‘I didn’t say that.’
My parents laughed and I rolled my eyes. ‘I’ll educate him yet, Frau Dörsam.’
‘Pat,’ Mum said, ‘Please. I’m English. I can’t be doing with all of this “Sie und du” anyway.’
‘Who can?’ he said.
My mum’s eyes sparkled. I seemed intent on upsetting her in front of Oz, and he had saved the situation for me. I sighed at my own petulance, grateful for his easy confidence, for his physical weight, for his beauty. I was so in love with him, and in that moment I imagined reaching out my hand and taking his arm, becoming a couple in front of my parents. I looked at his hand, beautiful, his nails neat, the half-moons on them large, his fingers shapely and the fine black hair reaching his knuckles then dissipating, but it was so far away, it would have been impossible to touch him there in public under anyone else’s gaze.
‘Are you all right, Ralf?’ Mum said. ‘You look tired.’
They all turned to me. ‘I’m fine,’ I said, pushing out a smile. ‘I’m going to get a drink.’
I looked up at Oz, encouraging him to escape with me, but Dad said, ‘Tell me about Turkey,’ and Oz started answering the question with thoughtful assurance, as if he knew all about it. I imagined saying, ‘He’s not even Turkish, don’t you get it? He was born in Berlin! He’s a spy! For fuck’s sake, he’s a spy!’ Instead I made my way through the crowd to the high, tiled bar and asked for an Orangina.
I spotted Stefan at the other side of the room. He was talking to Tobias, who was dressed in the suit he wore when he was playing with the orchestra. I couldn’t believe Mum had invited him and I couldn’t believe that Stefan was talking to him. I waved at Stefan, but he didn’t see me; Tobias raised his hand instead, thinking I was waving at him. I nodded a greeting, then felt stupid for doing it. He smiled at me and I hated him.
I looked about to see where Martin was. Instead I found Beate sitting alone at one of the little square tables covered in a red-chequered tablecloth, picking at a bowl of apple-green olives stuffed with almonds. She wore a lilac kaftan and her straw-blonde hair was held back by a matching Alice band. She looked tired too, as if it was the end not the beginning of the evening. When she saw me she smiled wisely and reached out her hand, inviting me to sit. I sat the other side of the table and picked up an olive, nibbling out the waxy nut before eating the salty flesh around it.
Beate nodded at Mum and Dad talking to Oz and smiled sleepily. ‘He’s very handsome. If I were ten years younger … ’ She trailed off and ate another olive.
‘You all right?’ I said, out of politeness rather than genuine concern, because my parents and Beate were still proper adults and, despite everything that had happened that summer, I didn’t really think that proper adults ever weren’t all right, especially not Beate, who was always happy.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Beate said, drying her fingers on a red paper serviette. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Birthdays make me sad sometimes. Getting older.’
‘Stefan told me you always say your current age is your favourite age.’
Beate nodded. ‘That’s true. But no age comes without its sadness. And its nostalgia.’
‘For the Swinging Sixties?’
Beate laughed a little. ‘No, I was still in the East in the Sixties. Very little swinging in Zwickau.’ She swirled the red wine around in her glass, then lifted her chin and said grandly, ‘No, Stefan is making me nostalgic today.’
He was at the door now, laughing with Frau Klemens, Dad’s assistant at the pharmacy.
‘But he’s still here,’ I said.
‘You can be nostalgic about things you already have, when you know they’re going to disappear.’
‘Where’s he going?’
‘University.’
‘Oh that,’ I said, thinking that going to university didn’t really count as moving out. ‘But he’ll be back during the holidays.’
‘But when you’ve had him in your house for two decades,’ she said. There were tears in her eyes. ‘And he’ll make new friends, he’ll go abroad, he probably won’t live in West Berlin again.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s a silly little island near Poland filled with miserable people and terrible weather.’
‘I thought you liked it here.’
Beate smiled. ‘Oh, I like it. But I don’t think it’s going to be enough for you and Stefan and your friends. Not for ever. No, I’ll see him in the summer, but he’ll start to drift away. Then I’ll just be a crazy little old lady in a garden I can’t keep up. I’ll probably get some cats and call them my children.’
