The Einstein Girl

by Philip Sington

  On the third day I was taking a bowl of broth to my mother when she took hold of my sleeve and bade me sit down by her bed. She was pale and thin in the face, and for the first time I could clearly see the impression of her skull through her shrunken flesh, the round eye sockets and the rows of teeth that her thin lips barely covered. I sat down with the bowl of soup and the tray on my lap and thought this is how Death comes, not with a knock at the door, but from within. He is there inside us, waiting to come out. After that, I did not want to look at my mother any more, for fear that I would only see Death there, and not my mother at all.

  She took my hand and told me that something had been troubling her, and asked if I would set her mind at rest, to which I said I would with all my heart. She said she was much afraid about the future and in particular for Senka. She asked me to promise that I would take care of her and see that she was always provided for, as much as it was in my power. ‘You will be all right with a husband,’ she said. ‘But poor Senka will be all alone one day, but for you.’

  Her concern seemed to me somewhat one-sided. For, as I have said, I saw no great prospect of a husband in my future. I was almost as much alone in the world as my sister, and certainly as dependent on our father’s good will. But I held my tongue and promised that I would do as she said. As if by way of consolation, my mother then patted my hand and said she had no worries where I was concerned, for she had always known I had some bright stars in my destiny and that they would take care of me. And at once I thought of how fortunate I had been with my education and the money that had been found to pay for it, and wondered if there was not more to the matter than destiny alone.

  The next day my mother seemed somewhat improved. She had some colour in her face, had regained some appetite and was more animated generally; so that we had cause to think the worst had passed. But two nights later the fever returned more strong than ever. She was delirious and woke us all with her crying out. Then she was suddenly quiet again and fell asleep, and by morning she was dead.

  I never thought there was any great love between her and our father, especially on his part, for he was always complaining at her. I had never been able to picture them as a courting couple, solicitous with each other and ardent in their feelings. But when my mother died, it was as if our father had lost everything that mattered to him, as if the greatest love imaginable had been brought to a tragic end. He wept and moaned and carried on such that I could not bear to be near him, but instead took my grief outside the house and shared it with poor Senka, who I was afraid would not understand what had happened or why. We huddled in a corner of the stable and clung to each other and wept, as our old horse looked on, shifting his weight from hoof to hoof. When it was at last time to go back into the house, the geese gathered all around us, following close behind like an escort of mourners. Not one of them hissed at me that time or showed any sign of hostility, which I appreciated even in my distracted state.

  There is no need to describe further those days, except to say that it fell to me to make the funeral arrangements and that I was glad of the occupation. I also found that in being mindful of my sister’s sorrow and doing my best to comfort her, I found no small comfort for myself. There is no better way to make light a burden than to take up another’s, as I am sure you have observed.

  I was concerned that without a woman to cook and clean, my father would let everything fall into chaos. So I made arrangements for a woman in the village, a respectable widow by the name of Maja Lukić, to keep house. She had worked for my mother once before, as a nursemaid and help around the house, and had always given a good account of herself. Father slowly regained his composure and, after a period of a week or so after my mother had been laid to rest in the churchyard, went as far as to ask if I did not have studies to attend to in Zagreb.

  A short while later I bade farewell to Senka and made my way back to that city, grateful for the chance to devote myself to my work, but with a sense of foreboding that I could not fully account for. Father was quiet, quieter now than he had ever been, and Senka was fully recovered from her illness. Yet I sensed something brittle in this tranquil state of affairs, like a thin layer of ice over a skating pond, just waiting to crack.

  Thirty-one

  Robert Eisner forced open the drawer using a screwdriver and the heel of his shoe. The filing cabinet wasn’t usually locked. He had delved into it before without recourse to such drastic measures. Sometimes he was curious to know how Kirsch was handling his cases (Kirsch was so much better at keeping up with the latest thinking). More usually he was on a hunt for items of stationary or official forms, Kirsch’s office being a lot closer to his own than the store cupboard two floors below. On this occasion his motives were financial, although the very fact that Kirsch had locked the cabinet on his departure for Switzerland was curious – not to say provocative. After all the favours Eisner had done him, Kirsch was not entitled to secrets.

  The top drawer came loose with a jolt. It slipped from its mountings and crashed onto the drawer below. Eisner froze, listening. It would be embarrassing to be caught in Kirsch’s office with a screwdriver and a ruptured filing cabinet, but it was half past six and most of the patients and staff were having supper. He turned off the overhead light. Working by the desk light alone, he hauled the drawer back into place and got on with rifling through the files.

  The first thing that caught his eye was the letter from Dr Eugen Fischer of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. It seemed Kirsch had won himself a lucrative commission. I consider this work to be of the highest importance, and I feel sure it will result in a significant publication. Eisner sniffed. So that was it: a fat cheque and a significant publication. He wondered what Kirsch had done to deserve such preferment. Alma’s father must have put in a good word. What other explanation could there be? Unless Fischer had seen Kirsch’s name in the newspapers: the eminent psychiatrist assigned to the case. What a joke that was. The eminent Dr Kirsch. What an outrageous piece of luck.

