The Other Me

by Saskia Sarginson

  Outside, I reach up to kiss his cheek and we bump noses. Our lips slide across and meet; I taste coffee. We hesitate and pull away.

  “Well, that was awkward.” He takes hold of my hand. “Do you want to try again?”

  I begin to reply, but he’s already put his mouth over mine. The sounds of the day slow and fade. There’s a roaring in my ears: waves rushing inside a shell. His arms are tight around my waist. My hands have linked around the back of his neck. I feel the tickle of his hair, catch the faint scent of his skin. My tongue grazes the edge of his teeth. It is a kiss to fall into. And I let myself fall. My stomach rises and drops. My fingers move to his shoulders and grip.

  When we pull apart, his face is open. Surprised. He touches his lips with his fingertips. “Eliza,” he says. It sounds like a question.

  ERNST

  1931, Germany

  BENEATH THE COW’S BELLY my thumb and fingers are busy squeezing and pulling. I lean against her warm flank. This is work I’ve done since I can remember. The rhythm is comforting. Streams of hissing liquid hit the side of the bucket, each spurt sounding slightly different. The cow, standing with lowered head, blows patient air from wet nostrils. I butt my head into her warmth, squeeze and pull. Nearly done. Otto crouches on his stool in the next stall. Meyer is at the end. The sweet smell makes my stomach rumble. I’m looking forward to breakfast.

  Otto appears at the opening of the stall behind me, two pails of milk balanced from the yoke across his shoulders. His bare knees look too big, the bony surface of them rough with scars. He sniffs. His nose is always sticky with snot. “First again.” He grins and walks carefully on, the pails swinging beside him.

  I finish, slapping the cow on her backside, dried mud and matted hair beneath my fingers. I don’t want Otto to take my slice of bread. I balance my pails and walk with small, steady steps out of the dim barn into the brightening morning. The sky is streaked with pink, the sun coming up over the thatched roof of the house.

  Agnes and Bettina are in the yard, wrapped up against the cold, hats pulled down over their heads. They are going to collect the eggs, baskets hanging from their arms. I watch Bettina stop in front of Otto. She says something, covering her quick grin with mittened fingers. Otto’s head jerks forward and he shoots out a hand to push her. She shrieks and jumps back. I see the milk spilling seconds after I already knew it was going to happen. Otto is so predictable. Bettina knows that too and she delights in teasing him.

  I hear Meyer’s heavy steps behind me. His hoarse shout makes me duck. Bettina and Agnes, meekly pulling their skirts about them, disappear around the corner. Otto is left, guilty, red-faced, puddles of milk around his boots, froth seeping into the mud. As he waits for Meyer, he sticks his milky hand in his mouth. He knows he won’t have any breakfast.

  Meyer is pulling the leather belt from his waist, grabbing Otto’s ear with a twist to lead him back to the barn. I look away. I don’t want to see my brother’s humiliation. In the kitchen I eat my bread and cheese, munching on the dark rye tang, the sharp flavor of the cheese. I fill my mouth with milk, holding the softness on my tongue for a moment before I swallow. I slip a crust of bread into my pocket to give Otto later. Agnes sees me. But Agnes won’t say anything.

  Otto and I walk to school. The narrow lane borders a black field. Somewhere in the middle is a flock of geese. We can’t see them—they’ve been swallowed up inside a low mist that hangs over the hollow—but their complaining voices come to us, loud as a gaggle of housewives. The red brick spire of the church rises above treetops in the distance. Otto walks ahead; he has marks on each leg, long livid stripes curving around his calves, over the backs of his knees. He stamps on icy puddles, snapping the brittle surface, splintering chunks that he kicks across the road, and wipes his nose on the back of his hand. It’s his habit to sniff; he hasn’t been weeping. We are used to the feel of the strap on our legs or backsides. We know how to hold the sharp sting inside us, breathing through the pain. We don’t cry. Not anymore.

  “He went on about the Bolsheviks again.” Otto shoots a shard of ice against a tree, watching it shatter into a spray of crystals. “Always the same story.”

