Leaving Berlin

by Britt Holmström

  That aside, and may it rest in peace, she was once again, for what it was worth, Brenda Jones, independent nonentity.

  Though time had no reason to linger, it did not pass rapidly, still the weeks and months did plod by in an orderly fashion. The black holes in space did not conveniently disappear, but they did begin to shrink. Brenda stumbled into them less readily.

  It was on a Friday night the following September, just as she was washing her soup bowl and spoon, that there came three sudden raps at the door. The door — the only entry to the apartment — opened straight into the kitchen from the back stairs. It was such a flimsy door, its hollowness gave power to the most timid of knocks. These three raps were hard and to the point, violent explosions in her private evening space. Brenda considered not answering, thinking for a fleeting moment that it was Desmond come to claim her, knowing full well he would never waste the energy.

  No, it would be Donna who, having once again forgotten her key, was desperate to hurry her beer-bloated bladder to the toilet.

  Better open the door then.

  Haloed under the porch light stood a squat, solid figure dressed in an overcoat that had been fashionable long before he was born (and he was not that young), a woolen coat speckled grey like his hair and adorned with a quaint black velvet collar much too small for its bulk. With its round soft edge, it added a perversely childlike quality to the stranger’s appearance. The unshaved face above the collar gleamed with an oily sheen, as if its owner had travelled without rest, but with a great deal of anxiety, for a long time over a great distance. Maybe he had; his cheap shoes were dusty enough. The way the thick fingers of his right hand gripped a small suitcase gave the unacceptable impression that he had come to stay.

  Whoever the stranger was, a wrecking ball would be needed to budge his solid hulk from the narrow gap of the door that Brenda was desperate to slam, bolt and board up. Any second now the terror charging up her spine would hurtle out of her mouth in the form of a giveaway scream. That would not be good. Predators are turned on by fear.

  She pressed her lips together. As she did, the apparition looked at her and smiled. The smile distorted his features. It may have been a smile meant to reassure, but it made him look as if overcome by acute toothache. Staring at his cracked face, she knew for sure that the door would not withstand him, should he decide to charge. He looked like he would be able to bulldoze his way straight through it without so much as ruffling that boyish velvet collar.

  Then he spoke. The sound of his voice was not unlike coarse sandpaper being rubbed against uneven concrete. “Hi. I’m Gordie. Donna’s brother? This is where she lives, right? Donna O’Hara?”

  When she first heard about this fabled brother, Brenda — an old-fashioned romantic — had imagined a young Marlon Brando, or better still, a Steve McQueen look-alike, a brooding rebel, handsome and misunderstood.

  Donna had put a swift end to that delusion by describing her brother, scars, broken nose, missing teeth, and all, as “built like a brick shithouse.”

  It was an apt observation, Brenda now realized. The man did exhibit the dimensions of an average outhouse.

  Come on, Brenda, answer his question. Never heard of her. “ . . . Yes . . . she lives here, b . . . but she’s not home yet. Can I . . . ?”

  “Mind if I come in and wait? Thing is, see, I really need to talk to her, eh? I’m only in town for the weekend.” The plea was followed by another painful smile. By then he was already inside.

  Yes, I mind! “I suppose,” mumbled Brenda, despising herself for the cowardice that was ten times the size of her fear.

  “Thanks. Sure appreciate it. Know when she’ll be back?”

  “I’ve no idea.” It’s not like Donna keeps a schedule, is it? Brenda wondered if this man actually knew his sister.

  Still, she made an effort, figuring she had no choice. She inhaled and pulled herself together, stood up straight, determined to shoo away the word “inept,” shoo away not only the word, but the contempt it had for her.

  I should offer coffee. It’s what you do when you have company. Yes, that’s what I’ll do . . . She exhaled. “So . . . w . . . w . . . would you like some c . . . coffee? Or tea?”

  “Say, coffee would be great! Thanks. Kinda cold out there, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Brenda.”

  “Hi Brenda.”

  “H . . . hi.”

  Gordie put his suitcase on the table beside the toaster, blocking the view of the red carnations she had treated herself to that evening. That done, he remained standing by the door, unsure what to do next.

