Living with Strangers (18 page)

‘Yes.’

‘Is that why he hardly ever comes?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he knew all along?’

‘That’s why he avoided you too. It’s hard to keep a secret; he didn’t want to give anything away. What a mess it was – what a complete and utter mess!’

I brewed some tea and fetched mugs from the dresser. ‘And what you did, Molly, keeping it all quiet, was that the right thing to do?’

‘How can I answer that? We did what we did for the right reasons – I really believe that – to protect you, to protect you all. Only it broke us. It broke us completely.’

I left the tea and went over to Molly, taking her hands. ‘No,’ I said, ‘not completely. I’m here now.’

She pulled her hands away. ‘But it’s taken Papa’s illness to bring you.’

‘Not entirely. I had the letters – that was the shove I needed. We have Alex to thank for that.’ Then, suddenly lifted, I said, ‘We will find Josef, you know. We’ll bring him home.’

There was a sound behind us. The kitchen door opened and Saul came into the room holding Chloé.

‘She was awake,’ he said. ‘I heard her crying.’

Molly and I both got to our feet. ‘Papa, you shouldn’t… I could have fetched her.’

But Saul looked at Chloé and stroked her hair, damp from sleep. ‘It’s alright,’ he said, ‘she should get to know her Opa.’

While there’s still time
, he could have added.

*

Another dawn, an English dawn with no shutters to trap the light. Chloé stirred as I lay, hoping she would wake, that my day could begin. But she grunted and turned over, leaving me to wonder at the long awaited unravelling of that previous afternoon.

I must have slept eventually, for when I woke again, the sun streamed through the window and Chloé had gone, whisked away by other willing hands.

The room clicked and creaked, dust motes crept up from the floorboards. There was a calm here; I was calm for the first time in weeks – years maybe. Something had left me; I was not bereft, but released.

I lay on my back, stretching up to where the ceiling above my bed sloped down. Tiny pinholes studded the plaster, testimony to the scraps and cuttings I had placed there when the notice board was full. Someone had taken them down – or had I, before I left?

I got up and went to the desk. In the left hand drawer under the airmail pad and envelopes, lay a pile of papers – the pieces I had indeed taken down. Poems – mine and others, quotations copied in that same array of handwriting, photographs, articles. Beneath them all was a lined piece of quarto with a verse written out in pencil.

But I had come back, the bitterness and despair that had driven me away unrecognisable now. I had envisaged the gulf – an insurmountable barrier, ever widening as the years passed. But the sound and fury had amounted, in the end, to very little and I found myself wondering what on earth all the fuss had been about.

I tore the paper into tiny pieces and left them in the waste paper bin, then went downstairs to join my family.

Part of my mission had been to help find Josef, to work out where on earth, literally, he might now be. Yet, still unfamiliar with this new warmth between us at home, I was reluctant to broach the subject again. I wondered too if Saul knew that Molly had finally told me. Had he really slept that afternoon? Had he heard, or guessed at the subject of our long and muted conversation, at the scene observed as he stood in the doorway with Chloé? The answer came one morning as I sat with him in his room.

‘Your mother has spoken to you, I think.’

‘About?’

Saul sighed and put down the remains of his biscuit. Beneath his desk, Chloé busied herself with an empty box.

‘These years, Maddie, they’ve been long for all of us. We missed you, you know – I missed you. Josef’s leaving was hard enough, but then we saw what it was doing to you – we didn’t know how to deal with it, how to reach you, it seemed we lost you as well.’

‘Papa, don’t – it’s all…’

‘I need to say this – I should have said it years ago. We should have helped you, we should have talked, explained things. We just didn’t know how – what to say so that you would understand. We should have trusted you.’

Under the desk, Chloé screeched impatiently as she tried to fit a lid on the box. I bent down to help her, overwhelmed. My years of grievance had been years of grief for Molly and Saul. Yet, just as Marie-Claude had said, they had been denied the comfort of grieving.

