choices. Was this, then, any kind of love?
“Is Karl coming today?”
“No, Elsa, no, he isn’t coming today.”
She looked at him, confused. His tone had changed. He couldn’t help it.
He was irritated. He was very irritated. This wasn’t life. The life that Freddy had shown him. This was existence. And he hated his existence. There was nothing for him. There, he’d said it. For so long, he’d felt sorry for her; then he’d felt he should feel sorry for her; then he’d just felt sorry; then he hadn’t felt quite so sorry; then he was wracked with guilt for feeling the latter emotions. Then, since he’d spoken with Helen and had seen what life had been like, he’d begun to accept he was sorry for himself; then he’d had the talk with Karl, got angry with him for daring to suggest that he couldn’t look after Elsa anymore and had returned again to feeling more sorry for Elsa and had heard her pleas for him never to leave her; then he’d felt a little more sorry for himself again and had tried to contact Sofie but hadn’t yet succeeded. Now, just at this moment, he felt very sorry for himself and his sympathy for Elsa had probably not been as low. He was worn out. Worn out. Shut up, Elsa. Please shut up.
“You are my beautiful little girl.” Elsa was looking at the photo of the boy. “You are my beautiful little girl,” she said to the photo and she started rubbing the glass of the frame with the sleeve of her cardigan. She stared at Peter. “This needs a clean,” she said, asking him to solve the problem.
He stayed where he was, pretending he hadn’t heard her, then shuffled some bits of paper lying on the corner table. He had his back to her, but he could still hear every word.
“This needs a clean,” she pleaded again and again, her plaintiff, pathetic voice ringing in his ear like an annoying, tiny insect. “This needs a clean.” She was getting cross and, in her sense of urgency, made the mistake of tapping him on the shoulder. “This needs a clean. It’s dirty.”
He walked away. He needed to keep walking. He went towards the front door. The insect was getting louder and louder. He wished he could spray the life out of it. Shut up, shut up. He reached the door and opened it. Elsa, perhaps in her terror as she wondered where he was going, became louder.
“This needs a clean,” she shouted. “It’s dirty.”
“I’ll tell you what’s dirty,” he turned and glared at his wife. “I’ll tell you what’s dirty,” and he snatched the photo sharply from her hands and flung it on the floor, where the glass smashed into little pieces, the plain, white back of the photo discarded beneath it.
Elsa started sobbing. “My beautiful little girl,” she said whenever she could and she got on her knees and scrabbled for the photo itself, cutting her hands in the process.
“Stop!” Peter got down beside her.
“You’ve broken my photo.” She started punching him like an inconsolable child, while he tried to get her up and away from the broken glass.
“No, no,” she shouted, trying to release herself from him. “You’ve broken my photo. I hate you.”
“And I hate you,” he shouted and slapped her across the face.
27
The air was thick that evening; it didn’t seem to want to help anyone breathe. Even though the nights were drawing in now, the city was full of people outside, eating and drinking, waiting for a storm perhaps, but taking advantage of a temperature that would soon be lost until the following spring. It was an evening that made coming home from work so much more pleasurable because there was almost another day ahead.
The first thing Peter remembered was Helen’s voice. She was kneeling on the floor next to the chair where he was sitting, her hand on his arm.
“Peter, what’s happened?” she said calmly. “Your door was open, we just came in.” He saw, then, that there was a woman he’d never met sitting on the edge of Elsa’s chair, somehow instinctively knowing it wasn’t hers to sit on.
He could see that she was looking very concerned.
He wasn’t able to answer Helen’s question. He didn’t know what had happened. He wasn’t sure where he was. The other woman stood up and said something about making a drink. He didn’t have the words to tell her where anything was.
Helen waited patiently. She was in no hurry, but after only a few seconds a terrifying surge went through his body and he came alive. “Elsa! Elsa! Elsa! Where is she? Where’s Elsa? Oh, God, where’s Elsa?” His heart was pounding, he couldn’t think properly. He ran out of the room, shot up the stairs and, when Elsa was nowhere to be found, ran out of the house. Helen must have run after him, but he wasn’t aware of anything other than the need to find Elsa. He kept screaming her name. “Elsa! Elsa! Elsa!” If he shouted loud enough, surely she’d recognise his voice. Please, God, Elsa, recognise my voice. It’s Peter. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. What have I done?
