A Small Person Far Away (13 page)

“Nonsense, Mama,” said Max, and at this her eyes filled with tears.

“The only thing I’m sorry about,” she said, “is that I dragged you away from your holiday. I didn’t want to – I really didn’t. But it was so awful—” She sniffed through her little snub nose and searched for a handkerchief under her pillow. “I tried not to,” she cried. “I tried to wait at least until you’d be back in London, but each day – I just couldn’t bear it any longer.” She had found the handkerchief and blew into it, hard. “If only they’d just let me die,” she said, “then you needn’t have come until the funeral, and perhaps you could have finished your holiday first.”

“Yes, Mama,” said Max. “But I might not have enjoyed it very much.”

“Wouldn’t you?” She saw his face, and her voice warmed to something almost like a giggle. “After all, what’s an old mother?”

“True, Mama. But I just happen to be attached to mine, and so is Anna.”

“Yes,” said Anna, through the flowers.

“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes, and tears damped her cheeks from under the closed lids.

“I’m so tired,” she said.

Max patted her hand. “You’ll feel better soon.”

But she seemed not to hear him. “Did he tell you what he’d done?” she said. “He got another girl.”

“But it didn’t mean anything,” said Anna. She had squatted down near the bed, and at the sight of Mama’s tear-stained face on a level with her own, as she had so often seen it from her bed in the Putney boarding house, the familiar feeling rose up inside her that she could not bear Mama to be so unhappy, that it must somehow be stopped.

Mama looked at her. “She was younger than me.”

“Yes, but Mama—”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” cried Mama. “You’re young yourself, you’ve got your Richard.” She turned her face away and cried, to the wall, “Why couldn’t they have let me die? They let Papa die in peace – I arranged that. Why couldn’t they have let me?”

Anna and Max exchanged glances.

“Mama—” said Max.

Anna discovered that she had pins and needles and stood up. She did not like to rub her leg, in case it looked callous, so she went over to the window and stood there miserably, flexing and unflexing her knee.

“Look, Mama, I know you’ve had a bad time, but I think everything is going to be all right. After all, you and Konrad have been together a long time.” Max was talking in his reasonable lawyer’s voice.

“Seven years,” said Mama.

“There you are. And this affair, whatever it was, meant nothing to him. He’s said so. And when people have had as good and as long a relationship as you two, you can survive a lot more troubles than that.”

“We did have a good relationship,” said Mama. “We made a good team. Everybody said so.”

“There you are, then.”

“Did you know that we were runners-up in the bridge tournament? With lots of American and English couples competing, all very practised players. And we should really have tied with the couple who won, only there was a stupid rule—”

“You’ve always been terribly good together.”

“Yes,” said Mama. “For seven years.” She looked at Max. “How could he smash it all up? How could he?”

“I think it was something that just happened.”

But she was not listening. “The holidays we had together,” she said. “When we first got the car and went to Italy. He drove and I map read. And we found this lovely little place by the sea – I sent you photographs, didn’t I? We were so happy. And it wasn’t just me, it was him, at least as much. He told me so. He said, ‘Never in all my life have I been as happy as I am now.’ His wife was very dull, you see. They never did anything or went anywhere. All she ever wanted to do was to buy more furniture.”

Max nodded, and Mama’s blue eyes, fixed on some distant memory, suddenly returned to him.

“This girl,” she said. “The one he had an affair with. Did you know she was German?”

“No,” said Max.

“Well, she is. A little German secretary. Very little education, speaks very bad English, and she’s not even pretty. Only—” Mama’s eyes became wet again – “only younger.”

“Oh, Mama, I’m sure that’s nothing to do with it.”

“Well, what else is it to do with, then? It must have been something. You don’t smash up seven years of happiness just for no reason!”

Max took her hand. “Look, Mama, there was no reason. It was just something that happened. It was never important to him, except for the way you reacted. Anyway, he’s been here. Didn’t he tell you so himself?”

“Yes,” said Mama in a small voice. “But how do I know it’s true?”

“I think it’s true,” said Anna. “I’ve been with him for two days, and I think it’s true.”

Mama glanced at her briefly and then looked back at Max.

“I think so too,” said Max. “And I’ll be seeing him tonight. I’ll talk to him and find out what he really thinks, and I promise I’ll tell you exactly what he said. But I’m sure it’ll be all right.”

Mama, her eyes finally brimming over, sank back into the pillows.

“Oh, Max,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Later, in the car, Anna stared out at the rubble and the half-made new buildings flying past in the light of the street lamps and wondered how it was all going to end. Konrad was driving, carefully and efficiently as usual, and she suddenly felt she had no idea what he was thinking. He seemed to be taking them on a tour of the city and, with Max on the front seat beside him, was pointing out various landmarks.

“
Kurfürsten Damm… Leibnitz Strasse… Gedächtnis Kirche… Potsdamer Platz…
”

She could see soldiers, some kind of a barrier and above it, carefully lit, a sign saying, “You are now leaving the American Sector”. It looked cold and dark. Some young people, gathered in a group, were flapping their arms and stamping their feet. Most of them were carrying placards and, as she watched, they suddenly moved closer to the barrier and all shouted together, “
Russen raus! Russen raus! Russen raus!
”

Konrad caught her eyes in the driving mirror. “Supporters for Hungary,” he said. “I can’t see it having much effect, but it’s nice to see them try.”

She nodded. “There are a lot of them in London, too.”

The
Potsdamer Platz
faded behind them.

“Do the Russians ever retaliate?” asked Max.

