Midwinter Break

by Bernard Maclaverty

  Something else caught Stella’s eye and she moved to the corner of the room. There was a narrow mantelpiece and on it was a line of things which at first she could not understand. Mostly ordinary stones. But there was a glass marble with a yellow twist at its centre, a tiepin which looked valuable, some euro cents, a cheap glitter-covered hair clasp – the kind of thing a child would wear – more precisely, the kind of thing the man downstairs had used to fasten the kippa to his head. She raised her eyebrow quizzically. Gerry gave a slow shrug.

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Remember Schindler’s List?’ said Stella. ‘At the end. They lined up pebbles on the gravestones. As tokens.’ Gerry remembered the violin soundtrack more than the visuals. He nodded and led the way out of the room.

  ‘Coffee?’ he said over his shoulder. But when he looked round his wife was not there.

  She had the room to herself now, still staring at the little line of objects. It looked informal – like it had not been there for long, as if some schoolchild had just started it and others in the party had followed suit. It was a showing forth. A salute to, and an identifying with, those who had suffered. She wanted to make a contribution. To the victims of war. To the dead and the wounded. Coins seemed too much like a tip for a friendly waiter. What was involved here was Anne Frank and her religion, although her Jewishness seemed not to weigh too heavily on her. But her subsequent death in a concentration camp was the result of it. Also Anne was filled with yearnings that Stella recognised. The suffering involved in her death – about which there was not a word written – must have been unimaginable. Stella’s hand moved up to her earlobe and with a little manipulation the earring and its keeper fell into her cupped right hand. It glistened there – a tiny golden circle reflecting the room and its windows – an eternity ring. As a child of ten the notion of eternity had terrified her. Lying in bed unable to reach, in her mind, the end of time. The futility of trying to count to a million. The Catechism was full of it. Life everlasting. For all eternity. She reattached the keeper and set the earring on the mantelpiece at the end of the queue of tokens. The ring part of it rocked to and fro a little, then stilled. She looked around and saw that the room was empty. She bowed her head and said a prayer. It seemed easy to wish someone well, to show gratitude and appreciation for a life tragically cut short. It wasn’t so much a prayer, more an expression of solidarity. You and me, Anne. Our different faiths, our common humanity. The way we suffered. Twin souls at the opposite ends of life – you a girl, me an old woman. A young casualty and an old survivor. I make you this offering. Prayer was a summoned intensity, held there in the head and in the heart. Something good, something spiritual. Articulated, spoken inwardly, wished to the point of aching. The moment came to an end and she backed away from the mantelpiece towards the door.

  Gerry stood in the hallway looking around him. To one side were the treads of the descending stairway worn thin by the Frank family feet and others before them – not by tourists. The hollows had been sealed and protected by Plexiglas. There was a newly built staircase for tourists.

  ‘Now I’m ready,’ Stella said. He reached out and touched her arm through her coat. She seemed in another world.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  She nodded.

  In the café of the Anne Frank House Stella sat at an empty table overlooking the canal. She was too hot and began to wish that she’d left her coat in the cloakroom. She untied her scarf and let it hang loose. Gerry stood over her.

  ‘Do you want me to get the coffees?’ She nodded and combed her hair with her fingers. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The sound of ducks on the canal mixed with the yells of children playing in the distance. Not all that different to what the Frank family would have heard.

  At the counter Gerry ordered the coffees and a slice of cinnamon apple cake. As he waited he kept his eye on Stella. Her elbows were on the table, her head in her hands. Maybe it was a bad idea to come to this place. It was enough to knock anybody sideways.

  When he appeared with the tray she was putting in her eye drops – head back, elbows high, aiming the white dropper bottle, fingers holding open the lids so that the liquid would enter the eye, rather than be wasted. He set her cup in front of her and his own beside it. There was water on her cheeks. He’d remembered to bring a knife to bisect the apple cake and two forks to share it. She wiped her eyes with a tissue. He sat beside her and slid the tray onto an adjoining table. She lifted her coffee and blew on its surface but set it down again.