‘It’s alright Papa. It’s over. It doesn’t matter now.’ And truly, it no longer did.

‘I want you to find Josef. If anyone can bring him home, it’s you.’

‘But where do we start? He’s left Canada, we know that from…’ I hesitated, mindful of Molly’s words.

‘From Alex?’

‘Yes, from Alex. But it’s been such a long time, even if I knew where to look, there’s no guarantee he’d come.’

Then Saul said, ‘You may be wrong there. I think he might.’

There was still something I’d not been told. Saul leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees, each breath a shallow rattle.

‘I wrote to Josef last year, when this illness started. I needed to make contact – needed him to know.’

‘But what did you tell him? I thought there was no diagnosis until recently – when Molly told me.’

‘Officially, no. But I knew that this was no temporary setback.’

‘Does Molly know you wrote to him?’

‘No, and she doesn’t need to know either – it will only worry her more. She might think that’s the reason Josef has gone missing again – that this has stirred up the past for him. She might even blame me – more than she does already.’

‘Molly blames you for what happened at school?’

‘Your mother is a strong and loyal woman. She’s never said as much but yes, in her heart she has always blamed me, not just for Josef but for losing you too – for failing you so badly.’

I took his hand and covered it with my own. His skin soft, translucent, scattered with age marks.

‘You think Josef will have gone to find something – find himself?’

‘It’s possible. In a way, I hope that’s what has happened. Maybe there’s a chance he will return. But then, I would understand if he didn’t. Sometimes we cannot be reconciled with the past – we simply have to cut it off.’

I thought of Oma and her loss – her sacrifice. How, in losing her memory she had finally retreated into a world excised of its past and its pain. I too had tried to forget, had tried to live apart, separated, defiant. Yet now, with Saul’s illness, all else had ceased to matter; I couldn’t believe that Josef would feel otherwise.

‘Should we phone Alex? He may have heard something – have recent news.’

‘We could try. It’s a start at least.’

That evening I waited until midnight. Only Paul was still up, messing about in the schoolroom, sorting cassette tapes. Even with all the recent revelations, I still had little idea of how much he and Sophie understood. Though my past and Josef’s had little bearing on them, the future affected us all. If I were to find Josef, if he were to come back now, then we would all be involved, drawn together not by the past, but by our father’s bleak prognosis.

‘Paul?’

‘You’re still up?’

‘I have to make a phone call.’

‘At this hour?’

‘I need to phone Canada.’

‘Oh.’ He put down the box of tapes. ‘Josef?’

‘Not exactly. I need to phone Alex.’

Again, ‘Oh.’

‘You know?’

‘I know who Alex is. Mum told me – about eighteen months ago. She’d had a letter from him.’

‘You knew that?’

‘Yes, why – didn’t you?’

‘I only found out this week. Now I need to work out where Josef’s gone – he needs to come home. Papa really wants to see him.’

‘Well, good luck with that. But is it likely? Do you think he’d come?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. ‘But I have to try.’

The phone still sat on the table in the hall. There was nowhere to sit, the cord didn’t reach into the kitchen. I dialled the number and slid down to the floor, poised to hang up, my mind a blank, but then the line clicked.

‘Hi, Alex here.’

‘Alex? It’s Madeleine.’

A pause, silence from the other end. Then I remembered the sound lapse; a voice crossing oceans takes time.

‘Madeleine! Hi – how are you?’ So normal, as if I’d known him all my life.

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ My voice echoed loudly round the sleeping house. ‘Is this a good time?’

‘It’s good, I’m home now for a while. What time is it over there?’

‘Just after midnight. I had to call you – ask a few things.’

‘You got the letters?’

‘I did, thank you.’

‘You didn’t mind? Only I thought they might help – give some clue as to where Josef’s gone. I didn’t think it was my place to read them.’

‘No, Alex, I didn’t mind at all. It was a good thing.’ Another thread, the threads that had finally brought me here. When I opened the parcel and dropped the letters onto the table, I had feared a wrecking ball, a huge weight that would crush all I had carefully built, but in the end it had been no more damaging than the crushing weight of absence.

