Live Bodies

by Gee, Maurice

  This is Willi’s daughter. I saw Willi in her face. And how could I see other than a Willi degraded and debased? Degraded almost in a biological sense. But that’s a judgement I arrive at now; while then, at the door, her face, her Willi face, assaulted me, it gave me a slap that made my ears ring and my eyes water.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘the mortgage is none of my business. I used to know your mother years ago. I’m a friend of a friend of hers.’ That was the best I could manage. This woman might know Willi was her father or might not. She might scream at me and slam the door.

  ‘You’re the one who got her into it,’ Mrs Gummer said. ‘You and your son.’

  ‘I didn’t exactly “get her in”. She rang me one day –’ I did not say to borrow money ‘– and I gave her his number. I had no idea she’d take that sort of mortgage.’ Still I had not got my foot inside the door. ‘Lots of people have them. They’re legal, you know.’

  ‘They’re a legal way of robbing people,’ she said, and I saw her tremble. She stamped on the carpet with her woolly shoe. My forehead began to sweat as I saw she might attack me.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘I’ll come another day.’

  ‘I want some satisfaction. You’re a bunch of crooks.’

  A person shuffled in the gloom down the hall towards us. I thought it was Norma Cooksley and my heart gave a double beat.

  ‘Leave the man alone, Deely. It’s mother he wants to see.’ He came into the light – a shuffler, a man melted down to his bones – and gave a twisting smile. ‘You’ll have to excuse my wife, she gets worked up. Deely, you shouldn’t go to the door wearing that.’ He turned her round and untied the apron she was wearing. ‘Mother,’ he said to me, ‘lives in there’, pointing at a door. ‘You can see her if you like, but don’t stay long. She can’t talk long.’

  ‘It’s not that Alzheimer’s either,’ Mrs Gummer said. ‘She gets mixed up, and that’s no wonder with her life.’

  ‘Come in, Mr Mandl. We’re losing all our warm.’ He drew me inside and closed the door, then tapped on a panel and opened the hall door. ‘Knock, knock, Mother. A visitor.’

  I obeyed his pointing hand and found an old woman sitting in a chair by a gas heater. She swivelled her head and looked at me – eyes that had always turned away. I advanced towards her.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Lloyd. Hello, Norma,’ I said.

  ‘You’re that Josef Mandl. I don’t forget.’

  The door closed behind me, darkening the room and somehow thickening the air.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘The last time we met was in the tearooms at Wellington station. Can I sit down, Norma?’

  ‘Sit,’ she said.

  I took the second chair after moving it back from the heat. A scorching smell came from the soles of Mrs Lloyd’s slippers. I considered calling her daughter, and I said to the old lady (old but several years younger than me), ‘It’s hot today.’

  ‘Winter is coming,’ she replied. ‘I feel the cold.’

  The smell of overheated wool – most unpleasant, a lavatory smell – came from the blanket on her knees. She herself seemed neat and clean. The habitual redness – her easy blush – was gone from her cheeks. Her grey hair was combed close to her scalp and pinned in a plait from ear to ear, as flat as a belt tied round a trunk. She did not see well; there was a milkiness in her eyes, even though they fastened on me hard. I wondered what she did in this room all day. It was furnished with a bed, two chairs, the heater, a sideboard with china rabbits, pink and blue; but there was no TV set, no radio I could see, no books, not even a newspaper or a magazine. Would her life have been different, I thought, if Willi had not walked into her father’s house on that afternoon in 1937? He was her luck: good or bad? Useless speculations – but I could not doubt that she was in this room, and in this state, because of him.

  ‘Auf Wiedersehen,’ she said. ‘You’d know that. It means hello.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘it means –’ and stopped myself, tried to smile. ‘Yes, hello.’

  ‘I’m learning German. Goebbels. Goering. I’ll be able to speak it soon. I’m going to Germany to be with Willi. My husband is dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Willi is waiting for me.’

  She pronounced his name with a W. The schoolgirls in the dinghy, shrieking with laughter, had managed V. I remembered him taking Norma by the shoulders one day on Milford beach and shaking her softly, then harder and harder, her poor cheeks flaming, her head jerking back and forth. ‘Villi, say Villi.’ Her mouth refused to make the sound, although she could say ‘very’ and ‘vulgar’ perfectly well. (‘Perfectly well’: I’ve an idea I heard that first from her.) Tears streamed down her cheeks, and I, hearing her jaws clack, said, ‘Willi, you’re hurting her.’

