Did I really think that Tobias was a spy? The honest answer is that I didn’t think he was ‘Axel’, I wasn’t even sure that I believed ‘Axel’ existed at all. But when I was with Oz I believed what he was telling me about Tobias was true. I could say that this position was indefensible and inexplicable, but it isn’t. We all live like this. We know we’ll die, we believe it, but at the same time we don’t really believe it. Not us. Before my first daughter was born, I knew that there would be a new human being arriving in our lives that we had to look after, but I didn’t really believe it. It was incomprehensible. And then suddenly she was there and I couldn’t believe she had ever not been there.
This is how I felt about Tobias and Oz. I believed in them both. But as with death and birth, belief always fall foul of the truth in the end.
*
The envelope was waiting for me on the kitchen table propped up between the toast rack and a sticky jar of Aachener Pflumli. My parents and Martin were already up when I came into the kitchen, hugging their coffee cups, bug-eyed and anxious.
‘Morning,’ I said, opening the fridge.
I took out the milk and got the bright red box of Smacks from the cupboard.
‘Ralf, come on,’ Mum said desperately.
‘Don’t be a dick all your life,’ said my brother.
I opened the envelope and read out the results: an A for Geography, an A for Biology and a B for English Literature. Mum cried and clung to me. Dad gave me a hug and kissed my forehead. Even Martin hugged me, slapping my back and then painfully twisting my nipple through my T-shirt, saying, ‘Clever dick.’
‘Are you pleased?’ Dad said, when I filled my bowl with pinging cereal.
‘Course,’ I said.
‘Opa would’ve been so proud of you.’
‘I’m sure Opa wouldn’t’ve been that bothered,’ I said.
‘Too busy saving a cat, or something,’ Martin said, and laughed, but neither of us could spoil the mood. Mum and Dad were in each other’s arms, rocking and giggling through their tears.
The celebration was at a Chinese restaurant called Plumhaus that we went to on the first Friday of every month. We listened attentively to the specials, but always ordered the same thing: spare ribs, chop suey, spring rolls and chicken with cashew nuts, which all had an identical salty brown sheen.
Maike, Petra and Stefan had been invited, Beate too. Maike kissed me and patted my cheeks, Petra hugged me and apologised for getting tearful. ‘I don’t really care,’ she said, smearing her mascara with a white napkin.
‘Well done, Ralfi,’ Stefan said, patting the back of my head as he sat down. ‘Though Maike got a 1.0 for English, so I guess she’s better at English than you.’
‘I guess,’ I said, relieved they were there.
My standoff with Mum disturbed the usual flow of such evenings, and even Beate’s chatter died without the support of Mum’s constant encouraging laughter. Maike, Petra, Stefan and I talked across the table about Doro Kretchmann, a middle-aged woman in the Wildlife Trust who came on every research trip, every count, every talk. She had short grey hair and round, red-rimmed glasses and wore socks with her Birkenstocks, making her for us the archetype of the German nature lover, the person we were destined to become.
Beate, Martin and my parents didn’t know her, and I was aware that the conversation was boring them. But divided up between us, they weren’t able to talk to one another, especially because we talked loudly and enthusiastically and Petra’s screaming laughter drowned out any chance of comment long after the punchline of the story had been delivered. Whenever the conversation threatened to move on, I would recall another moment when Doro had slipped into a ditch or enthusiastically corrected people, despite refusing to be corrected herself.
The break came when the main courses were served and our sight lines were broken by the bald waiter rearranging the glasses, teapots and cups of jasmine tea to make room for the steaming bowls of white rice, allowing Beate to say, ‘Tell us all about Durham, Ralf.’
‘Yes, tell us about Durham,’ my mother echoed.
‘I don’t really know anything about it,’ I said. ‘I got the offer without an interview, so …’
‘It’s “Oop Narth”,’ said my mother in English, doing the accent, then translating into German, ‘Up north, near the Scottish border. Tell them about the geology up there, Ralf.’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, it’s just two hours from Siccar Point, isn’t it? You know better than me.’