  Trying to ignore him, Brenda plugged in the kettle and prepared to make instant coffee, unwilling to waste the good stuff, her secret stash that she drank only when alone. The stiffness in her arms made her gestures robotic and clumsy. There was no ignoring Gordie O’Hara. It was a small kitchen and he took up most of it. Scared witless, she made no attempt at conversation, too busy spilling first the coffee granules, then the sugar. Just as she handed him a mug, the phone rang. She lunged for it, splashing coffee on both the floor and Gordie.

  “Hello!” Help!

  “Brenda?”

  “Donna!” Her words were so frightened they dared leave her mouth only in the safety of a group. “Donnayourbrotherisherewhereareyou?”

  “Whoa there! Slow down, for chrissake! Whatcha mean, my brother? Which one?”

  And Brenda remembered that Donna had four. One was dead. The other two, according to their sister, were “assholes aspiring to pseudo yuppiedom in some fucking plywood mansion in the suburbs.”

  Then there was Gordie.

  “Gordie.”

  “You shittin’ me! Gordie? What’s he doing there?”

  “How should I know? Where are you anyway? When will you be back?”

  “Well, that’s kinda why I’m calling. I won’t. I’m up in Kingston.”

  “You’re WHERE?” The escaping hysteria whistled like an air raid alarm in the confines of the kitchen. Brenda wished she had a shelter to flee to.

  Oblivious to the alarm, Donna continued. “In Kingston. At my aunt’s. Got so fucking bored this morning, I skipped work after lunch and hitchhiked up. Just got here. Took me more than seven hours. Thought I’d call you and stuff.”

  Brenda ceased to breathe. I’m going to kill you. “When are you coming back?”

  “I dunno. Whenever. Monday. Maybe Tuesday. Haven’t decided.”

  A flame of fury licked Brenda’s gut and continued up her spine to her brain. It had a scorching tongue. It felt good, that tongue, cleansing and pure. Expletives formed unbidden in her head. She welcomed them. That fucking slut.

  Then she decided Donna could not be in Kingston. Donna was simply not paying attention. Once she caught on, she’d be back in Hamilton.

  “Aren’t you listening, for God’s sake? Your brother’s here to see you!”

  “I heard you the first time. Wonder what he wants? Put him on, eh?”

  Brenda handed Gordie the phone telling him the obvious. “It’s your sister.”

  He grabbed it eagerly. It looked small and defenseless in his hand. “Hey, Donna! Yeah! Don’t I know it, eh! How you doing, kiddo!” His face cracked into a smile. By the looks of it, his toothache was abating.

  Brenda wished she could hear both sides of the conversation.

  “No shit!” Gordie was saying. “Is that right? Oh, jeez. Now, that ain’t good. See, I was really hoping to see you.”

  That makes two of us.

  “Well, ah . . . thing is, see . . . I’m . . . well, kinda . . . you know . . . off to the slammer again on Monday.” An embarrassed side glance.

  Don’t let me keep you. Hang up and I’ll call you a cab. Or a squad car.

  “Oh, well, you know . . . The usual . . . What? Yeah, don’t I know it, eh! Huh? Well, I’ll tell you about it sometime, it ain’t no big deal. No, just eighteen months this time. Actually, a social worker might be getti
ng in touch with you. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, see. It’s kind of imp . . . what’s that? Oh sure. But say, Donna . . . I . . . ”

  I’m alone in my home with a violent felon. Was it common to let criminals roam free the weekend before starting their sentence? And if so, why?

  “Are you sure?” asked Gordie. “No kidding? Well, jeez, Donna, that’s real nice of you, I guess. I sure do appreciate it.”

  Appreciate what?

  “You too, kiddo. But say, could you maybe . . . What? Yeah . . . yeah, you too. And say hi to Aunt Connie, eh? What’s that? No, I don’t, I was . . . Really? You sure? Jeez, that’s great! Yeah for sure, I’ll do that.” He handed Brenda the phone, looking apologetic. “Donna wants another word.”

  Donna’s voice in her ear was cheerful. “Hey, Bren? Listen, I told my brother he could stay there for the weekend. He can use my bedroom, ’kay?”

  “You WHAT!” The flame flared up and blinded her.

  “Well, hey, come on, he’s got no place to stay, does he? It’s only for two nights, for fuck’s sake. And he’s a good guy, don’t worry. Trust me, really, it’ll be fine. I told him you’re not busy this weekend.”