He didn’t know how long he kept this up, how many streets he went down, how many shops and cafés he went into, how many people he asked. It was a blur that made no sense, had no reality, for the only reality would be him finding Elsa. Had they seen a woman in her seventies, about this tall, grey, curly hair? What was she wearing? He couldn’t remember, oh yes, a blue blouse, white skirt. But no one had seen her. Sorry, no. Sorry, no. Sorry, no. Still, he ran. It was all his fault. By now, he could hear Helen’s voice more clearly and as he began to slow down with exhaustion, she caught up with him. She had to shout at him to get him to stop; he didn’t want to, but when he finally did, he just collapsed in a heap, sobbed and said it was all his fault. Everything. Everything.
She eventually persuaded him to go back to the house so they could ring the police and be there when they came. There was also a good chance that Elsa may be able to find her way back there, she said, and it was this that convinced him.
They walked back, he had no more energy to run, and as they did, he went into shops he hadn’t before, desperately searching and asking the same questions: had they seen this woman? Were they sure they hadn’t? He wanted to see her face. Elsa, Elsa, come back to me. I’m so, so sorry. Please forgive me.
When they got home, Elsa wasn’t there, the promise dashed, just the woman standing and waiting for them. She
made them drinks. He probably had something. He couldn’t remember, only vaguely aware of Helen offering him a mug, which he took. He told her what had happened and how he’d hit his wife and how he couldn’t believe himself capable of this because he would never do that. Did she know that?
It was only then that it struck him the broken glass was no longer in the hallway and for a minute or so he wondered if he’d had a nightmare. He’d drifted off and for some reason the front door was open. He didn’t think Elsa would open it herself, but she might wander out if it was already unlocked; maybe that was what had happened. He asked about the glass. It had been there. The woman had apparently brushed it all up. There was a photo, he said, but she replied she hadn’t seen one.
“Elsa probably has it,” he whispered and he felt he’d somehow been given a lifeline because, if she was clinging to it in her customary manner, it could be a way of the police and anyone remembering or identifying her.
The police came not long after they’d rung. Helen went to the door and ushered in a man and a woman. Both were young and had the concerned look of involved professionals. Helen signalled vacant chairs to them and they asked her if she was a relative, but she didn’t understand, so he told them she wasn’t and explained who she was. He said he thought the other woman was probably a friend.
“Mr Bayer has told us who you are,” the female said in perfect English. “Is this your friend?” she continued, indicating Audrey. Helen said she was and gave Audrey’s name.
She then looked at Peter. “Do you understand English?” she asked him. He said he did. She nodded and got a notebook from her coat pocket.
“When did you last see your wife?”
“Is anyone out there looking for her?”
“Two of my colleagues, who are aware of the situation and who are in a car, are looking, sir,” she said in a voice that suggested procedure rather than urgency. “When did you last see your wife?” she asked again.
He found it difficult to answer because he’d lost all sense of time. He said he thought it was probably a couple of hours ago because he couldn’t be sure, then gave the officer a description of Elsa, although he thought they’d already done that when Helen called them. He said he didn’t know where Elsa was likely to go.
“My wife has dementia, officer. She won’t know where she is.” He was cross at this examination and showed it, but she was used to anger and repeated they were doing all they could and she had to ensure she had all the relevant information.
“Can I ask what happened when you last saw her, sir?”
“The dementia, officer, it’s so difficult, you understand.” He put his head in his hands. “I’m not excusing—”
“He’s not excusing his tiredness, officer.” It was Helen’s voice. “I’m sure you’ve met people with dementia. It’s exhausting.” The officer nodded. Peter put his arm out towards Helen as if to join the conversation while Helen looked at him and said, “You went to the toilet, didn’t you?”
Peter started to speak, but again Helen intervened.
“You see the problem is, officer, you just can’t take your eyes off someone with this illness. But sometimes, that just isn’t possible.”
“Is that what happened, sir?”
Peter nodded. In that moment he lacked both energy and courage. The truth could wait for another time. What he wanted more than anything was to find his wife.
The officer thanked them for their time and reassured them that they would do all they could to find Elsa. As they were leaving Peter remembered something.
“She may be holding a photo, officer. It’s an old photo. Of a boy. It was her father when he was young. He always told her she was his beautiful little girl. She remembers that.”
The policewoman made a note of this, thanked Peter and, with her colleague, made for the door. Helen showed them out. Peter then weakly acknowledged the woman who’d cleaned up the glass and walked towards the hallway to find a coat. He could hear the officer outside speaking on her phone.
“Elsa Bayer. Apparently she could be holding a photo.”
The front door was open. He could see that Helen was still talking to the policewoman. He put on an old jacket. Outside, he could hear people in the street. Someone was laughing, joking about not being fit for work in the morning. It all seemed a long way away.