‘What’s Siccar Point?’ said Beate.
‘The birthplace of geology,’ my mum said.
‘Well, that’s debatable,’ I said.
‘Is it?’ said Mum.
Because Beate was looking at me with pained optimism, I conceded, ‘It’s one of the places that James Hutton used to show unconformity.’
‘What’s that?’ said Beate.
‘The fact that different kinds of rocks are laid on top of one another. It just proves that all of the rocks weren’t created at the same time by God, which is what most people believed in the eighteenth century.’
‘Sounds fascinating,’ said Beate.
‘It’s just one of the places Hutton used, so … ’
‘But it’s the most famous,’ said my mum. ‘Isn’t it?’
I shrugged.
‘And he’s the father of geology.’
‘Only British people think he’s the father of geology,’ I said, using my teeth to rip a strip of sticky meat from a spare rib. ‘Nicolas Steno, Johann Gottlob Lehmann, Füchsel – loads of people came first. Even the ancient Greeks were at it. Even Goethe.’
My mother, crestfallen, stared down at her empty plate.
My father served her some rice and said, ‘Come on, Ralf. You’ll have the Peak District and the Lake District nearby, the Highlands, after being stuck in West Berlin for eighteen years. Surely the saddest town in the world for a geologist.’
‘It’s going to be amazing,’ said Petra. ‘I don’t think you’re going to miss Barssee and Pechsee.’
My mother gave her a wounded smile, her shoulders sunk in injured disappointment, a pose I found particularly annoying.
‘Yeah,’ I said, my mouth full and my lips greasy, ‘I mean, I’ll probably go to London anyway. It’s a good course and it’s a bit more interesting – the city I mean. But actually I’m probably going to defer university for a year. I’m pretty sure.’
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and held out my hands for the bowl of rice. Maike passed it to me with trembling eyes. No one around the table spoke. I could hear shouted Cantonese from the kitchen and a man lecturing his wife on a nearby table about the differences between Chinese and Korean chopsticks.
‘Why would you defer for a year?’ My mum’s voice sounded low and heavy with rage.
I spooned too much rice onto my plate. The sound of the spoon hitting china was sharp and seemed excessively loud.
I shrugged. ‘Just thought I might.’
‘And do what?’
‘Same as now. Work somewhere and save up some money. Be a bit better prepared, I suppose.’ I opened my napkin and laid it across my lap.
‘And you think you can just stay at home for another year without talking with me or your father about it first?’
I laughed and took a mouthful of rice. ‘What?’ I said, looking up at her. ‘Are you going to throw me out?’
Her lips were parted, her lower jaw pushed forward. She clutched her white napkin in one hand as if she was going to hit me in the face with it. I heard a series of muffled thumps and then a clang as a chair fell over and hit a radiator. By the time I looked over to where Maike had been sitting she was halfway to the door.
‘What’s …? Where’s she going?’
‘She’s in tears, you idiot,’ Petra said.
I got up and wearily followed her outside, wishing that someone would be on my side for once. Maike was walking away down the road with her hands gripped behind her n
eck and her elbows pushed together in front of her, as if she was bracing herself for an emergency landing.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Maike!’
She didn’t turn until I’d reached her and spun her round. She shoved me back with surprising force and I stumbled.
‘What the fuck?’ I said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘What’s going on? You can’t guess?’
‘No!’
‘Deferring university for a year?’
‘It’s good news, isn’t it? If I defer, then I’m here in Germany. I’m closer. I can get the train to Heidelberg anytime I want.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why do I find out with everyone else here in the middle of a fucking restaurant?’
‘Jesus, Maike. I just decided.’
‘What, just like that? While you were eating spring rolls, you just thought, I’m going to defer university for a year?’
‘No, I’ve been thinking about it for a while, of course. But it only, like, crystallised over the last couple of days.’
‘Which I didn’t know anything about because you never see me any more.’
