Field Study (7 page)

– And so your father will tell your boys? Or you will?

The lights are red, she has to stop. Has no excuse not to look at him.

– Yes, I think I will tell them. When they are old enough.

– And now you are thinking McCarthy was nothing compared to what we did here. Yes? And I don’t talk to my sons about it, do I?

He is right, or near enough, but Hannah doesn’t respond. The lights change and she drives on, disconcerted by her instinct to defend, to find relative levels of wrong.

– Is the hotel far now, do you think?

– I have been taking us on a scenic route. Sorry. I may not see this city again.

– Okay. Yes.

The blue signs of the underground stations go by. And then the old man directs them the wrong way up a one-way street, so Hannah has to take a few quick right and left turns to get them away from the angry drivers and pedestrians. She starts to sweat.

– Sorry. They changed the traffic rules along with everything else, it would seem.

Detached. Dry. Hannah unzips her coat at the next junction, catches sight of the damp patches under her arms. Feels the sweat trickle down her sides and drives and drives and says nothing even though she has a feeling they have been lost for a while because her father-in-law spends too much time looking out of the window and not enough time looking at the map.

__

– Here.

They are at a busy crossroads. Four lanes of traffic, trams, bicycles, an elevated train line, but he makes her pull over.

– Stop, stop. Don’t go so far from the corner.

– Is this allowed? I don’t think I can park here.

– I won’t be long.

She has not pulled up yet and he is already opening the door.

– Wait.

But he doesn’t listen. By the time Hannah has straightened up and found the hazard lights, her father-in-law is already striding back down the road to the corner. When she gets to him, he has positioned himself underneath the street sign and is addressing the people waiting at the pedestrian crossing in a surprisingly loud voice. Most of them cross when the lights change, but a few stay to listen.

Hannah steps forward and takes his arm, but he shakes her off, opens his briefcase and takes out a long piece of white card, on which is written, in black lettering, Dimitroff Strasse. Home-made, the pen lines are a little shaky, but the whole thing is quite lovingly done, with small brass hooks taped to the back. He holds the sign up so the gathering people can read it.

The afternoon is cold, getting dark already. A small crowd has formed around them now, fifteen or twenty people, and Hannah finds herself absorbed among them. Watching her father-in-law gesturing and shouting: a thin man in a thin coat, strangely fragile. The people around her are talking, some of the voices sharp, but others are light, laughing. A train clatters above on the elevated track, drowning the old man’s voice out. He points to the street sign above him. Danziger Strasse. It has started to snow.

Danzig she knows. Gdansk. Once in Germany, now Poland. But Dimitroff?

A young man has stepped forward out of the crowd. Blue hair and torn trousers, he makes an unlikely partner for Hannah’s father-in-law, but they shake hands warmly, and then the young man takes the cardboard strip between his teeth and shins up the signpost. When he hangs the hand-drawn words over the street sign, a few people in the crowd cheer, one or two shout angry words, still others walk away. The blue-haired boy smiles triumphant, embarrassed. He slides down a little, hesitates, unsure whether to jump, and Hannah steps forward to help him.

Six or seven people are left now, out of the original crowd, and the old man stands in the middle of them all with his watery eyes, animated hands, pink in his cheeks from the wind. Hannah wonders whether she should go and claim her father-in-law, but the conversation is intense, involved, and she doesn’t know if she can stop it. She offers the boy with the blue hair a handkerchief, asks if he speaks English.

– Dimitroff was a communist, in the Nazi times. Thank you.

He wipes his hands on his saggy trousers first, then on Hannah’s handkerchief, smiles.

– This is what it was called before, Dimitroff Strasse, when this was East Berlin.

The snow is settling now, blotting the letters of Dimitroff’s name, turning to hissing slush under the passing cars. Voices raised and arms, the small group is oblivious to the dark and weather, debating a history of which Hannah has only the vaguest knowledge. She zips up her coat again and the young man gestures to her father-in-law.

– He is little crazy, maybe, but harmless.

– What are they arguing about? Can you hear them?

– Don’t ask me, they’re all Ossies.

– You are not from the East?

He shrugs.

– No, I am a student here. From Hamburg. Hey!