‘You’ll never be a little old lady.’
‘We’re all going to end up being little old people, Ralf. If we’re lucky.’ She took a gulp of wine. ‘Stefan told me about Maike.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’ve behaved very well.’ Confessing gave me a pleasant feeling that there might one day be absolution.
‘There’s no point behaving well when you’re eighteen,’ Beate said. ‘There’s plenty of time for that later, when you really have some regrets.’
‘Do you have regrets?’
Beate considered this and I was afraid I’d been too forward. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘the only things I regret are the things I didn’t do and decisions I didn’t make. When you decide to do something and it turns out to be a terrible mistake, well at least you did it. You know it was wrong. If you don’t do something then you’ll always be wondering what if. What if I’d slept with him? What if I’d kept the baby? What if they really did love me? Those are the ones that gnaw at you.’
I looked over at Oz laughing brightly at something my mother was saying. I didn’t know if he represented a decision I was making or not making.
Someone started clapping and a loud Italian voice said, ‘Signore e signori, dinner is served.’
The room came alive with chatter and movement, honking wood against terracotta tiles, as chairs shifted and the guests swarmed around the dinner table, arrayed in one long line, with carafes of water, green wine-bottle candle-holders streaked with red wax, straw baskets filled with sliced baguettes and straw cupping the Chianti bottles’ bottoms. As I pulled my chair in and Oz found his way to me, I saw that Stefan was stranded at the far end of the table.
‘Tobias is here,’ I whispered as we sat down.
‘I know,’ he whispered back. ‘Forget about him. He doesn’t matter any more.’
I sat opposite Martin and Mrs Walters, my old maths teacher. I tried to concentrate on a story she was telling me about her adopted daughter, Rita, but was distracted by a string of bright pink Parma ham caught between her yellowing teeth and Oz pressing his leg into mine beneath the table.
Frau Klemens was the other side of Oz and giggling loudly, a spotlight above the table turning her frizzy blonde hair into a mist of gauzy gold. Martin, who was sitting next to Brian Foster, a surgeon and an old colleague of my English grandfather’s, was excluded from conversations on both sides, until Oz asked him to pass the Parmesan cheese shaker and said, ‘You’re Martin, right?’
Martin nodded, surprised at being recognised.
‘Oz,’ Oz said, reaching out his hand, which Martin shook enthusiastically. ‘And you’re into football, Ralf said.’
‘Yeah,’ said Martin. ‘But everyone’s into football.’
Oz laughed as if this was funny. ‘What else?’
‘Reading.’
‘Reading?’ I said, laughing.
Martin looked crestfallen.
‘What d’you read?’ said Oz.
Martin shrugged, red-faced.
‘Ignore Ralf,’ Oz said. ‘Always ignore older brothers.’
Martin pulled apart a slice of bread and muttered, ‘Like, detective novels.’
‘What like?’
‘I dunno. The Kayankaya books.’
‘Jakob Arjouni,’ Oz said.
Martin brightened and nodded. ‘I just read th
e second one. It’s really good.’
‘I’ve literally never seen you read a book in my life,’ I said.
‘Well, you’re never around,’ Martin said, squashing the middle of the bread into a hard grey ball.
‘Have you read any Maigret?’
Martin shook his head. ‘Is it English?’
‘French,’ said Oz.
‘My French isn’t good enough.’
‘It’s translated. Into English too, I’m sure, if you prefer reading in English.’
‘I don’t really mind either way,’ Martin said. ‘What are you reading at the moment?’
‘Farewell Sidonia.’
‘About the gypsy!’ said Martin, thrilled.
‘Yeah, have you read it?’
‘I literally just took it out the library.’
‘That’s crazy,’ said Oz. ‘It’s great. Heartbreaking, but … You’ll really like it.’
I knew it was stupid to feel jealous about this exchange, so I excused myself, feeling cross and ashamed in turn all the way to the toilet. Stefan was already there and I joined him at the urinals.
