Random Acts of Heroic Love

by Danny Scheinmann

  27

  LEO WAS ALONE READING IN THE LIVING ROOM WHEN THE phone began to ring. He ignored it, he had nearly finished and he didn’t want to interrupt his flow; but when the answering machine clicked on he could hear Hannah and the desolation in her voice made him listen.

  ‘Hello, Mr and Mrs Deakin,’ she said, ‘I’m trying to get hold of Leo. I need to speak to him urgently . . . My . . . erm . . . no . . . well . . . anyway it’s really important . . . I’m not sure where he is right now. Please could you ask him to call. Oh it’s Hannah by the . . .’

  ‘Hello, Hannah, I’m here,’ Leo said, snatching up the phone. ‘Are you all right? You sound upset.’

  ‘My dad died . . . this morning . . . oh God . . . love him so much . . . I don’t know what to do,’ she sobbed.

  ‘Where are you, Hannah?’

  ‘I’m at his house in Richmond.’

  ‘Listen, I’m going to catch the next train, I’ll be with you as soon as I can,’ Leo reassured her.

  ‘Leo?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, I’ve been reading your notebook.’

  ‘My notebook?’ Leo was confused.

  ‘You know, the red one.’

  ‘But I threw it away.’

  ‘I know. After that party when you saw me with that guy. I knew you were upset and I was worried about you so I followed you home. I saw you come down and chuck it in the rubbish, so I rescued it.’

  ‘Thank you, but don’t read it, it’s embarrassing, it’s full of rubbish.’

  ‘No, it’s not, Leo, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read. I’m sorry; I should have asked you first. I was going to give it back to you when I saw you but I just came across it now. I haven’t finished it yet, I’ve been flicking through, reading entries at random.’

  ‘It’s OK, Hannah, if you like it you can have it.’

  Leo decided to take the last few letters with him to London. Moritz was nearly back in Ulanow; Leo was desperate to know what happened next, but he couldn’t let Hannah down. He threw some clothes into his backpack and ran out of the door.

  As he left Frank smiled at Eve, Leo already had more purpose in his step. The inheritance was beginning to exert a strange kind of magic over all of them.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Eve asked.

  ‘I miss my mum and dad,’ Frank said, ‘I still think about them every day. Poor Hannah.’

  ‘Poor you,’ Eve whispered, snuggling up to him.

  ‘Yes, poor me,’ Frank sighed.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve done it, darling. You’ve gone and told him. Well done.’ She squeezed him proudly.

  ‘Eve?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes why?’ she repeated with a wry smile.

  Frank thought for a moment. ‘Well . . . erm . . . for all sorts of reasons.’

  ‘But for what reasons? You’ve never told me before.’

  ‘Haven’t I?’ he mumbled.

  ‘No, Frank, you know you haven’t.’

  ‘No, no, well . . . I suppose . . . I suppose it’s time I did, then.’ He coughed and grimaced; Eve was pinning him to the sofa with her eyes. Frank took a deep breath. Think, he said to himself, desperately trying to lasso his errant thoughts. Why do I love Eve? What was it that made Eve Eve? If she died tomorrow what exactly would I miss, and what would I regret? ‘I love you because . . . I love you because you won’t use public toilets and . . . because you punch me when I snore, and make me eat all the leftovers . . . because you take strange pleasure in squeezing spots . . .’

  Eve laughed.

  ‘No . . . I’m not joking,’ Frank said seriously. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I’ve sort of got used to these things. That’s how I know I love you . . . I mean I don’t really like people’s strange habits, but I like yours. But also I love you because you look after me, and because you are terribly sweet to me; and I don’t know why because I’m not an easy person to be with. And, of course, you gave me Leo and I watch you with him and I think you’re the best mother in the world . . . and you’ve waited so patiently for me to tell him my story. Sometimes, Eve, I think your heart is made of chocolate and gold because I don’t know how you manage to be so . . . so lovely.’ He stopped and looked at her, surprised. These words, which were alien to him, were stirring his heart like a stick in a pot of old paint, and he was overwhelmed by the effect it was having on him.

