They leant over a wall and looked down at geese on an ornamental lake. They were close enough that they almost touched each other. Stretching out her hand directly in front of her he did the same and the backs of their hands almost came together. She could feel the fine hair on the back of his hand tickling her and it was a moment of intense intimacy such as she felt she had never shared with Manfred.
Birgit decided that it was the moment to ask about the girl she had seen with Christa.
Jurgen very slowly moved his hand away, and when he answered he didn’t look at her:
‘I don’t know who she might be.’ He looked out over the lake into the distance. ‘I think one of our operatives must have been over-tired the night of the party. There was more than one because we knew there would be several people to observe. The file says that you went to the spare bedroom and got under the coats?’
‘Yes, I was hiding. I was a little tired and drunk.’
She was unhappy that he had moved his hand away. He said:
‘The file states that a woman then came to the door and took out a child.’
‘Christa and…’ Once again she struggled for the name. Then she found it: ‘Katia.’
‘I am telling you too much,’ Jurgen shook his head slowly and then looked at her for the first time. ‘But the other operative only saw you leave the room. You talked to me. There was no mention of a woman or child leaving before you.’
‘That’s strange.’
‘No, not really. The files are not always accurate.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘But I didn’t see Christa or the girl,’ he said.
‘Your memory might not be accurate either?’
‘It is usually.’
Birgit’s affair with Jurgen started several weeks later. Each Monday they would meet and their discussions seemed to her to be quite unimportant, although she enjoyed them and quickly came to look forward to them. They did not discuss what was happening, and there were times when she doubted that anything ever happened. But on the day that it happened properly he drove her out of the city to the countryside where he had been as a boy. They left the car parked in the road with the driver, and in a wood he remembered fondly they had kissed, and walked back hand in hand, releasing each other only as they came in sight of the car. The following week it was raining and they took shelter in a barn. She was sure that he enjoyed the danger of it, but with him she felt safe; as though there could be no possible threat from the world. They had made love slowly and tenderly, and afterwards she fell asleep with her head on his chest, looking up at him. He was alert to the sound of anyone coming upon them and she trusted him. When she awoke he was still in the same position, looking around, but not too nervous. He was very careful.
The week after that they must have walked a couple of miles from the car over fields where the boundaries seemed to be lost over the distant horizons. The field was vast and she told Jurgen that she felt able to comprehend the curvature of the earth. Out there in the open they made love; he said that they would see anybody coming long before they were observed themselves.
He took her to several different places, but on the tenth week of the affair the car was driven into the centre of the city rather than out of it. Jurgen would not talk to her properly in the car, she understood that, but she ventured to ask where they were going. His unwillingness to reply scared her, and when they turned off the busy roads into a quiet side street her worst fears seemed to be realised. They were allowed through a barrier into the courtyard of a large and impersonal concrete building. There were very few windows in the forbidding walls, and no sunlight seemed able to penetrate down to where the car stopped.
They got out of the car and Birgit obediently followed Jurgen to the entrance. He showed an identity card and they went inside and down a long beige corridor. Birgit did not know what was happening but assumed the worst; she assumed that this was the end of everything. She did not know what she had done wrong or what her punishment would be, but she was convinced that her old life was finished.
Birgit and Jurgen waited on hard chairs outside a nondescript door and she did not have the nerve to ask Jurgen why he had brought her there. He now seemed as nervous as she was, if not more so; she felt somehow horribly resigned to anything that might occur.
They waited without speaking for a quarter of an hour before the door opened. A woman appeared and beckoned Birgit inside on her own. It appeared to be a doctor’s consulting room although the old man who looked up at her from behind the desk was not wearing a white coat. He did, however, produce a stethoscope, asked her to remove her coat and listened to her chest through her blouse. He took her pulse and her blood pressure and all the time asked indifferently after her general health. Once he had made a few notes he took a little blood and finally she was sent behind a screen to provide a sample of urine. When she had finished the doctor dismissed her and out in the corridor she found Jurgen still waiting for her.
He took her down another corridor, down some stairs and they doglegged back, along a similar corridor a floor underground. Half way down they were met by another man who asked them to sit down on hard chairs. This time they did not have long to wait before being asked inside a dark room by a tall, fat man whose clothes did not seem to fit him properly.
He walked over to a curtained window and Birgit followed. She suddenly realised that the door was closed behind them and that Jurgen had not followed them in. For the first time she felt really afraid and started to shiver nervously.
‘You are Birgit Haker?’ asked the man.
She agreed that was her name.
‘Look through this window please.’
He pulled open the curtain. In the brightly lit room beyond was the little girl she had seen at the party.
‘Do you know who this is?’ Birgit was asked.
‘I think her name’s Katia,’ she said.
The man seemed pleased. He then asked: ‘Is she your daughter?’
‘No, why do you ask?’
‘Is she your husband’s daughter?’
