Alice (3 page)

She took the lift up to the seventh floor and could hear Misha's breathing as the doors slid open. The door to his room was slightly ajar. Misha lay there as though he hadn't moved in all the hours she'd been gone. On his back, arms extended to the left and right, face turned to the fading light, mouth open, eyes open. Alice placed the chair she had pushed against the table that morning next to his bed again. She sat down and cautiously said his name. He didn't react. Still, Alice had the feeling that he knew she was there. Whether it mattered to him that she was there, whether it was a strain for him –
that
she didn't know. There was no longer anything to which he could have reacted. Whatever there had once been was gone. All the things that had once existed between him and her were gone too. Nothing left. It was all over; she could say goodbye now. Nothing but the pure, shining present. Alice kissed Misha, as she hadn't kissed him during his lifetime. She knew that he would never have put up with that kind of kiss were he still conscious.

They ate together that evening, Alice, Maja, and the child.
At the table of light-coloured wood, Maja and the child sitting on one side, Alice on the other. Fish and potatoes. The plates with pictures of yellow baby chicks, the glasses with flowers on them. Maja had done the cooking; she cooked with little salt, nothing fancy, a sort of biblical meal; you could call it bland or plain; the child seemed to like it.

Did you eat together often? Alice asked.

Now and then it was possible to ask a question, and Maja would answer, or vice versa, if Maja asked, Alice would answer. But it didn't go beyond that. Questions and answers don't make a conversation. And that's how things stood, Alice thought. A focused emptiness.

Yes, Maja said. Not in the beginning, but later on, we did. When we were living together. Misha liked rice.

Oh, Alice said.

She had seen Misha only rarely this past year, had never visited him in the apartment where he lived with Maja. Actually she hadn't known anything about the child, and wouldn't have wanted to. A different Misha? Maybe not.

With the palm of her hand the child batted once resolutely at the plate with the mashed potatoes and fish. Maja took the tiny hand and wiped it gently with a towel, each of the five little fingers individually. The child watched, nodding. After the fish, there was plain yogurt without honey. And lukewarm fennel tea. The child drank the tea from her bottle, which she could already hold by herself. She was sitting in Maja's lap, looking intently at Alice while she drank.

Well, Maja said, time to go to bed. She carefully set the
child on her feet, waiting till she had found her balance. Then she began to clear the table and said, If Misha gets better, if his temperature doesn't go up again or something, we could order an ambulance next week. Go home, to Berlin. I want him back home. Misha wants that too. He wants to go home.

She rinsed the plates in the sink and put them into the dishwasher, having found the detergent tablets on her own. She moved around the kitchen matter-of-factly and confidently. No hesitation. Maja didn't shy away from anything; nor did anything seem to disgust her. She wiped the table and switched on the kettle.

She said, Was his temperature up today?

Then, squatting in front of the dishwasher, she briefly studied the buttons and symbols, pushed the door of the machine shut, and turned one of the knobs firmly to the right. Soft gushing sounds. Did he have a fever today?

No, Alice said. She returned the child's dreamy gaze, grateful for her neutral quiet. That morning, a pale young nurse had anxiously and awkwardly felt for Misha's pulse and had taken his temperature with a digital thermometer, flinching as if someone had yelled something into her ear at the soft sound – like the chirp of a cricket – that the thermometer made. She then entered some made-up, shaky numbers on a chart and hurried out of the room. The nurse seemed afraid Misha might die while she was taking his temperature. A sudden drop in temperature. Tumbling digital numbers. Plunging towards zero. Alice had the feeling that the nurse's touch, her fingers searching for a
pulse on his wrist and then on his neck, had caused Misha pain; after that Alice no longer held his hand in hers.

She said, No, he didn't have a fever. Then she got up and said, Let me clear away the rest. I can do it.

You always use so much water, Maja said. You just let the water run when you're doing dishes, I've noticed that before. Misha used to do that, too. But I cured him of it.

Maja put the child to bed. In the room with the big matrimonial bed in front of the mirrored wardrobe. Lots of blankets and pillows. Alice sat at the table in the kitchen, listening.

Where's the rabbit?