  He pushed her away. ‘The stupid cow. She’s only use for fucking.’

  ‘It’s “good for” not “use for”, Willi,’ Norma sobbed. It was the only time I ever liked her.

  ‘Willi used to talk German to me,’ Mrs Lloyd said. ‘I used to answer, Auf Wiedersehen.’

  ‘Yes. Hello. Mrs Lloyd, do you remember being in Kaingaroa?’

  ‘I lived in a house there. Willi and I were married. Delia was born in Kaingaroa.’

  It was the truth for her, but the facts are different. They never married. Willi sent her away after a month or two. He found other women in Kaingaroa, and claimed later on not to have known that Norma was pregnant when she left. The baby could be anyone’s, he told me in a letter.

  ‘And what about after you stopped living there?’ I said.

  ‘Willi had to leave. They persecuted Willi, the Jews, so he had to escape. He dug a tunnel. Willi is sending for me soon.’

  She seemed not to remember that for more than ten years as she lived in Auckland Willi was in the same town, going about his affairs.

  ‘Your father,’ I said. ‘I met him once. And your mother too.’

  ‘I don’t know them any more,’ Mrs Lloyd said. ‘I only know Willi. He had a name for them …’ She frowned. ‘I forget it now. My father died, you know. Quite young. He was a disappointed man. And disappointing.’

  ‘When you visited Willi on Somes Island –’

  She looked at me fiercely. ‘That is where we were man and wife.’ She thrust her hands at me, both hands, with the fingers stiff, as though she meant to peck me with her nails. ‘Man and wife.’

  ‘How …?’

  ‘Willi paid the guard and he stood at the door. We were married there. Our honeymoon.’

  It is possible. Visitors came to the recreation hall in the last days, and perhaps he bribed the guard and took Norma Cooksley to his cubicle – so I am wrong in supposing that he had not had a woman for six years.

  ‘Then we went on the train to Kaingaroa. That was lovely. Willi was lovely to me there. But he had to go to Germany to be in the government. It won’t be long before he sends for me. In the meantime …’ She looked at me with sudden clarity and her eyes filled with dislike. ‘I won’t hear a word against my husband. I won’t have people like you … He loved Delia like his own child.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘We bought this house in 1960. I’m telling you this because you were my friend. Before you and your son stole it from me.’

  ‘Mrs Lloyd,’ I began, but she cut me off.

  ‘I’m going to tell Willi what you did. What sort of friends. I used to tell him Jews only wanted money.’

  I did not say goodbye. I got up and left the room and she said after me, That’s right, run away. The Jews always run.’ I closed the door and at once Mrs Gummer appeared at the other end of the hallway.

  ‘She’s sitting too close to the heater,’ I said. ‘She’ll catch on fire.’

  ‘And then your house will burn down. What a tragedy.’

  ‘Listen, you stupid woman,’ I said, but her husband shuffled round her and came along the hall.

  ‘Please, Mr Mandl, there’s only damage here. Go away.’

  ‘Yes, she’s no
t dead yet. You can’t have it yet,’ Mrs Gummer shouted.

  ‘Deely, love, go back in the kitchen and sit down. I’ll see you out, Mr Mandl. If you don’t mind.’

  He came on to the porch with me and closed the front door, locking her in. ‘I suppose Mother said her stuff about the Jews?’

  ‘Yes, she did.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. I try to stop her. Delia too. But you can see how upset they are.’ He helped me down the two steps to the path, and I helped him. ‘This house isn’t worth that much,’ he said. ‘And nearly all of it belongs to your son.’

  ‘But the money she’s had …?’

  ‘All gone. Don’t ask me where. It was going to be Delia’s. The house, I mean. Mother promised it to her if we came and lived, so we did. We didn’t find out about the mortgage until then. I’m not blaming you or your son, Mr Mandl, I understand it’s quite a common sort – but someone should have advised her. I really think you might have, being a friend.’

  ‘I’m not a friend. I’ve always disliked her. And she hates me.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry.’ His smile was more cheerful than apologetic, as though he had learned that things must be as they are and humour was the only effective response. ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about here, although if there’s any way of easing … no, there’s not. Mother’s had the money after all.’