‘Not that I know of.’
The man closed the curtain and said: ‘You may go out.’
Birgit stayed where she was.
‘Can I ask…?’ she started to say.
‘No,’ said the man unemotionally and so she turned, walked over to the door and fumbled to open it in the gloom. She was assisted from outside by Jurgen who showed her immediately across the corridor to another room. This time she discovered that Manfred and Christa were inside. It was a small room with four chairs against the back wall.
Her husband stood up as Birgit entered and she walked tentatively towards him. She wasn’t sure how he would react but he put his arms around her and hugged her. While in his embrace she stole a glance at Christa, who was staring at the floor.
‘Do you know why are we here?’ Manfred asked Birgit.
‘No. But I was asked if I knew Katia.’
At the mention of the little girl’s name Christa looked up.
‘What do you know about her?’ she demanded.
‘Nothing, other than that she was with you at our party.’
‘At the party?’ asked Manfred. ‘And who’s Katia?’
Jurgen shut the door behind them from the inside, but almost immediately it was opened again and the man from the room opposite came in.
‘Would you all sit down please?’ he asked. ‘Can I ask you not to do or say anything?’
He waited until Manfred, Birgit and Jurgen were seated and then went back out of the door. Birgit was surprised to see Jurgen was sitting, waiting, like the rest of them.
The door then reopened, and in came Katia, with an expressionless woman of indeterminate age walking behind her, her hands on the little girl’s shoulders.
‘Now, Katia,’ the woman addressed her, stooping down to her. The little girl looked up at the tall man and Birgit wondered just how tall he must seem to her.
‘See these people here,�
�� she said to Katia, directing her to look at those in the room who were seated. ‘Do you recognise any of them as your parents?’
The little girl looked shyly at each in turn and lingered longest on Christa. Birgit noticed the subtle changes that had happened to the woman; the swelling belly and breasts; the healthiness of her skin. She wondered if Manfred had done that to her.
The little girl eventually looked at Jurgen.
‘Is it him?’ she asked in a small voice.
‘No,’ laughed the woman.
‘Is it you?’ the little girl asked, looking up at her. It was obvious that she just wanted to please the woman; to get the right answer.
‘No, it’s not me, poppet,’ she said. ‘Let’s go back out.’
They left and the tall man followed. When the door was closed they all looked around at each other. Manfred spoke first:
‘They can do a test, surely?’ he asked.
‘They are,’ said Jurgen.
Manfred then looked at Christa: ‘Is she yours?’
At this Christa suddenly started to cry. She stood up, looked about her and then fled the room.
‘Can we leave as well?’ asked Manfred.
‘I think so,’ said Jurgen uncertainly. He got up and went to the door, took a breath before opening it, and peered out into the corridor. He looked back at them conspiratorially: ‘Yes, I think we can go.’
They followed him down the corridors and up the stairs. His car was still waiting outside and he told them he would take them back home. None of them spoke on the journey through the traffic, out to the suburbs. Birgit was cautiously optimistic that somehow a disaster had been missed, or averted but did not want to discuss it for fear of her luck turning. She did not even want to think about what had happened but as she walked back in through her own front door she realised that it would be impossible just to carry on as before. She knew that it was far from over. She simply sat down in her living room and waited for the next chapter to begin. She looked into the top corners of the room, trying to locate the camera. She wanted to communicate to them that they might as well begin then and there.
‘What are you doing?’ Manfred asked.
‘You don’t know?’
‘No. I’m not sure I understand anything.’
‘We are being observed.’
‘Don’t be so stupid.’
‘This is just another scene in a film that has not ended.’
‘What?’
‘Me, you, Christa, Jurgen…we are all actors in a drama.’
‘What drama? What’s this all about?’
‘I don’t know.’ She felt that perhaps she had not been concentrating properly. She looked to Manfred, wondering if her lines were to be spoken next, or his.
‘You’re having a nervous breakdown,’ he decided. ‘I almost think you want to have one. I’m going to call a doctor.’
She let him make the call and then, together, they waited. When the car pulled up outside he seemed baffled when it was one of his colleagues and when he asked Manfred, not her, to go away with them. He argued, but she paid little attention. A short while later another car arrived for her and she didn’t demur. She didn’t question anything. She didn’t once look back.
The following days passed quietly and happily for Birgit. They eventually explained that she was to stay in the all-female community until the last month of her pregnancy. Nobody told her directly that she was pregnant, but she knew immediately when she saw the state of the other women around her. Then she felt the changes to her body; it felt almost a response to her environment. They were very kind to her and gave her light work to do which she quite enjoyed. She felt more stimulated than she had done before and didn’t miss Manfred particularly. When she thought she might do she considered her relationship with Jurgen and decided that she missed that more. She was, after all, pregnant with his baby.