‘That the famous Oz?’ he said.
‘It is.’
I usually struggled to pee next to people I knew, but Stefan was an exception after years of pissing competitions as children and having to relieve ourselves together in any number of German forests.
‘Seems friendly.’
‘He is friendly.’
‘Loads of people were asking after you at the Wildlife Trust. We were checking the elm seedlings we planted two years ago. They’re huge. Shame you weren’t there.’
‘It is a shame,’ I said. It came out colder than I’d intended.
He finished, shook and began washing his hands behind me. ‘Come over soon, OK?’ Stefan said. ‘I know it’s still weird with Maike, but you can still come over to ours, Petra’s too. We’re all going to be off in a few weeks, and then we’re not going to see you until Christmas.’
I shook and washed my hands while he was drying his on a sea-green paper towel. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I will.’
‘Bring Oz, if you like.’
‘We’re not that close,’ I said automatically.
‘Oh, OK,’ said Stefan, apparently confused. ‘Well, whatever you want.’ He held the door open for me.
We ate tiramisu and were served neon-yellow limoncello in frosted glasses. Stefan and I, separated by four tables, silently toasted each other and knocked it back in one. On his way back from the toilets, Oz managed to fall into conversation with Stefan, and soon they were both roaring with laughter. I felt sick from the limoncello and from thinking that I shouldn’t have invited Oz. He had been too much of a success, and now my family and friends were going to start inviting him to things. I didn’t want them to, I realised, because I didn’t want them to have any part of him. He was mine.
The chair beside Stefan became free as the party began to loosen and new groups formed around the room. I stood to go round and join him and Oz, but as I turned I found Tobias standing in my way. He was smiling tightly.
‘Hi,’ I mumbled, and pushed past him.
‘Hey, Ralf,’ Tobias said, touching my shoulder.
‘What?’
‘Thanks for checking about the water leak last week. Frau von Hildendorf said it was you that went over.’
‘Oh,’ I said, paling and hoping he didn’t notice that I was paling. ‘That’s OK.’
He smiled
Behind me, Oz laughed loudly. Tobias looked up over my shoulder. ‘Who’s your friend?’ he said.
‘Just a friend.’
He sighed. ‘Ralf, I don’t want to speak out of turn—’
‘Then don’t,’ I said, trying to head him off. If he mentioned my mother I would’ve shoved him, I would’ve pushed him to the floor and screamed in his face.
He folded his arms. ‘Ralf, that friend of yours has been harassing me.’
I laughed. ‘Harassing you?’
‘Haven’t you seen him parked on our street? You must’ve seen him.’
‘He was there to see me.’
‘Ralf, he’s been there for months, watching the apartment block. And he keeps turning up at the Philharmonie. He followed me in once and hung around in the lobby. It was really creepy.’
‘Well, I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about him any more.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t think you’ll be seeing much of him soon.’
He looked bewildered. ‘OK,’ he said softly. ‘Well, I hope so.’
‘Yeah, I hope so too,’ I said.
He looked down at his feet and said, ‘OK then. Well, thanks about the leak anyway.’
‘Sure,’ I said, and then added petulantly, ‘Any time.’
I watched Tobias limp off down the table and help himself to red wine from a carafe. He took a sip and looked around the room with a squinting stare, as if he was trying to work out where he was. I did want him gone, but for the first time since I’d seen him take his watch from an envelope with my mother’s handwriting on it, I felt sorry for him. He had been abandoned and betrayed as a child, and now he had been abandoned by my mother and betrayed by me.
Oz came up behind me and whispered that he had to leave, filling my ear with his hot breath, his lips brushing my earlobes. While he was saying goodbye to the coterie of new friends he’d already made, Mum gripped my hand and said drunkenly, ‘He’s very nice, your Oz friend.’
‘Thanks. It’s nice of you to say.’
She smiled and squeezed my hand.
When Oz said goodbye to my mum, she embraced him. Oz laughed with surprise. And when we tried to leave the restaurant, my dad emerged from the drunken crowd holding up a wallet, saying, ‘Is this yours?’