‘Yeah, well it’s pretty complicated. You don’t like coming to mine, because you and Mum don’t get on, and I’m not allowed round yours, because of your parent issues.’
‘What are you talking about? What issues?’
‘You know I’m not welcome there.’
‘Of course you’re welcome there. You just don’t like it there, because it’s not some pretty Charlottenburg flat with plaster ceilings and varnished floors and a fucking TV the size of a car.’
‘What do you mean by that? That’s nuts. I don’t care where you live.’
‘Then why do you never come over?’
‘You made it pretty clear you don’t want me there.’
‘When?’
‘Whenever I come.’
‘You’ve been twice. Once you turned up out of the blue just after Mum had chemo …’
‘Well, you didn’t tell me that … ’
‘And the second time I was ill. That’s it.’
‘Oh, so I’ve just imagined it, have I? I’ve just imagined the weird atmosphere there. The fact your dad and your sisters have never said hello to me. The fact that your mum doesn’t even seem to know who I am.’
‘She’s dying, Ralf!’ Maike’s nose and eyes squeezed together, reddening. Tears escaped down her cheeks.
‘No, I know,’ I said, trying to hold her. ‘I’m sorry. I’m being a dick, I’m sorry. It’s just the results and Mum.’
‘You’re being a cunt to your mum, by the way.’
‘She’s been fucking some other man!’
‘Which has nothing to do with you!’
‘It has everything to do with me!’
She tried to turn away again, but I got hold of her arm and pulled her into a hug. She fought me off half-heartedly, but I got her into my arms and she cried into my shoulder.
‘I should’ve told you about deferring,’ I said. ‘I should’ve said something. I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t tell me anything,’ she wailed, her voice muffled by the cotton of my shirt. ‘You’re making new friends, you’re away for days, you don’t talk to me about any of it. I don’t know who the fuck you are.’
‘Of course you do,’ I said.
‘This isn’t a relationship, Ralf.’
‘It is,’ I said. ‘Of course it is. There’s just loads going on.’
She pushed herself off me and found some tissues in her handbag. I put my hand out and touched her arm, but she let the arm drop and my hand fell away.
‘Look, I’ll come over tomorrow, OK?’
‘That’s what you said at the Tiergarten, then you didn’t come.’
‘This time I’ll be there.’
She shook her head and smiled sadly, dabbing at her eyes and sniffling. ‘I don’t want you doing it like a favour.’
‘It’s not a favour.’
‘But that’s how you make me feel,’ she said, her tears abating into dry, shivering gasps. ‘I don’t need favours. It makes me feel horrible and needy.’
‘We all get a bit needy sometimes.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough of it. I’m done with it.’
She kissed me on the lips. Her mouth was hot and wet. I watched her cross the road to where her bike was locked up on a lamppost, beneath a shredded campaign poster of the mayor, Eberhard Diepgen. Someone had drawn a Hitler moustache on him and given him swastikas as pupils.
‘But we’re good together,’ I shouted. ‘We work because we give each other distance. We don’t try to understand every single thing that’s going on with the other person. That’s why it works.’
Holding the handlebars of her bike, she looked stunned. ‘No, that’s why it works so well for you. Because you don’t have to get close to anyone. And you don’t have to get close to me. I thought that was going to change when we got together. I thought it was going to be different, but it wasn’t different. Why were we having a relationship, if you didn’t want to talk to me about anything except rocks? For a bit of sex? I can get a bit of sex anywhere I like.’
‘Well, that’s classy.’
‘Not classy enough for you, apparently,’ she said, mounting her bike and cycling away.
‘Don’t run off!’ I shouted. ‘I’ll call.’
‘Please don’t,’ she shouted back.
In the restaurant, I walked straight past the table, feeling them all staring at me as I passed. I sat on the toilet with my face in my hands listening to the waiters outside in the courtyard the other side of the high barred windows, smoking and gossiping. I fantasised about tapping my teacup and announcing to the table that I was fucking a man, that I was fucking a West German informant, and that Mum was a whore who was revealing state secrets because she was fucking a Stasi spy. What would they do? Nothing probably. A few more people would leave in tears and it would be forgotten and in a month’s time we would all be around the same table again, burning our mouths on the jasmine tea and reading fortunes from the cookies as we rubbed the tiny crumbs from our fingers.