__

Hannah does not see the woman hit her father-in-law. Only the way he holds his hands over his face, beret lying on the wet pavement next to him.

– Hey!

Hannah puts herself in front of the old man, finds herself looking into shocked and furious faces. A second or two later, they are already disappearing, backing off, the woman who slapped her father-in-law moving away last. She is crying.

__

The old man sits in the passenger seat next to her, breathing, and Hannah tries to drive, but her feet shake on the pedals and her arms feel useless. She turns off the main road, parks on a side street, tries to gather her thoughts, the map, the biro circle that marks the hotel. The boy with the blue hair said it wasn’t far, easy from here. She will just stop for a moment, just to calm down a little. The old man sits quietly, blinking, his shoulders curled around him. Hannah rests a hand on his back but he doesn’t respond, and after a few minutes she decides to take it away again.

Trams pass, people, the street lights are on, shop signs: evening. Hannah wonders how she will describe the scene to Jochen. She feels excluded, but also in a way relieved. Not German.

__

After German reunification many streets in eastern Berlin were given their pre-GDR names again. One such street was Dimitroff Strasse, which returned to being Danziger Strasse in 1995. Georgi Dimitroff was a communist and one of three men falsely accused by the Nazis of setting the Reichstag fire in 1933. He defended himself in court, humiliating the Nazi lawyers, and eventually winning his case.

The boy arrives early. He is a young man, really; older than he looks. Soft down on his upper lip, no bum on his legs. He has come for the keys, a wad of crumpled notes in his pocket. The neighbour takes him across the landing, keen to get the matter over with. The boy looks the flat over, unhurried, but he’s excited about something. It shows in his skin. The flat is a shell with curtains. In the kitchen the cupboards hang off the walls.

– You square with Malky?

The boy nods, the neighbour leaves.

Kenny hadn’t planned to stay in the flat until he’d done it up, but now he’s here he doesn’t want to leave. He lays his blankets on the floor, takes the curtains off the window and wraps himself up in a warm corner. Streetlights flood the room, the long, bright shape of the window all along one wall. Kenny lies, eyes wide open in his scratchy, cosy curtain nest.

He spends his first two days scrubbing the place down. The kitchen floor makes him retch; the stink of the muck in the corners where the hot, soapy water has soaked in. He pours neat bleach into a bucket and sets to work. His fingers itch all night, but the clean floor in the morning inspires him to scrub the walls and the window frames, too. That afternoon he goes round friends and family for donations. His granny gives him an old washing machine, and he gets a fridge and a cooker cheap from a friend of his brother’s.

Kenny’s dad brings the whole lot over in a borrowed van, and they haul everything up the stairs together. Between appliances they drink cans of lager in the kitchen and watch telly on the portable that Kenny’s mum gave him. Her own one from the kitchen. At midnight, they decide to plumb in the washing machine and give it a trial run with the curtains. Kenny’s dad leaves after the cycle finishes, too far gone to drive the van.

The third night Kenny sleeps soundly. The windows are open and his brother’s sleeping bag undone, night air on his skin.

In the morning, Kenny climbs up through the attic onto the roof. He spreads his curtains out to dry, half bricks on each corner. He’s not too steady on the sloping tiles, but he enjoys the height and the sun. He looks out over the city for a while, tracing the path of the river, identifying landmarks. Kenny’s never lived so close to the centre before.

– What you doing?

A girl stands by the chimney, same red hair as the neighbour across the hall. The sun is behind her head, so Kenny can’t look at her straight.

– What you doing?

– Minding my own.

– What you doing with the curtains?

– Feathering my nest.

– What?

– Never mind.

The girl shifts from one foot to the other and, when Kenny ignores her, she turns on her heel and goes.

Kenny lies back down again, glad to be left alone. He allows himself a mid-morning kip to make up for his short night.

A couple of days’ work gives him enough money for some paint, a duvet and a mattress. He finds some chairs to go with the table he hauled out of a skip, and buys some pots and pans with his giro. Kenny has enough stuff in the flat now to live quite comfortably. Part of him misses the emptiness, the adventure of making do, but he doesn’t think Maria would like it. He needs some rugs for the floor. He has been here for two weeks.