She began, slowly, to think more and more about the new life growing inside her. What was initially something of a surprise was discussed by the nurses, when talked about at all, as something almost conceptual. In her mind it started out like that, but as the weeks passed she recognised the new life within her as a nascent person. There would be a child; a little girl or boy. It was odd that nobody wanted to discuss her future beyond the fact that for the last month of her confinement she would be taken to another hospital. She was told that it would be down south, and was very well-appointed and comfortable, and they were right.
Birgit’s labour, when it finally arrived (she was two weeks late and they were considering inducing her) was a long and painful one. She hardly knew what was happening afterwards and was encouraged to sleep. They gave her pills which she was happy to accept.
Although she was sore and they gave her more medication, the next few days were more emotionally painful. She was not allowed to see her baby and she realised that the pills they were giving her were meant to stop her from worrying about this. She existed in a mental fog until she was moved again to another all-female community and the medication suddenly ceased. The work there was harder and as days passed, then weeks and finally months, her emotions seemed to resolve themselves. She knew intellectually that the child had never been hers. She liked to imagine it with a foster family in a house like the one she had once lived in with Manfred. The little girl was actually somebody else’s daughter. If there was a strange feeling inside her, an ache, then it was one that she knew she would have to come to terms with.
They checked on her health every week to start with, then once a month, and then they seemed to stop entirely. When she was told many months later to report to the doctor for a check-up it was a shock to realise that it was exactly twelve months since she had given birth. They were simply checking on her health and well-being but she could not stop thinking that it was the birthday of her child.
In a room eerily like that in which she had seen the grey-haired doctor, a woman doctor now checked her blood pressure and then took a sample of blood and urine.
Birgit decided to risk asking:
‘Is my baby doing well?’
The doctor smiled at her: ‘Do you think of her often?’
‘No, not often,’ she said, noting the use of the word ‘her’. So, she had a daughter. ‘I just hope she’s healthy, and happy?’
‘I’m sure she is.’
‘There’s nothing about her in my notes?’
‘No,’ the doctor looked down at the file. ‘She’s entirely separate. Apart from a name and a date of birth, we have no information.’
‘What is her name?’
The doctor looked worried for the first time. Birgit sensed this and tried to look disinterested.
‘I was just wondering.’ She added, disingenuously, ‘I suppose it’s a bit sentimental saying “my baby”.’
There was a silence while the doctor deliberated. Finally she said:
‘Your child is called Katia.’
Mathilde
Bernard heard the news one busy evening in my bar on the rue des Abbesses. He heard it from Jules, who had been told by Lulu. I wasn’t sure that either of these were the most reliable sources of information, but why would they make up such a story? Why would they tell Bernard if it wasn’t true?
Come to think of it, why would they tell him at all? Why didn’t they just keep quiet and hope that Mathilde would be in Paris for perhaps a few weeks and then leave again before Bernard became aware of her presence? I assume it was because their meeting was somehow inevitable, and they wanted to warn him. Somebody would have told him that she had arrived. Perhaps she would have sought him out if he had not gone to her?
‘But you know what happened before,’ said Jules with barely concealed impatience. ‘You remember what she did to you?’
‘Keep away from her,’ pleaded Hortense, Jules’s wife.
‘I don’t know if I can,’ replied Bernard slowly. He was sipping his Pernod while they stood at the counter, and I’m certain that he was already considering how soon he cou
ld leave us and go to Mathilde. He wasn’t normally a man of action or impulse, but I could see that he was excited. He was in his later middle-age, unshaven, stooped and slightly unkempt, but he was visibly drawing himself up to an unaccustomed height. He was putting his shoulders back; he was defiantly meeting the eyes of those who would tell him how to act. With quiet determination he added: ‘I don’t know if I want to keep away from her.’
‘But when she came into your life before she broke up your marriage,’ Jules reminded him. ‘And lost you your job.’
‘I know, I know.’
‘She played with you before, and if you let her she’ll do the same again,’ Hortense told him. ‘She makes promises she never intends to keep. While she’s around you’re a slave to her every whim.’
‘It’s not quite like that.’
‘She’s not worth all of the unhappiness; the upheaval and destruction. You know she’s not. For a few hours of pleasure, for a few days, a few weeks if you’re lucky, you’re content to throw away everything. I know that if she asked you to give up all of your friends, your money, your apartment then you would, for her, wouldn’t you? She’d take everything from you again if she could.’
‘I know,’ Bernard repeated slowly. ‘I know. I realise how much I’ve given up for Mathilde. And I know what I’ve lost, but what you don’t seem to realise is that I think she’s worth it.’ He looked from Jules to Hortense and then back again. ‘If you want to put a value on these things then yes I’d happily give everything for an evening with Mathilde. For one full night with her I’d lay down my own life.’
‘You are utterly hopeless!’ his friend shook his head. ‘What have you ever received from her except pain? You used to work in finance; can’t you see that all your time, money and heartache was a very poor investment?’
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