  “You did WHAT!” When I lay eyes on you again I’m going to grab you by that dry bleached frizz of yours and bang your empty head against the wall until your skull cracks open and all the air escapes. Gordie can teach me the best technique for this, it’s right up his alley. It was the most violent thought Brenda had ever entertained, and she relished every bit of it.

  “Well, you’re not busy are you? Figured it’d be a bit of company for you. Oh, come on, Bren, for chrissake, you don’t mind, do you?” Donna’s voice was too indifferent to pretend otherwise.

  “Of course I freaking mind!” Oops! Oh, shit! Oh shit, oh shit! Now he’ll kill me!

  “Oh, come on. He’s my brother, for fuck’s sake.”

  What a glowing recommendation that was.

  There they were, facing their imposed weekend rendezvous, Brenda Jones with a shiver and a stiff smile, acting like she didn’t mind a bit, Gordie O’Hara pretending he’d gone momentarily deaf and missed her protestations.

  Outside the force of the cold wind had increased, whistling disrespectfully through the frame of the kitchen window.

  The radio had talked about a first frost.

  Gordie was still lodged in his coat, mug in hand, coffee untouched. For some reason Brenda had expected dandruff flakes to litter the velvet collar like an early snowfall, but she couldn’t see any. Maybe they had stuck to the grease in his hair.

  After shuffling his feet, rubbing his free hand on his coat for a bit, Gordie put the mug down and asked, not looking directly at her, if it would be at all possible for him to have a shower. “Been sitting on a bus for the past three days.”

  If you make it last until Sunday. Her obliging “Of course!” sounded as insincere as it was. She rushed off to fetch him two of Donna’s candy-pink towels.

  As soon as he was in the shower, she hurried to her room and got her big black shawl out of the bottom drawer of her dresser. Not knowing exactly why, she spun it around herself. Securely cocooned, she drifted into the living room and sank onto the couch. Grappling with the fact that she was alone with a felon, a “crazed man with a troubled soul,” it occurred to her that her bedroom door did not lock.

  She warmed her hands on the lukewarm coffee mug and stared out the window. The darkness was so heavy she might have been crouching on the bottom of the ocean, waiting in resignation for a hungry shark to glide out of the shadows and sink his teeth into her.

  Across the hall the faint splashes from the shower came to a stop.

  “I brought my photo albums. I was gonna show them to Donna, eh?”

  Gordie stood in the doorway dressed in jeans and a clean shirt. His hair was wet, his shirt collar damp. He was clutching a photo album in each hand. A red one and a blue one.

  “Pardon?”

  “Wanna see some pictures?”

  No. “Sure.”

  What kind of photos do men like him collect? Jailhouse pictures? ‘That’s my bunk on top. And that’s Psycho, my cellmate. He got life for raping and mutilating his sister’s roommate. He’s my hero.’

  Gordie came over and got comfortable beside her on the couch. The blue album he put on the coffee table, the red one he placed on his lap. His sitting down uninvited was not a predatory move, rather that of a child getting cozy beside Mom with a favourite book before bedtime.

  Confused by the absurdity of it all, she noticed that he had helped himself to her special soap. He smelled like a big ripe peach.

  Eager to get started, Gordie flipped open the album and for a moment it was as if he disappeared from the room. Brenda sat rigid beside the shell he left behind, politely glancing at a meaningless series of images. Parties and backyard barbecues, the odd camping trip. Flabby guts displayed like badges of honour. Stacked beer cases towering beside picnic tables. So many grinning faces, one could easily be fooled into thinking the world was a slaphappy utopia drenched in sunshine and tattoos, laughter and free beer. Photos from the part of Gordie’s life not spent in jail. Packs of cigarettes and lighters tucked up T-shirt sleeves, yet more beer bottles.

  Peach-scented, brick shithouse Gordie was in the merciless throes of nostalgia, clasping his album the way a Christian might a Bible when the seven angels blow their trumpets.

  It took a while before he resurfaced. When he did, he pointed to a photo of a blonde dragging on a cigarette, hair rolled tight in large curlers, eyebrows unevenly drawn, cellulite thighs spreading over a lawn chair with impunity. “That’s my ex-girlfriend Joline,” Gordie said. The face challenging the camera was hard. Stare at her for too long and she might reach out of the photo and knock your teeth down your throat.