  ‘No, I’m fine now,’ she said. ‘I used to do that book with so many classes in school.’

  ‘It still gets you?’

  She nodded. ‘I saw those tokens. On the mantelpiece. And I was so . . . so gutted by what we’ve just seen. The house, the pictures of Anne, its memories and all that . . . and I thought why don’t I leave something.’ Gerry waited. ‘So I left an earring.’

  ‘On the mantelpiece.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Gerry looked closely at her, first at one ear then the other.

  ‘The gold eternity ones?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That I bought you for Christmas?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have.’ She bunched her fists.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ve no right to. It’s arrogance, given what that family went through. I’m not Jewish. I have not been involved in anything like their suffering.’

  ‘Come on, Stella.’

  ‘No, really. I’m not a fully paid-up member of the Pain Club, as you call it.’

  ‘If you aren’t, then who is?’

  ‘I was just doing something to make myself feel good. Swanning in and saying, “I understand your pain.” I can just hear them – how dare she?’

  ‘No, they wouldn’t. All you’ve done is made a gesture, expressed admiration. Don’t take things so seriously, Stella.’

  ‘If you can’t take the Holocaust seriously . . .’ She smiled at Gerry. ‘They can have my little token. It’s no great sacrifice. A single earring can be fashionable these days.’

  Stella cut the section of cake in two. The knife was not sharp and the pressure squeezed out a little of the apple between the layers onto the plate.

  ‘You cut, I get to choose.’

  ‘Fair’s fair.’

  ‘Anne Frank would be amazed to know you could get good coffee and cake a few feet from where she was so hungry.’

  Gerry ate, making little noises of pleasure. Nothing was said for some time. Their forks clicked against the plate.

  ‘I’m still embarrassed about it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My gesture.’ She rose and edged her way out from behind the table. Gerry looked up at her and rolled his eyes a bit.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘I’ve not finished my coffee,’ he said. He watched her stride out of the café, back the way she had come.

  She stood on the threshold of the room. It was empty. She walked to the mantelpiece, her coat and scarf now hanging loosely about her. The little line of trinkets shone, reflecting the ceiling lights. Now it reminded her of a child’s game. How dare she take part in it – her, a rank stranger, a person from elsewhere? She would not have them say – how dare she. Solidarity, my backside. Who was she anyway to think such a gesture was necessary? Just because Northern Ireland had had its thirty years war, its share of suffering. Just because she herself had been involved in that suffering. She lifted her earring from the mantelpiece and slipped it into her pocket. When she turned the old man with the kippa was right behind her, staring at her. He was looking over his rimless glasses at her. Straight into her, then down at her pocket. He was shaking his head, his mouth slightly open. Again she noticed the scrawny way he had shaved. And as she walked back across the floor she distinctly heard a gasp from him. He tried to speak b
ut Stella could not make out what it was he was trying to say. It was only then that she remembered she was in a foreign country and she would not understand what was being said anyway. But his face and arresting eyes said it all as he reached out to steady himself on the glass top of the exhibit beside him. And in a flash Stella understood. She knew she was retrieving her own earring but the old man thought she was stealing. Something of value, whether from the Frank family or from the museum or from something left in the museum – this woman was stealing. Grave-robbing.

  And there was no remedy so she kept going. Gerry was in the café and stood when she came in. He drained his cup, knotted his scarf and put his arm out for her to hook onto. She brushed past him and hurried down the stairs. He followed her, calling her name, but she took no heed. She was quicker on the stairs than he – he heard her feet running through the brightness of the entrance and into the sunlight of the street.

  ‘Stella – what’s the matter?’

  She strode along the canal with Gerry following.

  ‘Take it easy. My knee’s not good.’

  She came to a bench and sat down. When Gerry sat beside her she was in some agitation.

