‘When I practise again I will design huts in the style of the American West.’ Lubert stood up and started to draw something with his index finger on the steamed-up window of the hut. ‘This is all people really need,’ he said.
‘When will you get your certificate?’
‘Soon. Although that major seems determined to find something. Anything that proves I’m not clean. Imagine if he could see us now …’
‘Don’t,’ she said. Neither of them was clean, but the idea of Burnham finding out about this affair made Rachael feel especially grimy.
Lubert continued to draw on the windowpane with his finger. ‘One room, but with a minstrels’ gallery and a bigger veranda. I think this is all we need.’
She watched him with genuine pleasure. He was at his best when imagining. What she had at first taken for cocky insolence was really an appreciative, creative enthusiasm. His willingness to talk and to get her to talk about anything – religion, marriage, art, grief, loss and death – was inexhaustible. It felt as if they had shared more in these last few weeks than she had in twenty years with Lewis. ‘No more villas for millionaires. No more commissions for overfed and under-concerned Hamburgian merchants looking to outdo their neighbours. From now on, I will design buildings for the greater good.’ When he was done, he stood back for her to see. ‘There. What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Could you live in it?’
Rachael looked at his steam drawing in the window, a whole structure suggested by only a few lines. But, in truth, it was a two-dimensional impossibility, providing no answers to looming, practical questions – about Edmund. And Lewis.
‘I think so.’
‘With me?’ He asked this with more serious intent.
A British soldier’s helmet suddenly appeared in the window, in the midst of the drawn plans. Rachael sat up, pulling her covering around her. The figure tapped the window and pressed a face to the pane. It was a rapscallion face. One of the Trümmerkinder.
‘Weg!’ Lubert yelled, tapping the glass back.
The boy made an obscene gesture with his finger and thumb and continued to stare at them, smiling gleefully. Lubert went to the door and chased him away. A blast of cold air pierced the fuggy warmth and Rachael pulled her coat tighter. She got up and went to the window to look. Lubert had chased him a few yards and gamely hurled a snowball after him. The boy scampered away into the woods yelling words she couldn’t translate.
Lubert re-entered, laughing. ‘Little tyke. At least he missed the show.’
Rachael buttoned her coat, uneasy at the idea of their intimacy being a show.
‘Right,’ Lubert said, brushing the ice from his hands. ‘Time for our picnic.’
He reached into the rucksack and produced a piece of cheese, a jar of pickles, half a loaf of bread and a porcelain jar of margarine and a small bottle of peach schnapps. Lubert had brought a gingham tablecloth and some cutlery as well as two pewter goblets. He laid everything out precisely, like a man who’d done this before.
‘Did you come here with Claudia?’
A flash of annoyance crossed his features. ‘Of course. Why?’
‘I’m sorry. She … I’m just curious to know what she was like, that’s all.’
‘What would you like me to say?’ He sounded defensive now.
‘I don’t know. Just be honest.’
Lubert sighed. Apparently, this reminiscing was not part of his plan.
‘She was lofty. Merciless towards any stupidity. Stylish to the point of offensive. Good at getting the best from people. Stubborn. An introvert who was a socialite. A reader but not well read. A lover of music but tone-deaf. And a better person than me.’
‘Why better?’
‘She would have shown … more self-control in a situation like mine.’
‘Does that make her better than me?’
‘No. I mean she would never have shared the house in the first place.’
‘You still miss her, don’t you?’ It wasn’t really a question.
‘For a time – almost up until you arrived – I could think of little else. After the firestorm, I spent months searching for her. I forgot about everything else and everyone. Especially Frieda. Frieda suffered for this. I think that I lost contact with her then. And have not regained it yet. But you coming … you coming has changed this.’ He looked at her, wanting her to accept this as the truth. ‘But now I see you are thinking too much.’
‘Sorry. I think it was that strange boy.’
The boy with his gargoyle face had spooked her, puncturing their idyllic bubble.
Lubert poured some schnapps into a goblet and handed it to her.
‘You are thinking. Thinking about this situation, about what we are doing.’
Until today, she had not allowed herself to look clearly at what she was doing, and it had only just crept into her peripheral vision, but it was enough for him to notice.
‘I have had these thoughts, too,’ Lubert said. ‘Your husband has been kind. And he trusted me.’ He took her hand. ‘But what we have is precious, no? We understand each other. You have made me feel again. And I like to think I have done the same for you.’
She leant forward and kissed him tenderly. It was easier to think such things, here, in this hut. Now, in the present.
‘I almost feel I have to get away to think. Away from the house and all its ghosts. Somewhere we can talk without fear of being overheard or watched.’
‘Then I will take you somewhere. I will take you to the most beautiful city in Germany. Lübeck. The city of my birth. For a few days. We can take the train from the Hauptbahnhof. I know a place where we can stay. A nice hotel. Heike and Greta can look after the children. We can do this, Rachael. We can go tomorrow, next week.’
She could not imagine too far ahead. To do this meant thinking of other responsibilities.