‘Alex, I’m in England now, I’m at home. Saul – my father – is ill. It’s quite serious.’

Again, the pause. ‘And you want to find Joe? That makes two of us.’

‘You don’t have any idea where he might be?’

‘I wish to God I did. Things are kind of tricky here. He just left, you know, one morning. Said he’d had some news and that he had to sort his head out.’

‘He didn’t tell you what the news was?’

‘No, but I guessed it was family stuff – there’d been a letter from England the day before. Not your Mum’s writing, I know that.’

‘It was from Saul – he wrote to say he was ill.’

‘That might explain it, because he just packed a bag and left. Said he’d be in touch.’

‘And you’ve heard nothing since – in three months?’

‘He phoned a few weeks ago, just to say he was ok, but I’ve no idea where he was. It was long distance, though. I could hear the gaps – like now. I was hoping you guys would know something. I’ve tried every lead over here, short of going to the police and they wouldn’t want to know anyway. He just doesn’t want to be found. But leaving like that – it’s a mess. The business was doing well, only I can’t keep it going on my own. We have deadlines, the publishers are hassling.’

‘I’m sorry, Alex. I wish I could help, give you some information, but we’re as much in the dark as you are.’ I was suddenly tired, the hall floor cold and hard. It seemed that Alex had more than absence to deal with – we had looked to him for help, but he needed it more than we did. I tried one more line. ‘Did Josef ever mention anywhere, talk about places he’d been that meant something?’

There was a longer pause. ‘He travelled a lot, early on, before we met. Mainly here and in the States. He never talked of anywhere in particular. Except…’ Alex’s voice lifted, ‘there was a photo, an old one in black and white. He kept it in his diary, as a bookmark.’

‘Josef kept a diary? He hated writing!’ So much I didn’t know.

‘Only appointments and stuff. It was the only way he could remember things.’

‘What was in the photo? Is it still there?’

‘He took his diary with him. It was the first thing I looked for.’

‘And the photo?’

‘That’s gone too.’

‘Can you remember anything about it?’

‘I only saw it once or twice maybe, but it did strike me at the time. There was an old building – too old for here – so it may well have been somewhere in Europe, I think.’

Suddenly I was awake again, peeling back memories.

Alex went on; ‘There were three people, standing close together in front of the building. I never asked about it. He’s a very private person, your brother, some things I just leave alone.’

‘Was there a spire – no,
two
spires?’

‘I can’t be sure. I seem to recall it looked like something from a fairytale – a little Gothic, maybe? It could have been a church, but that was odd. Josef didn’t do religion – of any sort.’

‘And the people?’ I was badgering him now, ‘What did they look like? Was Josef in it?’

‘It was a distance shot, just a snap really. They were too small to see, except one of them was a girl. She had a lot of hair.’

I knew then, for certain, where Josef had gone. ‘Alex, I have to go now, I need to check something. I’ll phone you tomorrow, ok?’

‘Thanks Madeleine. Call me anytime – I’ll be working from home.’

Paul came out of the schoolroom on his way upstairs. ‘Any luck?’ he said.

‘I think so. I must go and speak to Papa. I’ll see you in the morning.’

I went into the kitchen and drank a glass of water. I had not imagined the phone call to Alex could render so much; remote and unknown as he was, yet so large a part of my brother’s life.

Too energised to sleep, I crept into Saul’s room and knelt down by his bed. ‘Papa, are you asleep?’

Saul opened his eyes, then tried to sit up.

‘It’s alright, Papa, don’t move. I just wanted to tell you, I know where Josef is – where he’s gone.’

Saul lay back on the pillow and closed his eyes again. I could see only faintly in the light from the hall, but his face seemed to melt, its anxious, knotted look unwinding.

‘He’s gone to Lübeck hasn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he has. And I’ll go and bring him home.’

*

Next morning I rang Alex again.