  Meyer likes to boast about his soldiering days in the Great War, how evil the Bolsheviks are, what horrors they committed in the name of communism. “You boys don’t know you’re born,” he tells us when he whips us. Panting out words between strokes. “Got it easy. You need to show more gratitude.”

  Meyer beats us both, but Otto has it the worst. I’ve given up trying to comfort him. He likes it better if I ignore him; it was the same even when he was small. He hates to be pitied. People get a particular look when they find out that we’re foundlings. They feel sorry for us when they notice our torn clothes and the strap marks on our skin, the fact that we always have to share our school books and never have a packed meal to eat at break. Otto turns away from sympathy, bending over a scab on his knee, prizing it loose, making it bleed. Or he’ll find a hapless ant crawling by and casually crush it with his thumb.

  KLAUDIA

  1987, London

  SHANE SAUNTERS UP TO ME in the crowded canteen with his pelvis forward, and that smirk on his face. He’s got his hands around my waist, jerking me so close that I wince at his sharp hips. His breath is in my face. I see other people’s faces, the way they shake their heads, their looks of disgust or fear. He grabs at me as if he has the right, as if we’re girlfriend and boyfriend.

  When I try to shove him away, he whispers, “Do that again and I’ll break your fingers.”

  I stare up under my fringe, hating him. But he seems to find it amusing.

  “I like a bit of graffiti,” he says. “So be careful, or your old man will find his name on walls with the rest of his mates.” He puts on a teacherly voice. “You do know who I’m talking about, don’t you, Klaudia? My heroes.”

  My mind is numb. Blank. But I nod.

  “Say their names for me.” He licks his lips.

  The smell of food is making me feel sick. Gravy. Mashed potatoes.

  “Hitler?” I whisper.

  “Uh-uh. Go on.”

  I can’t think of another name and he squeezes my arm, pinching. “You can do better than that. Goering. Mengele, Hess…” he prompts.

  The names are dry husks in my mouth. I don’t know who they are. I don’t want to know.

  “Good girl.” He pats my bottom. “I’ll test you next time.”

  I avoid going outside at break. The library or the girls’ toilets are my sanctuaries. A swastika has appeared on the lid of my desk, drawn carefully in blue pen. However hard I rub, and spit onto the cuff of my sleeve and rub at it again, the ink refuses to budge. I pile my books over it, or lean over my desk so that I can position my elbow or hand across it.

  * * *

  Only a week till Christmas. Paper chains hang from the ceiling of the canteen. There’s a secret Santa mailbox in our classroom. Every morning when it’s opened and envelopes distributed, I pretend I’m busy checking my pencil case. To my surprise I get a card from Amber. I take it home and put it on the chest of drawers in my bedroom, where Mum finds it and nods approvingly. “That’s nice. You should invite your friend over again. Hope your father didn’t scare her off.” I give a vague smile. Amber might be charitable when it suits her, but she’s not going to commit social suicide for me.

  My mother has been baking for weeks. She started months ago with a Christmas cake wrapped in layers of waxy paper and tied with string. Trays of mince pies with stars cut into the pastry wait in a tin to be taken to the church service; vanilla biscuits are made for her prayer groups. At the weekend I’m going to help make gingerbread men.

  “We’re out of plain flour, cariad,” Mum tells me on Saturday morning. “Pop into the Guptas’ and pick some up will you?”

  The Guptas’ tiny shop at the end of our street is packed with towering shelves. Each row is crammed with everything you could wish for: packets of cornflakes, sugar, washing powder, cookies,
tins of tomatoes and dog food stacked right up to the ceiling. And there are exotic things like dried chilies, packets of saffron and cardamom pods. The smell of spice makes my nose itch.

  Mrs. Gupta is sitting behind the piles of newspapers at the counter; she gets up when I come in, the bell clanging behind me. When I go to the register to pay for the flour, she presses a lemon bon-bon into my palm. “Tell your mother I said hello,” she says.

  Saliva floods my mouth at the thought of the citrus tang. I nod and unwrap the sweet, placing it on my tongue, testing the hard surface against my teeth.

  Mrs. Gupta tips her head from side to side, and the red dot between her eyebrows dances.