28
Elsa was sitting on a bench next to a stranger, a woman of roughly the same age but with a sense of dress that suggested she preferred to be associated with a younger generation than either of them. She said something about the lovely weather they were enjoying and then started talking about the summers when they were both children, though, of course, many were destroyed by the war and memories of the sun had disappeared somehow. At least that was how it was for her.
Elsa said, “My father and I used to go cycling. He taught me how to ride. I don’t remember that exactly because I was very young, but he must have been a good teacher because I learnt quickly. We used to go out on a Sunday afternoon. Sometimes we took a picnic with us.”
WAR WOUNDS
Yesterday, I saw a child’s car. You know the ones, bright yellow and red plastic, with the look of an old-fashioned bubble car. They give hours of fun to tiny human beings who have no idea of the dangers of the road but who can pretend they’re like the adults they know, driving from A to B in order to go about their business. “Watch out, here I come. Brrm. Brrm.” My daughter used to drive one that was lying around the communal garden of her uncle’s flat and she was very tickled by it.
I looked at this particular model sitting there with that view of the city behind it and felt greatly comforted, which was unexpected. It was a beautiful summer’s evening, the city lights were just coming on, telling everyone the day was coming to a close. The owner of the car, who’d parked a little haphazardly, was probably fast asleep. Tired, after their long day at the wheel. The only sign of life in the house was a light from the television and, a few feet away, a pair of adult hands moving their fingers across a piece of technology. It was all I could see of the person because this was a house that required walking a few steps down to it, so what was on view was almost an aerial picture. Out of step with the rest of the city, it was still in darkness, unwilling to accept, perhaps, that the evening had come. The car was parked at the top of the back garden. I’d caught sight of it as the house was an end terrace, its painted white wall separated from the next wall by several feet, with the gap between its side and the side of the next house offering a glimpse of something beyond.
My grandfather lived in this house. He was a man who was frightened of fear. It was something he couldn’t bear to think of in himself and something that bothered him when he saw it in others, particularly in his family. “You’re not frightened of that, are you?” and even at a young age, I picked up that the answer was “no”. I think part of him couldn’t understand the fears of everyday life and was confused when they touched him.
He was a slight man, not that tall, bald on top, with white hair around the edges, rimless round specs, who usually wore a collarless shirt and a cardigan. I remember being told that he’d been given a medal, though to this day I’m not sure what type of medal it was. My mother told me he had been in the trenches, when I didn’t know what a trench was, and that he’d been in the cavalry and when I asked what that meant, she explained he was with the horses, “Poor things.”
My grandparents then built their lives in this house that now had a plastic car as a friend. It sits high on a hill in Brighton and is very near the racecourse. I know it. I went there once with my husband and daughter. It was a similarly hot day and we enjoyed the galloping horses as we looked outwards towards the sea. I remember the sight of cold buckets of water being poured on their hot and steamy bodies after a race and my husband, though temporarily vexed he hadn’t taken our then teenager’s advice on an outsider, whereby we woul
d have left with several hundreds of pounds in our pocket, soon reassured himself that a loss was a positive step.
My grandmother enjoyed a flutter and I amused myself reading the names of the different horses in the local newspaper. It lay casually on her favourite chair with biro marks on the ones she favoured or the ones recommended by a television pundit. My grandfather hated her doing this and frowned upon it, as he might a frightened relative. He adored horses and hated them being used for gambling. It was probably all a bit frivolous for him.
A few years ago I discovered why he’d received his medal. It was because of his love of horses. I picture my grandfather in a trench with a horse for companion. He strokes and reassures it and asks “What the hell are we doing here?” He thinks of London, his place of birth, and his beloved Tottenham Hotspur. Suddenly, there’s fresh gunfire. His horse rears up, terrified. He’s terrified as well, of course, but at that moment more for his horse than himself. It’s as if it were his child. The horse goes over the top. My grandfather does likewise. It’s instinctive. The two of them work together. Bullets are fired. Two hit his back. The horse is saved.
The bullets hung around. Like malevolent time travellers, they were greedy for the souls of others, so they settled into my grandfather and watched over his life, ensuring that peace of mind never truly returned, wreaking havoc and disturbing sleep. They made sure he was always anxious, mithering about this, worrying about that, “What if this happens? How will that work out? The bullet wounds are still on my back, does anyone want to see?”
He married and had three children. My father was one of them. Not content with a single generation, the bullets seemed to take a liking to him as well. A man of great kindness, he was also a very worried one. I sometimes think of my grandfather, anxious as he asked, enquiring whether my father was frightened and his son obliging him by replying that he wasn’t. Instead, my father developed nervous tics that my grandfather probably didn’t notice because he didn’t want to see. No one near him could be frightened because then we’d all be lost.
The Writing on the Wall and Other Stories Page 15