  ‘Thank you, Frank.’ Eve would have liked him to continue, indeed she could have listened all day, because she wondered whether she would ever receive such praise again.

  ‘I want to sleep with you,’ Frank said suddenly.

  ‘My goodness, Frank, that’s not like you.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It sounds like a jolly good idea.’

  28

  IT WAS A TORRID FEW DAYS AS LEO HELPED HANNAH AND HER younger brother Ed deal with the mountain of official documents, insurance claims, bank notices and funeral arrangements that accompany death. They were visited by the vicar from the parish church in Surrey where Hannah’s mother was buried. He had only ever met Hannah’s father, Alan, once, and that was at the funeral of his wife. Unlike his wife, Alan was a fervent atheist and never set foot in a church unless invited for weddings and funerals, or unless the church was deemed to be a national treasure and he happened to be on holiday. The vicar’s mission was to glean some useful information about Alan so he could make pertinent personal comments over the coffin in the church. Everyone knew that it was the last thing Alan would have wanted, and yet it was the last thing he was going to get before his interment because he had wished to be buried with his wife. The vicar probed gently to discover the names of Alan’s family, his achievements and his passions. At one point Hannah brought her hand to her mouth and looked down, and Leo could see she was trying to hide a smile. The vicar manfully continued with his questions, but Hannah burst into giggles. Eventually the vicar made some feeble excuse about parking meters and left.

  ‘What was so funny?’ Leo asked Hannah.

  ‘I had a vision of Dad looking down on us having tea with the vicar, and he was laughing his head off. And then the more I tried to stop myself from thinking about it the funnier it got. And the odd thing is that if I wasn’t laughing I’d be crying.’

  In the event the vicar’s eulogy seemed hollow and flat and the references to Christ inappropriate to those who knew Alan. Hannah read her father’s favourite Ted Hughes poem and the amateur organist blundered through some obscure Elizabethan requiem. Leo sat at the back of the church and listened to the rain thunder on the roof. Did it always rain at funerals?

  The door creaked open and Leo felt a shot of cold air and a damp presence at his side, it was Roberto. ‘Oh Leo,’ he whispered, ‘I was hoping I’d see you here. Are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah, fine. You?’

  ‘I hate funerals. We’ve got to talk. I think I’ve found what you’re looking for.’ He grinned and flicked back his wet hair.

  ‘I’m not looking for anything any more.’

  ‘You’re just on holiday from it. People like you will always look for answers.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Are you still mad at me?’

  ‘Not really. We’re just different.’

  ‘Or the same but on different paths. Perhaps it is our destiny to diverge and converge and only meet at crossroads,’ Roberto mused.

  Leo had missed his conversations with Roberto, who was, despite all his foibles, relentlessly interesting.

  The service died its own death, probably much to the corpse’s relief. And it was only as the coffin was being lowered into the ground next to Hannah’s mother that the enormity of the tragedy really hit home. The congregation stood huddled under umbrellas, remembering the last time they had stood at that spot fifteen years ago. Their eyes passed to the neighbouring gravestone: Sophie Johnson, née Lucas, born 1943, died 197
8. ‘Beloved mother and wife, an inspiration to all who knew you.’ Hannah and Ed stood at the graveside holding hands like two small lost children as the tears rolled down their cheeks. The coffin was sunk, the ropes released, a prayer uttered, flowers thrown and a clod of earth dropped on the coffin.

  Mother and father, husband and wife were together again.

  Leo sought out Roberto and pulled him away. ‘Come on, let’s go for a coffee.’ They found a quiet place on the high street where they could dry off and talk. ‘So what have you got for me?’ Leo asked.

  Roberto chuckled and licked the froth from his cappuccino. ‘It’s a beautiful experiment by a Frenchman called Alain Aspect.’ Roberto picked up the salt with his left hand and the pepper with his right and ritualistically banged them together. ‘When two particles collide or kiss, like this, and then bounce off in their separate directions, something very strange happens. One would suspect that, having collided, these particles would go off and live their separate lives.’ He placed the salt and pepper at opposite ends of the table. ‘But no, Aspect proved that even though these particles are separated in space they behave as if they are still magically connected. He did this by “spinning” one of the two particles and noting that the other particle would “spin” instantly in the other direction. And when I say instantly I mean literally at the same instant – there’s not a millionth of a second’s delay. They are in total harmony.’