Oz patted his pockets. ‘Jesus! Yes! Where was it?’
‘On the floor under your chair.’
‘Danke,’ Oz said. The men shook hands and my fantasy of a future with Oz was sparked again, flamed briefly and then died. I followed him outside and, looking about to check that the dark street was empty, stole a kiss. I smiled at him, but he met it with suspicion.
‘That went all right, didn’t it?’ he said.
‘I know,’ I said, touching his neck.
‘Your parents are really nice.’
‘They’re OK,’ I said. ‘Did Dad crack out his Opa stories?’
‘A few,’ he said, and laughed. ‘Apparently you look just like him.’
‘I don’t look anything like him.’
I touched the buttons on his shirt, my lower lip jutting out childishly. ‘Tobias recognised you. He said you’d been harassing him. Following him around.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Sounds like I wasn’t as subtle as I thought I was being.’
‘What if he calls the police?’
‘That’s not going to be a problem,’ Oz said. ‘Not for us.’
I heard high heels on cobbles and sprang away from him. Oz made a show of taking out his cigarettes and we crossed the road metres apart to get into his car and drive back to his flat.
Twenty-Six
Oz laid his hand on my leg between gear changes. We didn’t talk. I felt sleepy after the food and wine and rolled down the window, letting the warm evening air thunder against my cheek. Oz was right, I realised. The evening had not been a vision of how life might be, it was life.
My parents were open-minded enough that I wasn’t going to be driven from the house for having a relationship with a man. Telling them I was in love with Oz would be crushingly awkward, especially with my mum, who would try so hard to pretend it didn’t matter. My dad’s reaction I couldn’t fathom, but it certainly wouldn’t be rage. Martin wouldn’t care; it would just confirm to him what a weirdo I was. I felt horrible about telling my friends, but only because they might guess I’d been seeing Oz and Maike at the same time, and because of all the other times I’d lied to them. It was a lifetime of lies that would be hardest to own up to.
We pulled into Oz�
��s square. The Berlin streetlamps, flecked with dead insects and veiled by the leaves of the acacia trees, filled the car with a dim orange glow. Oz turned off the engine and we listened to it ticking as it cooled. We held hands and stared at one another.
‘Osman.’
It was muffled as if spoken behind a door. I heard impassioned voices imploring in Turkish, and I thought that a conker or an acorn had dropped on the car from the tree above. There was a face at the window on Oz’s side. Staring eyes, a thick moustache, the shoulders of a black coat. Oz opened his door, but his hand was still on the wheel and I realised that the door had been opened from the outside. Hands came in, grabbed his shirt and hauled him out.
I shouted Oz’s name and grabbed at his trousers, but he slithered away and I heard the grunts of a scuffle, the voices imploring, ‘Osman! Osman!’
In my panic, I opened the car door hard into the tree trunk and saw a young man coming around the car to help. ‘No, he’s there!’ I said. ‘He’s there.’ The young man punched me in the face, a thud that flashed white like an electric shock. He grabbed a handful of my shirt and pushed me hard against the car. His glowering face pulled away from mine and I realised he was going to hit me again, so I struck out, pain erupting in my knuckles as he disappeared from view.
I scrambled around the car and found Oz grappling with the man whose face had appeared at the window, the man who kept repeating ‘Osman!’ so sadly, mixed with sorrowful foreign words. Terrified and confused, but not knowing what else I could do, I hit him too, the pain in my hand shocking as it met his cheek, sending him rolling to the ground.
He cried out and tried to scramble up so I kicked him back down, but Oz grabbed at my shoulder and said, ‘Ralf, don’t.’
The man looked up at me and I saw behind the moustache Oz’s face, but older and fatter, with the same beautiful amber eyes.
Oz pulled me back and we stood panting as the man got to his feet again. The younger man I’d punched stumbled out from the other side of the car, gripping his cheek. He shouted something at Oz and the father cried his name again, tearing at his hair, snot and blood running from his nose. Above us a window clattered open and someone shouted, ‘Get out of here! Fucking foreigners!’
An Honest Man Page 20