  There were voices on the other side of the door. Nurses. Eisner eased the drawer shut and picked up a book, preparing to look nonchalant. The nurses laughed, the clack of their shoes growing louder before retreating down the corridor.

  Eisner went back to the cabinet. At first, de Vries had been content with verbal information about the case – impressions, observations, gossip – for which he paid surprisingly well. Eisner had told him as much as he could, which was not a great deal, Kirsch being lately so secretive and untrusting. But lately the reporter had grown more demanding. He wanted facts, case notes, details.

  ‘You want me to steal them?’ Eisner had protested.

  ‘Of course not,’ de Vries had replied. ‘I want you to borrow them, for a fee.’

  Patient E’s file was the fattest in the drawer. Eisner spread out the contents on the desk: newspapers, postcards of Berlin, sketches in pencil and charcoal. Faces loomed up out of the dark shading, like ghosts from the grave: a kindly old man with white hair, a matinée idol type, frowning thoughtfully. Here was Heinrich Mehring’s shiny dome; Nurse Auerbach with her glossy painted lips, lips he planned on kissing, if nothing better came along. And here was Kirsch himself. His portrait was bigger than the others, his features rendered in bolder lines. He looked sad. But what did he have to be sad about? A luckier man had never been born.

  But something was missing. Where were the notes? The reports of interviews, diagnoses, formal and informal? Where were the reports of medication and treatment? Patient E’s was not a medical file. It was a collection of keepsakes. As if Patient E were not really a patient at all.

  But if she were not a patient, then what was she?

  The telephone rang. Eisner jumped to his feet. Someone must have spotted him sitting at Kirsch’s desk – perhaps Kirsch himself. Eisner looked over his shoulder at the narrow window. It was too dirty for anyone to see in. Or was it?

  The telephone went on ringing then abruptly stopped. Eisner eased himself back into the chair, a hand
over his pulsating heart.

  Near the bottom of the file was some kind of receipt. It was for advance payment of a month’s worth of rent, dated a week before Christmas. But the name at the bottom was not that of Kirsch’s usual landlady, Frau Schirmann. This landlord was called Mettler and his premises were on Wörtherstrasse.

  Kirsch kept a city street map in the top drawer of his desk. Eisner ran his finger down the index. Wörtherstrasse. He had heard the name before. The grid reference told him it was somewhere north of Alexanderplatz – very near Kirsch’s place, in fact. Why would Kirsch be renting two apartments, juts a few streets apart?

  That was when he remembered.

  Kirsch had called it a ladies’ rooming house. It was where the Einstein girl had been staying before she lost her memory. But why was Kirsch paying her rent? And how long had he been doing it? A week? A month? A year?

  The bulb in the desk light was emitting a high-pitched buzz. It burned suddenly brighter then went out with a loud pop. Eisner sat in the dark, thinking about Kirsch and Mariya Draganović, trying to work out what was going on; trying to see what he had missed.

  There had always been aspects of the affair that were distasteful, not to mention odd: the way Kirsch had cornered the case, thrusting himself into the limelight at the first hint of press interest, launching himself at photographers like an aspiring actress at an opening night. Eisner had assumed that this was simply a matter of self-interest. A famous psychiatrist was a valuable psychiatrist. Private clinics would pay good money to put a recognised name on their staff. Was there more to it than that? Was there another story, besides doctor and patient, that he knew nothing about?

  If so, how much would de Vries pay for that?

  The door of the rooming house was open no more than three inches, a chain across the gap thick enough to strangle an ox. It was a raw night, frost already glistening on the cobbles, making them treacherous underfoot.

  ‘I’m a reporter with the Berliner Morgenpost,’ Eisner said, because that was the best lie he could think of. ‘I was hoping for some background on your old tenant, Fräulein Draganović.’

  Herr Mettler, dressed in a greasy chef’s apron, squinted at him through steamed-up lenses. An unappetising smell of boiled flesh drifted out into the night.

  ‘I’ve nothing to say,’ he said, putting his shoulder to the door.

  ‘I’d pay.’ Eisner reached into his pocket and produced three five-Reichsmark notes, holding them up where Mettler could see them. ‘For your time and trouble. I realise it’s late.’

  The door remained ajar. The chain rattled against the wood.

  ‘Herr Mettler?’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Just what you told the doctors at the Charité. About your tenant.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask them?’

  ‘You mean Dr Kirsch?’ Mettler did not reply. ‘He’s left the country, unfortunately. No one knows when he’ll be back. Besides, you know how doctors are.’ With a twist of thumb and finger, he fanned the banknotes out. ‘Ten minutes of your time. And I promise not to quote you. No one will know I was here.’

  A truck was approaching, yellow headlamps flickering among the avenues of trees, long shadows reaching across the road like claws. Over the roar of the engine, Eisner heard shouting.