  ‘And what if the particles hadn’t kissed? What then?’ Leo asked.

  ‘Then they behave totally independently. Kissing is everything in this experiment.’ Roberto laughed. ‘Let’s say the table is the universe and the salt is at one edge and the pepper is at the other. Even at this great distance the rule holds true. Spin the salt and the pepper cannot help but respond.’

  ‘What does this mean?’

  ‘Well, ever since the big bang, particles have been colliding with each other and forming secret liaisons. There are particles in me that are twinned with particles in the sun. There are particles in you that once danced together with particles in Eleni. And what Aspect proved was that even though these particles may be millions of light years apart they are still dancing together. They are like lovers, like you and Eleni. You are separated by death and yet somehow you remain invisibly connected.’

  ‘What’s this experiment called?’

  ‘Passion at a distance. It is the best explanation of love physics can offer.’

  Leo stayed with Hannah and Ed in Richmond for a few days as they went through their father’s belongings and packed them in boxes. They had decided to put the house up for sale and split the proceeds. Neither of them felt they could live there. They spent the long evenings talking about life and death and what it all meant. They plundered religion, myth, poetry, anything that might shed some light on the subject. They discussed the concept of fate, reincarnation, and heaven. They even got on to quantum physics, in which Hannah had shown no previous interest.

  ‘What were you thinking with that notebook?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘I don’t know . . . when I started I didn’t know what I was looking for, but by the end I realized that I was trying to prove that love exists.’

  ‘But you know it exists, Christ, you should know better than most.’

  ‘Yeah, but when Eleni died it wasn’t enough. I needed to believe that love could conquer death, because if it couldn’t then Eleni was lost for good, and what was the point of living? Everything rested on it.’

  ‘Why did you throw it away, then?’

  ‘Because I saw the stupidity in what I was trying to do. In the end what had I proved other than that I was desperate, deluded and in love with a corpse?’

  ‘Well, it worked for me, and I loved all those photos of mating animals that you ripped out of library books. So naughty, but very sweet.’

  Leo was finding strength. He was finding it for Hannah. All the awkwardness of their previous contact had dissolved and a new friendship grew from the ashes of the old. Sometimes they stayed up all night sipping wine because Hannah couldn’t face going to bed and being alone with her thoughts. And Leo would wait for her to drift off on the couch in the early morning before gently laying a blanket over her.

  After ten days Leo was itching to get back to Leeds to talk to his father. He had read the final letters and was confused. Lotte was going to get married in Vienna and Moritz had tuberculosis. His final letter was the sad diatribe of a man who had given up all hope. It was the most wretched of all Moritz’s letters to the snow.

  Why had Moritz stopped writing then? Had Moritz’s desire run out of fuel and the great love of his life been unrequited? Maybe he never saw Lotte Steinberg ever again. So what could Leo take from this story, if that’s how it ended? Moritz had crossed a continent for love, that in itself was beautiful. Whether Lotte knew it or not she had helped him survive the Great War and kept him warm in Siberia. But there had to be more to it than that. His father must have had another reason for giving it to him. Leo imagined what it would be like for his grandchildren to read his own story. What would his story look like if seen from above, so to speak? What would they be feeling if they were looking at him now? They would also see a beautiful love story which ended tragically; they would also see a man who tried his best to get his life back but who failed and was now broken and on the verge of giving up. And they would be screaming at him to find the strength from somewhere to keep his heart open and keep going.