Where's the rabbit?

Here's the rabbit. Here it is.

The child's laughter turned to exhausted crying. Maja hummed, snatches of lullabies,
Morgen früh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder geweckt – If God will thou shalt wake, when the morning doth break …
Now go to sleep. Sleep. Then it was quiet. Alice drank some fennel tea, soundlessly setting her cup down on the tabletop, a kind of meditation. After a while Maja came out of the bedroom, gently pulling the door not quite shut behind her. She sat down on the other side of the table, took a sip of tea, and, like Alice, gazed through the patio door into the dark garden. The glass pane was like a mirror.

Did he say anything to you? Maja asked.

No, Alice said. He was sleeping, the entire time. He scarcely moved. Sighed sometimes, heavily. Nothing else.

Maja nodded. She said, Well, then, I'll be off now. I think I'd better comb my hair.

Alice said nothing. Maja washed her face in the bathroom, combed her hair; she put on a different sweater, grey with green stripes, fluffy, soft wool; it was like going out in reverse, Alice thought.

You look beautiful, she said.

Maja did look beautiful. With those distinct dark rings under the eyes, slender, pale, and tired; her hair firmly combed back off her face and pinned up. A pulsating, dark glow all around her. They went back into the bedroom and together looked at the child. She was sleeping soundly in a sleeping bag patterned with baby lambs. Lying on her back, her little arms extended in complete surrender, clutching the ear of a soft-toy rabbit in her left fist.

Call me if she wakes up and won't stop crying, Maja said. Otherwise I'll be back around midnight, we'll see.

Yes, Alice said. I'll wait for you; I'll wait up till you come.

Alice escorted Maja to the door. They didn't turn on the light, tiptoed up the stairs. The door to the couple's apartment was slightly ajar; through the gap came the noises of the TV – loud applause and the glib, cynical voice of a game-show host. The hallway was cold. It smelled of supper, washing powder, and unfamiliar habits. Alice touched the handle of the front door and for a moment felt sure it would be locked. But the door opened. The evening air as overwhelming as if they hadn't been outside for months. The light in the hallway went on, the woman was
standing behind Maja; she wore a tracksuit but no shoes.

Going out so late?

Yes, Maja said. I'm going to the hospital. I want to visit my husband. I haven't been to see him all day.

The woman grimaced as if she'd been stung, as if something had suddenly caused her pain. She had completely forgotten Maja's husband.

Oh, I'll drive you there.

No, thank you, not necessary, Maja said, smiling politely.

Yes, yes, the woman said. Come on, I'll drive you there; this is no place to be walking around in the dark.

She wouldn't take no for an answer, disappeared into her apartment as though sucked in by the blue light of the TV, said something to her husband; he said something to her, all of it drowned out by the noise of the game show. Maja rolled her eyes. Alice didn't know what to say. The woman came back; now she was wearing shoes and a heavy cardigan. She pulled the cardigan down over her broad hips and held up the car key.

Come on. Let's go.

All right, Maja said, see you soon. She briefly touched Alice's arm, then disappeared behind the woman into the front yard.

Alice closed the front door. She felt dizzy. From the couple's apartment came the same blue-cave illumination, the TV spitting out hellish laughter. She went back downstairs, into the basement apartment, locking the door behind her. The door had a frosted glass pane set into a wooden frame. Alice went into the bathroom, opened the window above
the tub, a window facing the street. She could hear the car engine start, the car driving out of the driveway, turning, setting off down the street, getting fainter; then it was quiet.

Twenty minutes to walk to the hospital, twenty minutes back again. By car, five minutes. Traffic lights. Traffic at the intersection. A few scraps of conversation. Possibly the woman would decide to go in, too, for whatever reason, she just might. Then five minutes to drive back. Fifteen minutes, all in all, one long, eternal quarter hour. Alice stood in the bathroom and listened. She counted the seconds, starting at one hundred, counting down, was almost sure and yet was still surprised when she heard him. The seventy-fifth second. He came out of the apartment upstairs, did something or other at the front door. Then came down the stairs, clop, clop, clop, his feet in slippers. He turned the corner in the hall, knowing his way, no need for the light. Alice quietly left the bathroom and saw him on the other side of the frosted glass, his lumpy, heavy body. He was listening, listening just as she was. Then he knocked on the wooden door frame.