‘Rachael?’
‘Yes. Yes. But let’s not talk about it just yet.’
12
Ozi paid Hokker the one thousand cigarettes and went to collect the gun from a man called Grün who lived in an apartment in Altona. Grün was almost the colour of his name: he had the pallor of a cheap teacup and wore a double-breasted suit and a hat like Hokker’s; he had two gold teeth which he made a special effort to show off by finding everything that Ozi said tooth-flashingly funny. The gun lay wrapped like a baby in a blanket on a camp bed in the corner of his stinking hovel. Grün flicked the blanket back to show Ozi his wares.
‘Mosin-Nagant 91/30 with 4x Carl Zeiss scopes. Russian practicality. German precision. And two boxes of ammunition.’
The gun was an impressive, honest-looking object and Ozi stroked the cold barrel to the muzzle, nodding knowledgeably, pretending to be a connoisseur of such things.
‘Looks good enough,’ he said.
Grün laughed at the boy. ‘Of course it is. It’s the gun that won Russia the war. You have my tip?’
Hokker had told Ozi that Grün had to be paid a tip in gold or jewellery. Berti had given Ozi a garnet necklace, and he pulled it now from his pocket and handed it to Grün, who held it up to the bare bulb.
‘It’s not rubies.’ He bit a stone. ‘But it’ll do.’ Satisfied, he pocketed it. He then covered the gun with the blanket and handed it to Ozi. ‘What’s it for then?’
Ozi was under strict instructions from Berti to say that the gun was for hunting.
‘I’m going to shoot rabbits with it. I might try it on those fat crows that float down the river, too. Why let those bastards live when we’re all going hungry?’
Grün looked at Ozi sceptically. ‘Shouldn’t you be in school or something?’
‘My school is a pile of bricks. But I go to the Tommylectures. Ask me anything about the British Vay of Life. King of Vindsor. I know.’
‘You do, do you?’
Ozi had brought his suitcase for the job. He opened it then laid the gun diagonally in the top compartment. He tucked the two boxes of ammunition into the corner and shut the case.
‘Well, I hope you shoot yourself some nice fat pheasants with that gun. You look like you could use some meat.’
Ozi took the tram to the top of the Elbchaussee then walked along the road to Petersen’s house. As he walked, he began to wonder what the gun was really for, and the more he thought about it, the heavier the case became. He had to pause every hundred yards to swap hands and rub out the red, rutted welts left by the handle. Berti was cooking up a plan to hurt Tommy. He wouldn’t say what, only that it was big. Ozi had tried to explain to him that Tommy was not so bad, but Berti’s mind was hard to change. It was set like stone. Wasn’t that what their mother had said? That’s what happened when you couldn’t forget a trespass: you turned to stone. Berti couldn’t forget what happened in the night raids, seeing his friend Gerhardt turned inside out. He couldn’t forgive Tommy for that or for what happened to their mother, their cousins, aunts and uncles and all the others in the great firestorm. The medicine had helped, but he still had nightmares. And he didn’t get enough sleep. Perhaps the stronger medicine would help.
Ozi picked up the case and continued along the road, arguing it out.
‘I could throw the gun in the river and tell Berti that I was chased by some Tommies.’
‘Berti will find out.’
‘I could throw it away and get the hell out of Hamburg.’
‘He would only come after you.’
‘I could warn Edmund. Go down to the gates of his house when no one was looking.’
‘Too dangerous. If Berti knew then …’
‘Who can stop him?’
‘There is only one person who can stop him.’
‘Who?’
‘Me.’
‘He won’t be able to hear you. You know that I am the only one who can hear you, Mutti.’
‘He will recognize my voice. If he sees me he will think twice … Let me talk to him.’
‘Yes. He will listen to you. To you, he is still just little Berti, who cried at night and made us laugh when he sang songs under water. Berti who hid his comics in his pants when he knew he’d get a beating. And who once had a smile like Lew Ayres. I haven’t seen my brother smile for several winters, but he will smile for you, Mutti.’
Ozi found Berti snoozing in an armchair pulled to the front of the fire in the dining room. Judging from the position of his arm and his distant smile he had just injected himself with the new medicine.
‘Hey, Berti.’
Albert didn’t acknowledge Ozi’s entrance. Ozi had preferred him when he was taking the old medicine: at least that had made him engage with the world; this new medicine took him far away.
‘He isn’t ready. Let’s do this another time.’
‘It has to be now.’
‘But look at him. He has that dopey look. Trust me, Mutti, you don’t want to talk to him when he is like this.’
‘It has to be now!’
Albert opened one eye and sat up straight.
‘You have it?’
‘I have it, Berti. It has Russian practicality and it has German precision.’
‘You said it was for hunting.’
‘I said it was for hunting, just like you told me to.’
‘Where is it?’
Ozi opened the case, lifted the gun wrapped in its blanket and laid it at his brother’s feet. Albert leant forward in his chair to look at it. His hands were shaking and his face had a sheen. He threw the blanket open, picked up the gun by the stock and nestled the butt into his shoulder. He trained the barrel on the wall, the ceiling, then on Ozi.