He calls her from the phone box on the corner, but she knows already. Someone told someone, who told someone else, who told her sister, who told her yesterday. Maria is difficult to talk to this evening and Kenny can’t think straight. He can hear her sipping her tea, tapping her rings on the mug, and his money is running out. He invites her round, giving her directions over the pips. Kenny hangs up and can’t remember if she said she was coming or not.

The bulb in the bathroom has gone, so he has his bath in the dark. He can hear the people downstairs arguing,
even when he puts his head underwater. They keep going until his bath gets cold. He puts the fire on when he gets into bed, and wakes up in the night with a dry mouth and gummy eyes. The people downstairs are shouting again, but Kenny drops off before they finish their row.

The day is endless. Kenny has the TV on for company. He buys some food to cook for tea and a bottle of wine, but then he remembers that Maria might not want to drink, so he goes out again and buys some orange, just in case, and some candles, which he fixes into a clean ashtray. He sits on the bed for a long time and then goes out to buy a newspaper, but he can’t concentrate. He smokes too much and opens all the windows to get rid of the smell. He tries to have an afternoon nap, but watches TV instead. He doesn’t want to cook until she comes, but he’s starving. He runs out to the shops to get some crisps. The light is going out of the day and when he is back in the flat again, Kenny worries that Maria has come and gone while he was out.

When the buzzer goes he doesn’t get up immediately. He stands next to the entry phone and counts to ten, and then he answers.

– It’s me.

– Okay.

Maria takes a while to get up the stairs. When she gets to the second floor, Kenny can watch her over the banister.

He hasn’t seen her for over a month and she’s showing now. Skinny woman with a big belly. She is walking like his sister did when she was pregnant, only her back is still straight and her legs look good. She pauses on the landing and looks up.

– Do you want a hand?

– I’m okay.

When she gets to the top floor, she stands in front of him for a couple of seconds to get her breath and he doesn’t know what to do.

– Can I come in, then?

Kenny is proud of the flat, clean and bright with its improvised furniture. He shows her everything, lingering in the kitchen with its washing machine, hurrying through the bedroom with its double bed. Maria is quiet, nodding, non-committal. Kenny wants her to smile at him and say nice things like it’s good to have a gas cooker.

– I’m starving.

He gets her a cup of tea and a biscuit to tide her over, and she sits in the kitchen while he cooks. He asks after her family and she smiles while she answers, but she’s not being friendly. There are long silences between them, and Kenny tries to look busy with the food. He sets the table and she sits with her hands folded on her belly. Then he opens the wine but says she can
have orange if she wants, and she says a glass of water will do.

– I didn’t ask you to do any of this, you know?

– No, I know.

This throws him a bit, but Maria is more relaxed now and they eat. Kenny has some wine and feels a bit better.

– I wanted to do it.

Maria nods but she looks out of the window. He thinks she might be laughing at him, but the moment passes. He spoons the peaches out of the can into bowls and they both help themselves to ice cream. She has a sip or two of his wine without asking, and then she picks up the peach tin from the side and spoons more ice cream into the leftover syrup and eats it from the can, leaning back in her chair. She tells him about work and friends, and he tells her about family, and neither of them mention the flat or the baby.

Maria says she wants to watch TV, but when she sees that there is only the double bed to sit on, she changes her mind. They stand in the narrow hallway, both embarrassed and then Maria says she wants to go home.

Kenny helps her into the cab. Maria looks like a kid on the back seat. A kid with a pillow stuffed up her jumper. She smiles at him and then she’s off.

Kenny lies in the bath and can’t cry. He brings the candles in to the bathroom, dripping water through the flat. He
drinks the rest of the wine, rolls a damp joint that is a job to smoke but is just the trick, and he can forget it all until the morning.

It’s Sunday and he goes to his mum’s for dinner. He eats a lot and helps his dad wash up, then he falls asleep on the sofa watching the sport. His mum asks if he wants to stay over, but he’s too old to be sleeping in bunk beds so he goes back to the flat. He buys lagers on the way and drinks a skinful so he can forget it all for a little bit longer.