  Leo raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘This can’t be it, Granddad,’ he said over and over again. He was leaning forward, his hands clasped tightly to his knees, his foot tapping unconsciously. He pictured himself as one of the little angels that Moritz had seen when he was close to death, one of the cherubs of the future that had raised his grandfather’s spirits. ‘Come on, don’t give up on her, Granddad,’ he urged silently. ‘Keep going, think of the future, think of Dad and me. You’re not alone, we’re all here with you, making the same journey. See how the moose journeys way up north to find a mating ground, and the whale calls out “I love you” to its partner two hundred miles away across the ocean, and the eel crosses the Atlantic to give birth, and the incredible Arctic Tern circumnavigates the world every year to mate? Please hear me, you are not alone on this planet hurtling through space, solitude is an illusion, come let me help you, rise up, walk forward, walk tall, walk straight, let nothing stop you.’

  Ed was going back to work, but Leo didn’t feel that Hannah was ready to be alone. He persuaded her to take another week off work and come back home with him. He knew that his parents would welcome her warmly, as they did all his friends. On the train Leo filled her in on his grandfather’s story all the way up to that last letter in Ulanow, and surprised himself with just how many details he could remember. He had never been one for storytelling, but watching the effect of the story on Hannah made him wonder whether there wasn’t still magic in this most ancient art form. He also noticed the effect of the telling on himself. He had never had a story to tell, never felt the power of a narrative bubbling up from his soul. For though the story was not yet finished, he already felt as if he owned it. This was his story, his father, his grandfather, and it filled him with pride. He felt like an artist who has been given a completely new palette with which to paint. And he was staggered by the depth of colour at his disposal. He found a rhythm and grace in the telling, he discovered nuance and intrigue, and the very sound of the words falling from his lips conjured an emotion that he did not know he could portray. And as he left the story with Moritz in a wretched state apparently dying from tuberculosis in 1919 he sighed and said wistfully: ‘He lived such a remarkable life. I wish I could go back in time and meet him.’

  ‘Maybe you can, Leo,’ Hannah said, ‘in your dreams. You always tell me that Eleni is alive in your dreams, and now that my dad has died I know exactly what you mean. Maybe you can enter his dreams on a beam of light and pull him back from the brink.’

  Leo smiled because he’d had the
same thought. ‘You know what, Hannah Johnson?’ He chuckled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re beginning to think too much.’

  ‘It’s an affliction of the bereaved.’

  Frank and Eve had a rosy glow.

  ‘You guys look well,’ Leo remarked as they came in the door. ‘What have you been up to?’

  Frank glanced at Eve. ‘Nothing much, we’ve been . . . erm . . .’

  ‘Gardening,’ Eve suggested.

  ‘Yes, gardening,’ Frank repeated.

  ‘Oh! That’s great,’ Leo said.

  Eve had got the camp bed out for Hannah but said that she was not sure where to put it. It could either go in Leo’s room or in the living room; it was up to them. Hannah said that so long as Leo didn’t mind she would rather be in his room, because she still didn’t want to be alone. Eve busied herself with the bed and Frank put the kettle on. Leo noticed that a snail had crept up the bottom of the windowpane. Back again, Eleni?

  When at length they were all four sitting with their tea in the living room Leo asked the questions that he’d been desperate to ask for days, ‘How did Moritz survive, and what became of Lotte?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Frank asked.

  ‘The letters stopped in Ulanow. I don’t know what happened after that.’

  ‘Oh I see . . . yes, of course, how silly of me . . . let me explain . . . you see in 1917 Lotte must have assumed my dad was dead. The Red Cross had made lists of the POWs in Sretensk and probably his name wasn’t on them. She must have grieved for him terribly. After two years her father made a shidduch, an arranged marriage, with a wealthy Viennese lawyer and she agreed to it . . .’

  29

  I WENT TO STAY WITH COUSIN MONYEK AND FOR THREE MONTHS I lay in bed wasting away . . . Fischel, my throat is dry . . . please pass me the water . . . Oh dear . . . I’m sorry . . . has it smashed? Fetch a broom and a cloth . . . careful, don’t step in the glass . . . I said go and fetch the broom . . . Fischel, please . . . I haven’t got the strength to . . . Fisch, please. Your silence is so demanding . . . don’t just stare at me . . . Fine, have it your way but now you’re beginning to upset me.