  ‘There was an old man in there – the one with the cap – the Jewish cap. He thought I was stealing.’ She was on the verge of tears.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My own earring,’ she said. ‘He was very old – looked like he could have been in the camps himself. We saw him in the cloakroom. Putting on his kippa.’ Gerry stroked the back of her hand. ‘He stared at me so much. I have never felt that way in my life before. Jesus’ve mercy, I’m so totally mortified.’

  ‘It was a mix-up. He had the wrong end of the stick. Those things on the mantelpiece – they’re not official. Somebody just started that . . .’

  ‘But I had no right to add to it.’

  Some ducks were curious and swam towards the figures on the bench, expecting to be fed.

  ‘You bought me those. I liked them but I didn’t like them enough. That nearly put me off leaving one – the fact that I wasn’t in love with them. It should’ve been something really precious to me.’

  Gerry looked at the one still hanging from her earlobe.

  ‘I like them,’ he said. ‘I mean. I like it.’ He reached out to touch hands again. Stella unclenched her fingers and the other earring was there, almost embedded in her skin. She had clenched it so tightly there was an indentation in the creases of her palm.

  ‘I’ve never been so ashamed in all my life.’ She sigh-shuddered and stood. ‘Desecration. Let’s get out of here. As far away as possible. I couldn’t face that man again – couldn’t explain, even if I did.’

  She left Gerry sitting on his own, facing the ducks. He jumped to his feet and followed her, only catching up on the main street.

  They walked together.

  ‘Where next?’

  ‘I don’t want to be inside,’ said Stella.

  ‘Let’s just walk. You know the way to the hotel?’

  ‘I have a map.’

  ‘Knowing the way and having a map are not the same thing.’

  They crossed a metal suspension bridge over a canal. Both sides of the structure bristled with padlocks.

  ‘Looks like they’ve something to do with bicycles,’ said Stella. She stooped to look more closely. The locks did not hold anything. They had just been snapped closed on a hawser or a section of wire mesh. Some of the brass locks had felt-tipped names written on them. ‘Don + Gwen’, ‘Micky & Minnie’, ‘Leo n Leonora’. One had a message written on it. ‘Graham and Vickey. I love you more than Coco Pops.’

  ‘It must be some kind of love fest,’ Gerry said.

  ‘Clamped for ever.’

  ‘Have you seen this kinda thing before?’

  ‘I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘It’ll be the young ones.’

  ‘Trendy ones.’

  ‘Just like the ones who started the tokens on the mantelpiece.’

  ‘Me trying to join them. Serves me right.’

  ‘When it comes to a declaration of love,’ said Gerry, ‘a padlock is a small price to pay. Compared to a tattoo.’

  Stella rested her elbows on the bridge and looked down into the black water.

  ‘I cannot tell you how distressing that whole episode was.’ She gave a great sigh. Gerry shrugged and put one arm around her. ‘Every time I see these earrings I’ll think of it and cringe.’ She opened her hand and forced herself to look at the earring. ‘For all eternity. Were they very expensive?’

  ‘A paltry sum.’

  She smiled and he laughed.

  ‘Would you mind if I got rid of them?’

  ‘They’re yours. Do what you like with them.’

  She closed her mouth tightly and tilted the palm of her hand so that the little gleam toppled into the canal. Both of them watched as the earring see-sawed down through the water, jinking out of sight into the muddy bottom. Before it had gone completely she began to unscrew the keeper from behind the one that was still in her earlobe. She reattached the keeper and dropped the whole lot into the water with the same tilting motion of her hand. Again the movement through the water was the same – a slight zigzagging followed by darkness. She turned to walk away.

  ‘Now I feel guilty,’ she said.

  ‘You can’t win.’

  ‘I could have pawned them when I got home. Given the money to charity.’

  ‘Hey.’ Gerry turned her around to face him and held her close. Hugged her. She leaned her forehead on his shoulder for a while. Then they began walking again. Gerry said: ‘I love you more than Coco Pops.’