  ‘I’ve got no connection with my son’s business.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘But it’s called a reverse annuity mortgage.’

  ‘Names don’t make things better. But never mind, we’ll get by.’

  ‘I suppose she gets a pension?’

  ‘Yes. And I get my benefit. I can manage as far as the gate with you, that’s all.’

  I asked what his illness was and he told me asbestosis and gave his smile: ‘Another joke.’

  We stopped at the gate.

  ‘In the meantime,’ he said, ‘it’s a lovely day. And I’m out of the house. Tell me, Mr Mandl, did Mother talk about Willi Gauss?’

  ‘Yes. He’s why I came. To see what she remembered. But we didn’t get far. When her mind’s clearer, does she know he’s dead?’

  ‘That’s as clear as she gets. We used to say he was, but we’ve given up. So I just say Auf Wiedersehen and she says it back.’

  He surprised me by pronouncing the words correctly. ‘Does she know any more German?’

  ‘Just what I say to her. Wiener Schnitzel, stuff like that.’

  ‘And Goering and Goebbels.’

  ‘Yes, that. Himmler too. I don’t say those back so she thinks I’m dumb. Tell me, Willi Gauss – he’s Delia’s father, but we think he must have been –’ he shrugged ‘– a very bad man.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t. He was a complex man. He …’ There was so much I could say, but marshalling it was impossible, so I said, ‘He treated women badly. But they loved him. She loves him, in there.’

  ‘Yes, she does. Delia – she doesn’t look like Mother so I wondered, is she like him?’

  ‘There’s a resemblance.’

  He swallowed. I saw that he loved his wife, and that she, not the mortgage or his illness, was the cause of his back-handed cheerfulness, and of his desperation too.

  ‘I’ve wondered,’ he said, ‘I know he’s been dead a long time, but maybe he left something, some property …?’

  I told him I did not think so: that Willi had died in an East German prison and any property he’d had would have been confiscated; and his wife in the West would have had first claim on anything there.

  ‘Ah,’ Gummer said, ‘Mr Moser didn’t tell us that.’

  ‘Moser?’ I said. ‘Has he been here?’

  ‘He comes a bit.’

  ‘I thought he was in Auckland.’

  ‘No, he’s down here now. He wanted to be close to his grandchildren.’ Gummer smiled. ‘He brings Mother chocolates. He’s a very nice man.’ Again he smiled, perhaps with nervousness. ‘So you see, we know all about you. And Willi Gauss too.’

  ‘Moser doesn’t know about Willi.’ I was shaken, I was angry. I wanted to be gone. ‘Where can I get a taxi?’

  ‘I thought you’d have a chauffeur-driven car.’

  ‘Is that a joke?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry –’

  ‘You’re mistaken about me, Mr Gummer. I’m not a rich man. Don’t let Moser tell you lies.’

  ‘He doesn’t talk about money. He just says how he liked you on Somes Island.’

  I could not answer that, it confused me, so I opened the gate and went out.

  ‘I’ll phone you a taxi,’ Gummer said. ‘If you wait along there, there’s a seat in the sun.’

  He shuffled away and I walked to the seat – perhaps shuffled too – away from Norma Cooksley in her over-heated room, and Will’s daughter with her Willi face and her pop-eyed hatred, and from the strange fellow Gummer, who loved one of them, perhaps loved both. Well, I thought, he shares a house with them: he has to love or he’ll go mad.

  I sat in the sun. Presently a taxi came and drove me to my house; to my daughter and my room, where I was safe.

  To my notebook, where I’ve written it all down.

  TEN

  I have dreams. They’re not exactly nightmares although they are filled with anxiety. Always there are people I can’t reach. I can’t reach Willi. I can’t reach Franz.

  I say to Willi, ‘Wait for me,’ but he is gone. I sit down to eat with him, Viennese meals, and cannot reach the food, something intervenes and holds me away; and then they fade, Willi at the table and Franz, huge-faced, at my sleeve, they become uncoloured and other dreams emerge from the side, like a stroke crossing the eyeball, filling it with blackness or with light.