“Not by shouting slogans. There are more effective ways, such as doubling the checks on the road in and out of Berlin. That means everything takes twice as long to get through.”

The shouts of “
Russen raus!
” could still be faintly heard in the distance. A group of American soldiers marching in step, steel-helmeted and armed, flickered momentarily into vision, to disappear again into the darkness.

“Doesn’t it ever bother you, being surrounded like this? I mean,” said Anna, “suppose the Russians attacked?” She tried to sound detached, without success.

Max grinned at her over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, little man. I promise they won’t get you.”

“If the Russians attacked,” said Konrad, “they could take Berlin in ten minutes. Everyone who lives here knows this. The reason they don’t attack is because they know that if they did, they would find themselves at war with the Americans.”

“I see.”

“And even to get you, little man,” said Max, “they won’t risk starting a third world war.”

She laughed half-heartedly. It was cold in the back of the car and as Konrad turned a corner, she suddenly felt queasy. Not again! she thought.

Konrad was watching her in the driving mirror.

“Supper,” he said. “About three streets from here. I’ve booked at a restaurant you’ve been to before – I hope you don’t mind, but you enjoyed it last time.”

It turned out to be the place where they had celebrated her and Richard’s decision to get married, and as soon as she recognized it – the warm, smoky atmosphere, the tables covered with red cloths and separated from each other by high-backed wooden benches – she felt better.

“
Etwas zu trinken
?” asked the fat proprietress.

(Last time, Mama having proudly told her what was being celebrated, she had given them schnapps on the house.)

Konrad ordered whisky, and when she brought it she smiled and said in German, “A family reunion?”

“You could call it that,” said Konrad and, ridiculous though it was, that was exactly what it felt like.

Konrad sat between them and, like a fond and generous uncle, helped them choose their food from the menu, consulted Max about the wine, worried about their comfort and refilled their glasses. Meanwhile he talked about impersonal subjects – the dubious Russian promise to leave Hungary if the Hungarians laid down their arms, the trouble in Suez, where the Israelis had finally attacked Egypt. (“I hope Wendy won’t be too worried,” said Max. “After all, Greece isn’t very far away.”) Then, when they had finished the main course, Konrad sat back as far as it was possible for such a large man to sit back on a narrow wooden bench, and turned to Max.

“Your sister will have given you some idea of what has been happening,” he said. “But I expect you’d like to know exactly.”

“Yes,” said Max. “I would.”

“Of course.” He placed his knife and fork neatly side by side on his plate. “I don’t know if your mother happened to mention it in her letters, but she recently went to Hanover for a few days. It was a special assignment and rather a compliment to her. While she was away I – became involved with someone else.”

They both looked at him. There seemed nothing suitable to say.

“This – temporary involvement was not serious. It is now over and done with. I told your mother about it, so that she should not hear about it from anyone else. I thought she would be mature enough to see it in its proper perspective…”

(Hold on, thought Anna. Up to now she had been with him, but if he really believed that… How could he possibly believe that Mama would take it calmly?)

“… After all, we’re neither of us children.”

She looked at him. His kind, middle-aged face had a curious closed expression. Like a small boy, she thought, insisting that taking the watch to pieces could not possibly have damaged it.

“But, Konrad—”

He lost some of his detachment. “Well, she
should
have understood. It was nothing. I told her it was nothing. Look, your mother is an intelligent, vital woman. She has an enormous enjoyment of life, and that’s something she’s taught me, too, during the past years. All the things we’ve done together – the friendships, the holidays, even some of the jobs I’ve held – I would never have done without her. Whereas this other girl – she’s a little secretary. She’s never been anywhere, never done anything, lives at home with her mother, does the cooking and the mending, hardly speaks…”

“Then – why?” asked Max.

“I don’t know.” He frowned, puzzling it out. “I suppose,” he said at last, “I suppose it made a little rest.”

It sounded so funny that she found herself laughing. She caught Max’s eye, and he was laughing too. It was not just the way Konrad had said it, but that they both knew what he meant.

There was an intensity about Mama which was exhausting. You could never for a moment forget her presence, even when she was content. “Isn’t it lovely!” she would say, daring you to disagree. “Don’t you think this is the most
beautiful
day?” Or place, or meal, or whatever else it was that had made her happy. She would pursue what she believed to be perfection with ruthless energy, battling for the best place on the beach, the right job, an extra day’s leave, with a determination which most people could not be bothered to resist.

“It’s not your mother’s fault,” said Konrad. “It’s the way she is.” He smiled a little. “
Immer mit dem Kopf durch die Wand.
”

“That’s what Papa used to say about her,” said Anna.

She had tried to translate the expression for Richard. It meant not just banging your head against brick walls, but actually bursting through them head first, as a matter of habit.

“Did he really?” said Konrad. “She never told me that. But of course she used to do it to very good purpose. Getting you both educated when there was no money. Getting a job without qualifications. I don’t suppose that, without her habit of bursting through brick walls, either of you would have come through the emigration as well as you did.”

“Well, of course.” They both knew it and felt it did not need pointing out.

There was a little pause. “But this other girl – the secretary,” said Max at last. “What does she feel about it all? Does
she
think it’s over?”

Konrad had his closed, little-boy expression again. “I’ve told her,” he said. “I’ve made quite sure she understands.”

Suddenly, out of the smoke and the muddle of German voices, the proprietress bore down on them with coffee and three small glasses.

“A little schnapps,” she said, “for the family reunion.”

They thanked her, and Konrad made a joke about the burdens of a family man. She burst into laughter and drifted back into the smoke. He turned again to Max.