  They came across a little park and went into it. There were very few people about on such a winter’s day. The occasional dog walker. A young mother and her child. They sat on a bench in the shelter of a box hedge, hunched against the cold. There was a children’s play park just across the path from them.

  ‘It could only be January,’ said Stella. ‘Snowdrops and crocuses together.’ A couple of men in overalls were working in the garden. One was listlessly digging, turning over the soil. Sinking the spade with a foot on the lug, breaking and slicing the turned-over sods. The other man was pruning rose bushes with secateurs. A series of little snaps.

  ‘If I’d known it was going to be this cold I’d’ve brought a rug,’ said Stella. ‘Or my hot-water bottle.’

  The young mother and her little girl went to the swings. From behind, the mother pulled the swing up to chest height and let go. She sang out the noises she thought her child should make and the child copied the sounds. After a while the child quietened and the only noise was the squeak of the swing as it moved.

  ‘They have it easy nowadays,’ said Gerry. ‘Look at the ground, it’s practically carpet. Non-scratch if the wee ones fall – a way of recycling old tyres.’ He ceased to sit hunched against the cold and stretched his legs out in front of him. There was silence between them until Stella said, ‘In spite of everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ Stella smiled.

  ‘Yes. A quote from Anne Frank,’ said Gerry.

  ‘Even in something like the texture of a playground. Scientists think, “Let not the wee ones be hurt.”’

  ‘You’ve a drip.’

  Stella rummaged for a hanky and wiped her nose.

  ‘It’s the icy air,’ she said.

  A flock of pigeons wandered among the stanchions of the swings. Then, like a handclap, they took off – whirring up in a great arc. This mass flapping seemed to frighten the child. She cried in alarm and her mother lifted her out of the swing. They came past and Stella leaned forward and smiled down at the wee one who, close up, seemed about three or four. The mother and child sat on a bench further along. A plastic ball was produced. She gave it to the girl, then meshed her fingers, holding her hands out from her body to form a hoop. The child threw the ball and scored a basket every time because the mother
minutely adjusted, swayed, coaxed the ball into the circle of her arms.

  ‘The mother’s cheating,’ said Gerry.

  ‘The mother’s teaching,’ said Stella. ‘Encouraging the wee one not to feel a failure. Anyway, teaching’s an anagram of cheating.’

  ‘It’s like the guy who shot arrows and drew the targets round them afterwards. Where they stuck. That way he got a bullseye every time. Do you feel close?’

  ‘To the end?’

  He laughed.

  ‘No, do you feel close to me.’

  ‘We’re side by side.’

  Gerry smiled.

  ‘Come on. Answer,’ he said.

  ‘Let me put it this way,’ Stella said. ‘If anybody asks me how long we’ve been married I just say, “For a protracted period.”’ They both smiled. There was silence, which was interrupted now and again by the noise of the secateurs and the spade moving through the friable soil.

  ‘In every relationship,’ said Stella, ‘there’s a flower and a gardener. One who does the work and one who displays.’

  ‘Nice one.’

  ‘Which do you think you are?’

  ‘I have no doubt I am – one or the other. Maybe both. All my life I’ve been putting the cornflakes on the table. Coco Pops, even.’ He lowered the timbre of his voice. ‘But because work involves creativity I’m inclined to display a little. To flamboy, as you call it.’

  ‘It’s the daily grind I’m talking about.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Never-ending stuff,’ said Stella. ‘Whereas you do man-work. Build something and it’s there for hundreds of years. I cook the food, do the dishes, hang out the sheets, pay gas bills, electricity bills and it all has to be done again the next time. As Virginia Woolf says, “Nothing remains of it.”’

  ‘Where would we be without my minestrone soup?’ said Gerry.

  ‘Still washing up all the equipment you used. Who does the ironing?’

  ‘You do. Far too bloody much of it, if you ask me,’ said Gerry. ‘Who ever heard of ironing underwear? Or pyjamas.’