The toilet door opened and high heels clattered on the tiles. ‘Ralf?’ Mum said. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Mum, this is the gents.’
She came to the cubicle door. I could see the patent-leather tips of her black shoes poking beneath the door like bats’ ears.
‘Are you OK, though?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m just on the toilet.’
Mum didn’t move. The waiters outside had fallen silent. I could hear dishes being washed and the sound of water trickling through pipes. The air smelt of pine disinfectant, urine and mildew.
‘Of course you can stay with us if you defer. You can live at home with us for as long as you like.’ She moved her hand and the golden bangles she was wearing jangled down her wrists. ‘Was Maike very upset?’
‘Can we talk about this later?’ I said.
She sniffled as if she’d been crying. I could hear her swallowing. ‘Ralf, the thing with Tobias. The thing you asked me about.’ I remained frozen to the black plastic seat. ‘You don’t need to worry about that, OK? There’s nothing happening now. I love your father very much. There’s nothing happening.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Whatever.’
‘And I love you, Ralf. So much. And I know I’m not always a good mother, or wife, but I do love you all so much. I couldn’t love you more. That’s the truth.’
‘OK,’ I said. Mum’s shadow moved and the door banged slightly as if she was leaning on it. I was afraid she’d started crying again. ‘I love you too,’ I said weakly.
I heard her move to the sink, the sequins on the hem of her dress rasping. The tap was run and then the dryer screamed, covering her retreating steps. When the door knocked shut, I knelt down on the cold red tiles in front of the toilet and threw up the spare ribs and rice, and four cups of jasmine tea.
Twenty-Two
What I’d said to
my mother about James Hutton was true. In Britain, writers tend to overstate the primacy of Hutton, ignoring the long history of geological discoveries in France, Germany, Hungary and Russia, with their traditions of mining and mining academies, churning out incredible fossils for centuries. When Wordsworth bemoaned the explosion of amateur geologists hacking at the rocks of the Lake District in search of substances known ‘by some barbarous name’, those names – greywacke, schist, gneiss – were all German.
To give Mum her due, though, it’s impossible not to be won over by the romance of Hutton, John Playfair and Sir James Hall bobbing in the sea at Siccar Point in Berwickshire, as Hutton’s hunch solidified in their minds that the earth had not been created in a single moment by the hand of God some six millennia ago, but billions and billions of years before. ‘The mind seemed to grow giddy,’ Playfair said, ‘by looking so far into the abyss of time.’
One of the most passionate groups of amateur geologists was vicars, like Reverend William Conybeare and Reverend William Buckland, trying desperately to find in geology proof of the great flood that God had once sent to engulf the earth. Instead, they had to watch as the waters ebbed further and further away. I can imagine the nauseating anxiety that these men felt, trying to fit their newly gained knowledge to their old worldview, confidently exclaiming how each discovery proved their thesis, but feeling the constant contradictions as a persistent anxious pain in the stomach.
It was a pain I also felt in the last weeks of that summer. Sitting at the dinner table with my family, turning sausages on the grill at the beer garden, sunk into a beanbag in Stefan’s bedroom, I could pontificate passionately about how me staying in Berlin for one more year made complete sense, how I was too young anyway, and how I needed the money now I was going to study in London. I could even cycle to Oz’s apartment, have sex with him on the rough rug of his living-room floor and tell the same stories to the crown of his head as he lay on top of me stroking my bare leg. But through all of this, I was plagued by a chronic anxiety, a sense that I was about to lose my grip on something. And it came out physically. An itchy rash appeared on the back of my hand and every week or so I would get a blistering headache. At night, I would suddenly wake up as if someone had called my name, and then wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again for an hour or more.
An Honest Man Page 16