  Aseema Choppra is coming into the shop as I’m leaving. I smile, my mouth too full to speak. But she clenches her jaw, lips tight. “You should pick your friends more carefully.”

  I gawp at her, not understanding. And then I realize she means Shane. I flush hot and cold, and I want to protest, tell her that he’s not my friend, but the bon-bon stops my tongue. She turns away and I crunch down hard, shards of lemon in my teeth, sticking in my throat.

  * * *

  Gingerbread men lie in rows on the cooling tray: neat ranks of soldiers, arms and legs touching. Our kitchen is full of the smell of ginger and risen dough, the windows misty with steam. My father is reading the paper in the sitting room with opera on the turntable. He’s turned the volume up. Foreign words vibrate through the house, bellowing voices filling every corner.

  Mum is putting the baking things away, running water into the sink; she pushes the big bowl over to me with the wooden spoon.

  I lean against the table and lick sweet, grainy dough from the spoon, and then stick my finger into the bowl and draw pale, greasy lines across the cool, ceramic inside. Mum smiles. “You’ve been doing that since you were a tiny thing.”

  She glances out of the window. “Look, sweetie.” She beckons to me, her voice hushed. “The robins are back.”

  We stand together, her hand finding mine, watching two birds peck at the bag of nuts on the bird table. She squeezes my sticky fingers. “Oh, Klaudia. It makes me happy to see a pair in the garden again. Such clever little birds. And so loyal to each other.”

  She goes back to the washing-up and I begin to dry, but the music pulls at me, and I step away to dance around the kitchen table with the tea towel in my hand, exaggerating my movements to match the grand sweep of the singer’s trills and soaring high notes. Each stretch of my arm, each bend and dip feels like a relief. I take my memories of school, of Shane, and throw them out into the warm kitchen, flatten them with the push of my hands. Those girls who smile at me and then turn their backs, they too are caught up in the swing of my arms, sent spinning towards the ceiling as I pirouette round and round. The music crashes and blazes, and the cloth flaps like a flag. All that matters is this moment, the smells of baking, robins in the garden, and being warm and safe with Mum.

  She laughs, rubbing her soapy hands on her apron. “You’re making me dizzy.”

  Breathless, I push the hair from my eyes. “Can’t I have dance lessons?”

  It isn’t the first time I’ve asked. I’ve looked through the window of the Catholic church hall when the ballet class is on: pupils in pink shoes and black leotards doing exercises while an old lady beats out time with her walking stick. I want to be there with them, moving my feet on the chalky floor. I dance outside, on the pavement, copying what they do, holding my arms out to the side as if I’m lifting up enormous petticoats.

  She shakes her head. “There isn’t the money, love. And you know what your father thinks of the idea.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “There isn’t a but,” she says. “Nothing to stop you dancing at home whenever you like, cariad.”

  She glances up, over my head, and her expression changes, mouth pulling down. I follow her gaze and see the tomcat from next door balancing in our apple tree, his tail thrashing. He’s climbed higher than the bird table. Every fiber of his body twitches with desire. Mum rushes to the door and yanks it open. “Shoo!”

  She’s too late. The Perkinses’ cat has something in its mouth. Other birds flutter and call in a fever of terror and rage. The cat has dropped to the grass, and slinks low at the edge of the garden, a growl in its throat, tail thrashing, feathers between its teeth. My mother runs unsteadily through the wet grass after it, flapping a tea towel. The cat, turned to liquid and shadow, slips through the bushes and disappears.

  My father stalks into the kitchen, the creased newspaper under his arm, and hurries out to her. He accompanies her back into the house, guiding her by her elbow, his face set. “I’m sorry, Gwyn. The bugger got away this time.”

  “It’s killing them for fun.” She closes her eyes, her voice flat. “That’s what I can’t bear. It’s not for food. Just for amusement.”

  He puts his hand on her shoulder. The music in the next room rolls to its conclusion, swirling voices and a crisis of strings.

  * * *

  It was later in the day that I saw it again. It was crouching in the shade of the rose bed, gazing at the bird table with a quivering mouth. My mother was upstairs putting a pile of ironing away, so I called to my father quietly, “The cat’s back.”