Alice pulled her plaited hair tight with both hands. Tugged the sleeves of her sweater down over her wrists. Should she open the door or not? Should she open the door or talk to him through the locked door? Show her fear or hide it? Fear of what, exactly? She cut short the stream of crazy thoughts, turned the key, and opened the door.

Yes?

He stood there with that scarred skull and his grey sweater over his fat stomach and those incredibly dirty
tracksuit bottoms. He gave off a distinct, sour smell. You don't have to lock the door here, he said.

Oh, Alice said. Her heart was beating fast. She could hardly understand him. She said, What's the matter?

He was smiling now, in a knowing, explicit way. Just wanted to see if you've got everything you need. That's what he said, if Alice understood him right.

Do you have everything you need?

He looked at Alice, her body, from the toes up, still smiling, deliberately and calmly. Alice knew what he meant, and he knew that she knew. Maybe in a figurative sense both of them might not mean the same thing, but in a direct sense they did.

Actually, I don't have any of the things I need, Alice thought. None of them. She said, Thanks, I have everything I need. We have everything, really. Thank you very much.

He thrust himself one heavy step forward and looked past her into his old apartment. Heard the familiar whispering of the dishwasher. Maybe it all seemed different to him now, what with all of Alice's, Maja's, and the child's things in it. Alice's jacket hanging on the coat rack. And the child's soft, tiny shoe on the floor under the table and next to it the green plastic ball – all of it dipped in sadness; he could see how different it was.

Alice let him look. She looked too. She waited, knowing that it didn't matter what her answer had been. He had ten minutes, fifteen at most – in that time anything was possible. But she didn't come towards him, that made him hesitate, and the sadness repelled him, like an illness.

Alice said, Well, then, good night.

He still hesitated.

She said, Good night, again.

He retreated. Clop, clop, back up the stairs. Stopping before the last step – maybe she'd call him back. Alice wondered what Misha would have expected her to do. She didn't have a clue. Holding her hand to her mouth, she listened as the man got to the top. Then at last the TV chatter stopped as his apartment door closed.

Maja came back around midnight. Alice had made another pot of fennel tea, with honey, drinking it all, along with three of the child's biscuits. She had pulled open several kitchen drawers, had gazed at the contents and closed them again. In the cutlery drawer, countless little spoons rattling around, spoons from cough-medicine packages, tiny ice-cream spoons, plastic spoons. Messy, she said under her breath. Below the video recorder there were cassettes with handwritten labels, dubious content. On the recessed shelves, art paper, scissors, and used-up glue sticks. It was getting more and more depressing. She forced herself to stop looking.

She'd emptied the dishwasher, putting the plates and cups into the cupboard above the stove, an involuntary imitation of a different life. Had tried to resist watching TV, then capitulated. She had fallen asleep at the table, head on her arms, safe in the random order of the objects around her: teats, Maja's barrette, tea bags, crayons, and a children's cardboard book with soft corners. Suddenly
she started up, her hands were numb. But the child was still sound asleep, her left hand tightly clamped around the rabbit's ear, and no heavy shadow in the hall outside the door. Alice went into the room where she would be sleeping, had opened the couch and made up her bed. A blue sheet. Her nightgown next to the pillow. Shades down, patio door open. A gentle breeze outside, the brave constancy of things, their unambiguous names, the child would learn them all: tree, chair, garden, sky, moon, and hospital. Lit-up windows, dark windows. Small figures behind them, a Maja, a Misha, a nun.

11:45 PM.

Night watch.

Maja came back silently, without making a sound on the stairs or in the hallway; there was only her knock on the frosted glass pane. She was surprised to find that Alice had locked the door, Was everything all right? Yes, Alice said, everything's all right, but it made me feel better this way.

Maja went to check on the child, briefly and conscientiously; she always seemed to have just enough strength for the things that had to be considered or done, no more and no less, precise and appropriate. Alice, sitting at the table, waited, her back erect, hands folded in her lap.