‘Shall I go with you?’ he said, ‘would it help?’ There was a plaintive note to his voice, as if asking for permission, as if we had a prior claim to this restitution. I hesitated, hoping doubt did not transmit across the miles. I knew this trip had to be done on my own.

But then, ‘It’s ok,’ he said, ‘I understand. I’d better be here anyway – in case he calls or… anything. Keep it all ticking over, I suppose.’

*

The following days threw up a flurry of questions. From Paul:
How can you be sure that’s where he is?
To which I could only reply,
I just know, that’s all.
From Molly:
It could be a wild goose chase. Even if he went there, he may well have moved on by now.
But the only voice I heard was the still, small voice that lifted me beyond doubt:
I will find him; I will see him again.

It was understood that Saul would pay my fare and I had expected to take the train – in some ways the long journey begged to be relived. But the reality lost its appeal when I thought about the travelling time and the days away from Chloé. I had no qualms about leaving her with the family; between them, her care would be readily divided. But I worried about the effect my absence may have on her and I sought reassurance by explaining it all in detail, even though she would not have understood.

It was a relief, therefore, when Saul suggested I should fly. I would still need a train from Hamburg to Lübeck, but that would take less than an hour.

I went into town that morning and booked it all. The whole trip would be five days altogether – time enough to search, to enquire, to have some further clue, a remnant to take us onward.

The night before leaving, I phoned Marie-Claude.

‘Madeleine,’ she said, apprehension in her voice. ‘It’s good to hear from you. Are you well? And the little one?’

‘We’re fine.’

‘And your father, how is he?’

I turned to face the wall. Even though I was speaking French and doubted anyone would follow what I said, I put my hand round the mouthpiece. ‘He’s trying hard, but it’s not easy for him. He sleeps a lot – I know he’s glad we came.’

‘It was the right thing to do, you know that. And your brother – is there any news?’

‘That’s why I’m phoning. Well, not the only reason.’ My two worlds had melded now to a degree, but Marie-Claude and Antoine, the bar, our little home there would always be my place of certainty, my anchor point. I wanted Marie-Claude to know that. ‘We miss you. Chloé asks for you.’

‘She does?’ There was undisguised delight in Marie-Claude’s voice. ‘So what’s happening now. What will you do?’

I outlined my plans, if plans they were. When related, it all sounded slightly mad. Marie-Claude must have thought so too.

‘And if he’s not in Lübeck, where will you look for him then – have you any idea?’

I hadn’t.

‘He could be anywhere.’

Practicalities began to knock corners off my scheme. Only Saul and I seemed convinced it was a good idea. I didn’t need endorsement, but support would have strengthened our case.

‘Maybe Antoine could help?’ Marie-Claude offered. ‘He did a lot of this, you know, after the war – finding people. They kept the networks going – he has contacts still – those that survived.’

Again her kindness touched me deeply. Antoine’s past, as that of Marie-Claude, was rarely mentioned; one of the reasons, I concluded, that until the letters came, my past had never been a subject of their curiosity. We remained respectfully uninquisitive and dwelt only in the present. But now, some resolve kept me firmly on my current course. I really just needed to go and see for myself.

‘It’s good of you, Marie-Claude. I may need help – but I’ll try this first.’

‘Then take care,
Chérie
,’ she said, ‘it won’t be easy.’

*

Leaving was harder than I’d imagined. Chloé was busy emptying kitchen cupboards, closely watched by Sophie.

‘You’ll check she doesn’t get stuck – in the cot. Sometimes she hangs her legs through the bars then can’t get back.’

Sophie had agreed to sleep in my room while I was away. ‘She’ll be fine, don’t worry.’

‘And you’ll watch her in the garden – she eats everything.’

‘I’ll watch.’

‘And…’

‘Just go! Paul’s waiting.’

I left them both and went out to the car. Molly and Saul stood together on the doorstep, a fragile image, surrounded by the house. I could see them both retreating as we backed down the drive. At the gate, we stopped for traffic, then Paul swung into the road and they were gone.