  Minutes later there was an explosion. A single crack: shocking in the suburban air, making every bird in the garden swoop high on beating wings. I caught a glimpse of fur where the cat had been, the outlines of its body half-hidden in grass. My mother, breathless from her dash down the stairs, pulled me to her, hiding my head in her breasts as my father went past. Despite my mother’s dress bunching against my mouth, her flesh folded into my face, I saw the pistol in his hand.

  * * *

  The glow of my bedside light falls across the open book on my lap, illuminating pages. But I can’t concentrate. My eyes are sore from crying. I can’t stop thinking about the cat.

  I’d tried to run into the garden, but Mum grabbed my arm, shaking her head. She wouldn’t let me go. From the window, I watched as my father took a spade and dug a shallow hole, rolled the lifeless body in and covered it with dirt.

  The Perkinses came knocking at our door a little later. They’d heard a shot. They were sure of it. Had we seen their cat? I’d crouched at the top of the stairs, heart beating wildly. My father murmured at the threshold. Words of denial. His pistol had been returned to the locked portmanteau. Later I’d heard my parents talking in low, urgent voices. I couldn’t pick out any phrases, just the backwards and forwards swell of an argument.

  There’s a quick knock and Mum puts her head around my door.

  “Said your prayers?”

  I nod, keeping my eyes fixed on the blurred lines of print.

  She comes to sit beside me, her weight making the mattress ping. She presses her hand against the eiderdown, smoothing the pale pink fabric. “Are you all right?”

  I put the book down and move my head. “I didn’t know he was going to kill it … I’d never have told him … not if I knew…”

  “Come on, now.” She places a palm against my cheek. “You’re not blaming yourself, surely?”

  “But … how could he?” Tears crowd my voice. I stop and swallow.

  “He wanted to protect the birds,” she says quietly.

  Anger burns a hole inside me. I shake my head. “It wasn’t the cat’s fault … that’s just what cats do.”

  She sighs. “He did it for me.”

  “But you’d never want that!”

  “Hush.” She sighs. “I know, love. Of course I didn’t want to shoot the poor creature.”

  “He’s a murderer.” I push my bottom lip out.

  “Don’t.” She places her hand over my rigid fingers.

  “Why does he have a gun? It’s horrible.”

  “Oh,” she lets out a sound of distress, as if the mention of it has wounded her. “I wish he’d get rid of it. Evil thing.” She opens and closes her mouth. Her lips make a damp sound. “He got the gun years ago, as a precaution. He
felt he needed to.”

  “A precaution against what?”

  She sighs. “I suppose we don’t talk about those days, when your da and I first got married. It’s so long ago now. And we wanted to put it all behind us.” Her eyebrows knit together. “But after our marriage there were some threats. Some … difficulties. There was resentment. Suspicion. But the gun was only for show. To make me feel safer, probably.” Her lips wobble around a smile. “Only of course I was more scared of it than I was of any busy bodies.”

  I bite my lip. I’d never thought about what it would have been like to be married to a German back then. If I got teased at school now, it must have been so much worse for her, straight after the war. It’s the first time I’ve thought about what being his wife meant. It’s not just me that’s been punished.

  “If it was so difficult—why did you marry him?” I ask, breathless with my presumption. The need to know is more urgent. “Did you love him?”

  She looks surprised. “Of course.” She moves her hand to the base of her throat, touching the soft hollow there. “You know I grew up in Wales, in the mountains?” She glances at me and I nod. “It’s tough country. Sheep farmers are the only people who can make a living.”

  I sit up straighter, dropping my book, and hug my knees under the covers.

  “I found a hawk once, injured. There was a man in our village who could cure creatures and I took it there. He let me help him. I bound up the wing and weeks later we let it fly free. There’s something about wild creatures, damaged things … I want to care for them.”

  I frown, not understanding the connection.

  “Your da was like that. Fierce and proud. Oh, Klaudia, you should have seen him. He was tall and handsome. So blond his hair was nearly white.” Her eyes are far away. “There was no one like him in the valleys. Didn’t say much. But I could tell he was in pain, inside.” She moves her hand to pat her chest briefly.