  Somes Island appears. It turns as though I’m in a helicopter and I see the grassy slopes, the reefs and beaches, and Braun suspended on the cliff. I cannot tell whether he is climbing in or out. Dowden then, sillier than he was in real life. He stands with his megaphone above the strait separating Somes from Leper Island and moos at a launch full of women rocking there: ‘You are entering a restricted zone. Go back or you will be fired on.’ Norma Cooksley is on the launch but oh thank God not Nancy.

  And now the bull is servicing the heifers and we – but not Willi, where is he? – stand with our fingers in the wire, watching as he mounts them one by one. All of us tumescent – and I wake; and lie remembering the bull, how he lost his footing and floundered in the sea, then walked polished, dripping, in the sun, with the caretaker leading him by the nose; and his rolling gait; and his prancing as he sniffed his herd. We followed. We hooked our fingers in the wire. Men without women, watching animals copulate. Some of us, embarrassed by arousal, had to turn, hands in pockets, and walk away.

  I’m not troubled by desire any more, or lack of desire, and yet I dream of things like that, and lie awake reconstructing them – the barracks at night, the whispering and panting of solitary men. My subject is hardly sex at all, it’s being lost. That must be why Nancy isn’t there, for she was a finding. And Susi, I found her. Found my parents, in a way, although where they went to is a place I’ll never look. But Willi and Franz, I’ve never found them, and will not now.

  Our new handyman is mowing the lawns. Our handyman is Julie, Kenny’s daughter. Where the grass has tufted she squats like a coolie and saws at the edges with a sickle. There’s less temper in the girl than there used to be; but still she demands a weed-eater, Elizabeth says. Tell her no, I answer. Her grandma used that mower. She got down on her knees and worked with sheep shears, trimming up. They’re still in the shed if Julie wants.

  I haven’t spoken with her yet. I’ve spoken with Kenny; told him there’s nothing I can do with Mrs Gummer and Mrs Lloyd but that he might find Gummer more receptive. ‘He seems a rational sort of fellow.’ I kept his asbestosis to myself.

  Kenny did his usual amount of squawking. I’m the only one who’s heard that voice. He’d be out of business if he used it there. I told him not to get in a twist, and said that Julie w
as doing a bit of work in the garden and living in the spare room for a while – which, more than my admonition, calmed him down.

  ‘Well, that’s good. That’s really good.’

  Kenny has not seen Julie for several months. He wants to know how she is, how’s her health, her mental health, and after that her physical. He questions me with urgency, but love and pain keep him level-voiced. This is real business, the business of nine-tenths of our life, and there’s no room for squawking here.

  I say that she looks thin, but she’s always thin, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s not eating. As far as I can see she still has a stud in her nose, but the row of rings – the golden caterpillar crawling on the curl of her ear – is gone. I can’t tell about her other parts. And she wears a skivvy because it’s cooler now, so I can’t see if her left shoulder is tattooed.

  ‘You’ll have to ask Elizabeth about her mental state.’

  ‘Dad, will she see me, do you think?’

  ‘I can’t tell, Kenny. But whatever’s happening, easy goes’ – and I call to Elizabeth in the kitchen that her brother wants to talk with her, and hang up when she comes on the line.

  And now I watch my grand-daughter working. The lawn is finished, the tufts of grass that grew, I don’t know why, like those rich tufts in paddocks where cowpats have lain, are sickled away. She’s trimming the hedge – and will, no doubt, want electric hedge-clippers soon. Thin, I said to Kenny. Her arms are as thin as the handles of the clipper; but she goes snip snip energetically, and leaves and twigs fall about her feet, where she tramples them with her big boots.

  And now she has a plank on two boxes and stands on it, tests it, making it bounce. I have hope for her. She cuts the top of the hedge as level as a haircut, and when she needs to rest her arms she lets the clippers lie there and leans on the squared-off wall she has made. She looks into the harbour at Somes Island – or perhaps beyond it, at the Orongorongos, which soon, with winter coming, will have snow on them.

  She spits over the hedge into the road. I don’t like women spitting. But I have hope for her.

  I haven’t written here since last week. It’s Friday now. Julie is still with us. Her little pink car stands in the drive with rain beating on it and water flowing inch-deep round its wheels. Her washing tumbles in the drier with mine. Elizabeth unpicks scanties from my shirts. It seems like family so I don’t mind.