He won’t talk now he has the gun, Ozi thought.
‘Trust me.’
‘Did anyone see you come?’ Albert asked.
‘He’s not even heard me, Mutti. How will he hear you?’
‘Let him see me.’
‘Who are you jibber-jabbering to?’ Albert asked.
‘No one.’
‘Yes. You were talking to yourself. Are you still talking to our mother?’
‘No.’
‘You were. I heard you say her name.’
‘Let him see me now.’
Albert stood up and came towards Ozi, still aiming the gun and adjusting the scopes as he did so.
‘She wants to talk to you, Berti. She says she still knows that you are the same boy who used to smile and laugh and collect all the bottles in Hammerbrook. She says that she knows you saw a bad thing … but she thinks this plan to hurt Tommy is bad. There must be some Russki. Or a Frenchman. Or a lousy DP from Silesia.’
‘She does, does she?’
‘Yes. Come, Berti.’ Ozi beckoned him back to the suitcase. ‘Come and see.’
Albert walked towards it.
‘Under the top part.’
Using the gun, Albert lifted the divider to reveal what was in the lower compartment of the case.
It contained the head and ribcage of a semi-skeletal, semi-fossilized body, the mummified and shrunken corpse of someone caught in a particular phase of the firestorm, dressed in a girl’s lace christening gown, yellowed by time and confinement. The skull was brown-grey and still had some crinkled, burnt, black hair. It was shrunken like a head-hunter’s trophy.
‘Bombenbrandschrumpffleisch?’ Albert said. ‘Why the hell have you got this?’
‘It’s Mutti. Look, Berti. It’s our Mutti. I found her outside the Wendenstrasse coffee factory. Three days after the great fireball. I had to put this dress on her. She was naked. And I felt bad. And some of her has broken off. And the Tommy-bombs made her small.’
Albert stared at the skeletal doll.
‘It’s just any old corpse.’
‘It’s her. Look. See what is around her neck.’ Ozi pointed to the silver chain and cross melted out of shape. ‘She wanted to see you, Berti. And I am sure if you listen you will hear her speak … You can hear her. You know what she is saying? I can hear it. She is saying: “Put down your gun. Forget the trespass!” The way she used to. Can’t you hear her, Berti?’
Albert looked at the appalling cadaver and his mouth started quivering with a raging disgust.
‘Did you hear that?’ Ozi asked. ‘She really speaks.’
‘You crazy fool,’ Albert said. ‘You crazy, fucking, fire-brained freak!’
He took Ozi by the lapels of his smoking jacket and pulled his brother in close, eyeballs to eyeballs. ‘You lost your head. The heat melted your brain! She is dead. Dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! Dead!’
Ozi continued to object. ‘But you know that she is right.’
‘No! She isn’t right because she is dead! She doesn’t know anything about this because she is dead. She doesn’t speak because she is dead. Gone. Goodbye. Dead!’
‘But she would say … she would say … this.’
‘No, she wouldn’t. She would want me to do it. And Gerhardt would want me to, and all my friends would want me to, too, and our cousins. And our aunts and uncles. She would listen to me … not you. She always listened to me. I was her favourite. You were a freak. Born in a sac!’
‘She said that was good luck.’
‘She did not even want you! I heard her say that to Father. You were a mistake. You were the bad plan …’
Albert pushed him back away from the catafalque suitcase. He then lifted the corpse – light and
brittle as a wicker birdcage – from the case and carried it towards the fireplace. A rib fell to the ground as he lifted her. Ozi scrambled across the floor and grabbed it, stuffing it into his belt.
‘What are you doing, Berti? Don’t break her.’
Albert lifted the corpse high then dropped her into the flames. The dry fabric of the christening gown was like summer tinder, and it flared up quickly. Ozi tried to interrupt the pyre but Albert pushed him back again and stood like a fire-guard over the conflagration, and watched until the bones collapsed in and their mother turned to ash.
‘You will be all right here … while I’m in Kiel? Seeing the Buckmans?’
‘Yes, Mummy. You have asked me three times this morning.’
Rachael had discovered that an affair required a scaffolding of lies to hold it up, until – she presumed – the structure was solid enough to stand on its own. Every day seemed to demand she add another cross-plank to the construction. Her interactions with Edward tested its foundations more than anything else.
‘I won’t go if you don’t want me to.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You will be good? Don’t wander off too far. Do as Greta and Heike say, yes?’
‘Yes.’
She could not stop herself from touching his face, the lovely, downy hair on his cheeks that would one day stiffen to stubble.
‘Is it all right if I show Frieda the films again?’ he asked. ‘She told me she likes Buster Keaton best.’
‘Of course. I’m pleased she’s being friendlier now.’
‘She was jealous before. I think it’s because she doesn’t have a mother.’
Rachael was relieved to hear that Edward felt a mother was still worth having.
The Aftermath Page 26