  “So what happened to her?”

  “Well, she got married, eh? To this other con, Jeff, that I knew. Thing was, see, she already had a couple of kids with him, so . . . ”

  “Oh. Made sense then, I suppose.” Well, what else to say?

  “I guess.”

  Several pages later, he pointed again. “And this is my other ex-girlfriend. Tamara.” A proud finger landed atop a skinny brunette dressed in leather pants and a polka dot bikini top. His finger covered most of her body, the ragged nail following the curve of her left shoulder. She was sitting astride a Harley, a mickey of vodka in her right hand.

  “And where is she now?” It was obvious that he wanted her to ask.

  “Dead. Crashed her bike. Wasn’t wearing a helmet, eh? Plus she had a bit of a drug problem.” He left his finger on the image of the girl like he was trying to keep her warm as the September wind got angrier outside.

  “Oh . . . I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, well. It was pretty bad. But what can you do, eh? I’d only known her for, like, three weeks, so . . . ”

  “Not long.”

  “You said it.”

  He put the red album on the table and grabbed the blue one. It was only half full, as if here his life had petered out. The photos repeated the previous scenes, same faces, same beer, same cigarettes, same barbecues, but no more girlfriends.

  And at the very end, alone on a page, carefully centred in a nonexistent frame, a photo of five children. Presumably Donna, Gordie and the three other brothers. Four boys lined up in a row, wearing identical little red and green checkered vests, bowties and starched white shirts, awkward in their enforced finery. Sitting in front of them, a tiny Donna in a ruffled dress, white socks and shiny red shoes, stared big-eyed into the camera. A red satin ribbon held her wispy brown curls in place. In the background, the branches of a sparsely decorated Christmas tree threw a shadow on a bare wall.

  Gordie lit up. “Lookit this, eh! This was when we was kids. My uncle Vern took it. That’s my brother Dean to the left there, and that’s Ricky right next to him. And see: that’s me in the middle, that chubby little guy. And that’s Jim to the right. He died ten years ago. Car crash . . .
”

  “I know. Donna told me.”

  “Yeah? But say, don’t Donna look cute? She’d just turned three that Christmas.”

  “Just adorable.” Brenda studied the gap-toothed expectant grins, the freckled little noses, the five pairs of round eyes staring at the camera. Gordie’s bow tie was crooked. Jim’s hair stood on end. Donna’s underwear was showing. Their innocence saddened her.

  “That’s all I’ve got.” Gordie closed the album. It was unclear if he was referring to his collection of photos or the sum total of happy memories.

  Brenda feigned interest. “No more pictures from when you were kids?”

  “No. Mom didn’t have a camera.”

  The impromptu walk down memory lane had taken up a fair chunk of the evening and for that Brenda was grateful. But when Gordie reluctantly put the albums back on the coffee table, he wanted to talk. What it was in Brenda’s demeanor that inspired the trust to make her his confidante, she never would understand. But there he was, right next to her on Donna’s fake leather couch, looking straight into her eyes, earnestly, as if in them he had discovered the lights of a temporary haven.

  Doesn’t he realize he’s mistaken? How do I explain that I want him to go away?

  She kept quiet and listened as he shared with her the emptiness that overwhelms a man when he no longer has a reason to give a damn. What it’s like to crouch like an animal in solitary confinement days on end. Gordie snagged inadequate descriptions wherever he found them and offered them to her, looking ashamed, knowing they were not suitable gifts for a lady. “Thing is, see, there ain’t nowhere to go. Just fucking nowhere, pardon my French. You need to talk, there ain’t nobody gonna listen. So at some point, what happens is, you lose it. It’s the way it is.”

  Trying to explain his handicap made him short of breath. He struggled to describe his experiences, searching for words that kept eluding him, making him frustrated. He shook his head, rubbed his hands on his knees. Once again there was an acute toothache in what passed for a smile. “See, it’s always having to look over your shoulder, like, to check who is after you this time. It’s what gets to you, is what I mean. Having to be paranoid. Places like that, there’s always somebody out to get you.”