  Herr Mettler took off the chain and held open the door. As soon as Eisner was inside, he shut it again, bolting it top and bottom. The uncomfortable thought occurred to Eisner that he was now a prisoner. He hunched his shoulders and glanced around the hallway, took in the faded green wallpaper with its floral pattern, the row of empty pigeon-holes, the grandfather clock in the corner with one hand missing. The smell from the kitchen was awful – not a cooking smell at all, but the smell of bones being boiled up for stock. And he thought suddenly of Carl Grossmann and Georg Haarmann and the other famous murderers who had cooked up their victims’ bodies to make potted meat.

  Herr Mettler closed the kitchen door and held out his hand for payment. ‘I don’t keep tabs on my tenants,’ he said. ‘As long as they pay up, then as far as I’m concerned, they can do as they please.’

  Eisner handed over the notes and waited to be shown into another room, but it seemed the interview was to be conducted in the hallway. Herr Mettler squinted at the money then squirrelled it away in the folds of his apron.

  ‘That was one thing I wanted to ask about. Has she been paying up?’

  ‘The room’s still hers for the time being.’

  ‘Thanks to Dr Kirsch. He’s been paying for her?’

  ‘He’s made arrangements on her behalf.’

  ‘Very kind of him. Most unusual for a doctor, wouldn’t you say?’ Mettler said nothing. ‘How long are these arrangements going to continue?’

  ‘You’d have to ask him.’

  Herr Mettler squinted at Eisner, his tongue working around his grey incisors, as if in anticipation of a meal. There was something furtive about him, a demeanour of concealment. Perhaps it had something to do with his tenants. Maybe they weren’t all studious young ladies, come to Berlin to improve their minds.

  ‘I’d like to see her room, if I may.’

  If Kirsch and the girl were already lovers, there would be some proof of the fact up in that room. There would be a love letter, a photograph – a book, knowing Kirsch. A book that might be revealingly inscribed.

  ‘What for?’ Herr Mettler said.

  ‘Background. What’s the number?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Does it have a double bed or a single?’

  ‘Single. All my rooms have singles. This is an establishment for ladies.’

  Eisner glanced up the stairs, saw no sign of light. ‘Which floor?’

  ‘A let room is a private room. This isn’t a fairground.’

  ‘Of course not. Fifty Reichsmarks for a quick look around.’ From the kitchen came a hissing sound. Eisner eased the last of his banknotes into view. ‘The girl’s lost her mind, for God’s sake. Why should she care?’

  Herr Mettler sniffed and pushed his spectacles back up his nose. ‘Sixty. And everything stays put.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  Herr Mettler eyed the money. ‘I’ll get the key.’

  He went back inside the kitchen. Another belch of fetid carcass wafted into the hall. Eisner brought a handkerchief to his nose and turned away, his gaze coming to rest on a letter lying propped up in one of the pigeon-holes, beneath the number 3.

  The letter was addressed to Mariya Draganović. It bore a foreign stamp and a postmark that clearly read: ZÜRICH. Was it Kirsch’s handwriting? It was hard to tell.

  There was no time to think it over. He took the letter, slipped it inside his wallet and tucked the wallet back inside his coat.

  Herr Mettler reappeared with a key in his hand.

  ‘You know what?’ Eisner said, moving back to the door. ‘Maybe I’ll come back another day. I’ve already taken up enough of your time.’

  Back on the train, Eisner tore open the envelope. There was a letter inside, though the motion of the train made it impossible to read more than a few words at a time. The handwriting was cramped and untidy, obscured by frequent crossings-out, occasionally switching into schoolroom clarity, with neat, upright letters, before collapsing back into a scrawl.

  The writing was not the only strange thing: the envelope was addressed to Mariya, but the letter inside began Dear Elisabeth. Was that a mistake? Eisner wondered. If not, which was the correct name?

  He got off at Friedrichstrasse. They had installed new electric lights above the platform. Round and white, they were lodged in the whitewashed ceiling like a row of sightless eyes. He pulled out the letter again and read from the beginning:

  Zürich, 1 February

  Dear Elisabeth,

  I thought you hadn’t answered my letter, or if you had, that they hadn’t let me see your reply. I didn’t want to write again, because what could I say if I was being spied on? I usually give my letters to a nurse here w
ho is friendly. She posts them outside with the money I give her, but it is possible she gives them to Dr Zimmermann first. I don’t know if I can trust her. So this time I am posting the letter myself on one of our trips out. There is a confectionary shop with a post box outside. We are always led inside to look at the sweets, as if we are all children, and we are allowed to buy something if we have some pocket money. It’s a pathetic exercise, but I play along.

  I’ve been waiting for you to come back from Berlin and hoping fervently for the success of your mission. I never believed you had forgotten me, but I did fear that you had given up all hope of success and returned to Vojvodina. I had many bad thoughts about it, but I never guessed that you might have fallen ill, or rather that they would say you are ill so as to watch you and make sure you keep quiet. I feared there would be dangers for you in that troubled city, but perhaps I didn’t realise how great those dangers would be. The world is changing. Ignorance is safer than knowledge; lies a lighter burden than the truth. Still, I hope you don’t blame me for telling you what I know. I could see how very great was your need, if only because of the child.