The Sky is Changing (5 page)

“She has your eyes,” Anthony said to Anne. “As long she doesn't have my square chin I'm happy,” Karl said, laughing. But Claire couldn't see any resemblance whatsoever. Margarethe looked like she had dropped from outer space and had just accidentally landed here in the cradle. She didn't really belong to this world yet; she still seemed more accustomed to the womb, to an altogether different habitat. Everything must feel so vast for a newborn, Claire thought. How cruel it must be to be born into cold, glaring hospital lights, fussed over by dozens of hands. How crueller still to learn that the story didn't begin with one's birth but much earlier, and that the storyline was set from the very beginning and there was nothing, not the tiniest little thing, a newborn could choose from.

Maybe it was that fundamental, frustrating fact of life that made Margarethe produce the piercing cry that suddenly filled the room. Anne picked her up, offered her breast, but Margarethe refused, turning her head away from it, crying even louder, her body stiffening like it needed all its force to do so.

Poor Anne, she looked exhausted, tousled hair and all dishevelled, yet so happy, kissing the baby on its head with so much affection that Claire knew from that moment that this tiny crying creature was the love of her life. She cradled the baby, walking up and down the room until Margarethe nestled into the curve of her shoulder and her body relaxed again. Claire watched them, fascinated how mother and baby responded to each other in an almost invisible exchange of impulses, noises, movements and touch; a highly developed and complex form of communication.

“She will fall asleep any minute now,” Anne said, putting her back in the cot. Everyone left the room and for a few moments Claire was alone with the baby. She looked at it closely, intrigued by its perfection. Suddenly she felt pride that her sister had produced this. There it was, the next generation. Maybe it was due to the fact they had the same blood running through their veins that she suddenly felt a strong sense of responsibility.

“It's alright, you know,” she whispered. “It doesn't make sense to you yet, but eventually you will learn the names of things and with that they will get meaning. Just like a puzzle that is slowly being put together and will suddenly make a picture. Do you know why this Alexander Calder mobile that your mummy bought at a museum shop is dangling from the ceiling? It's because your mummy is an architect and she likes these kind of things and wants to pass it on. That is what parents do. They just pass on who they are. And this is where you are very lucky, Margarethe. You are safe. Your parents are good, intelligent people and you will grow up in a beautiful house in the best area of Hamburg. You really couldn't have chosen better, you know. So don't worry. Paddington Bear is sitting on the changing table over there, ready with his little suitcase patiently waiting for you, until you are old enough to take him on a journey.”

Margarethe was now breathing in a slow rhythm, her chest rising up and down, her eyelids almost transparent, streaked with blueish veins, flickering in her sleep. What does a baby dream of? Does it dream at all? She looked at this tiny sleeping body, defenceless and completely unaware of its whereabouts. It really was as if she had just been dropped from the sky. Claire covered Margarethe with the blanket and, as if the darkness of the room was too much, left the door half open, leaving behind a triangle of light.

When Claire entered the living room they had settled with drinks on the anthracite-coloured sofa, looking through the floor-to-ceiling windows and out into the garden.

“Get yourself a glass of wine,” Karl pointed to the bottle on the counter of the open-plan kitchen. Claire liked the sleek design, the slate tiles marking a border line between the kitchen and the living room with its floor dark maple. Everything was so carefully thought out. The cupboard doors in the white handleless space opened with the slightest pressure and closed silently. It was so much cleaner then her old wooden kitchen in London, with the knobs that got grubby in no time.

Leaning over the counter, a glass of Chardonnay in her hand, she followed their conversation. They were talking about Iraq. Karl held a strong opinion – he has always been against Bush but wasn't one of those who had joined the peace protests in Berlin.

“A lot of the demonstrators were just indulging in outright, dumb anti-Americanism. They are all wearing jeans, drinking Coca Cola and eating at McDonald's, blissfully unaware of how American and spoilt they actually are. What do they know about what life is like in a dictatorship? Nothing. It's easy to walk around Berlin or London shouting for peace, because you don't have to pay for it. In Iraq you would have ended up being tortured.”

Anne intervened, but Claire could tell that she was just repeating something she had said before and wasn't really engaged or interested in the subject. She was simply too tired to get excited about politics or anything that went on beyond the walls of her house.

“I really don't think all 500,000 of those people who gathered in Berlin in the name of peace were halfbaked students who just fancied a big party. Some of my friends went, too, and they actually had very good reasons.” After her statement, Anne sank back, curling up on the sofa, putting a cushion behind her neck. Anne had that owl-like expression when she was going into sleeping mode.

“But Germany is in a special position anyway,” Anthony said. “With their past they couldn't possibly be part of this war, or any war for that matter.”

Claire walked over from the counter to the glass door, looking out to the rectangular pool. Anne had switched the garden light on.

“But Karl has a point,” Claire said, looking at the perfectly still water in the pool, wondering why it wasn't moving. “Europe is awash with anti-American sentiment and there is something very phony about it.”

Suddenly Karl laughed. “Why is it that Anne and Anthony stick together and Claire and I have the same opinion; it somehow doesn't seem right.”

“I always suspected Claire had a crush on you,” Anthony joked.

She looked at her husband and smiled. It was true that they often agreed on things. Karl's parents were diplomats, moving every four years, and Karl had spent his childhood in New York and all over Europe. Anne always said Karl was more European then German. Claire could relate to that. Apart from Anthony, they all shared a sense of rootlessness. Growing up in Berlin but born in Stockholm, Claire and Anne regarded themselves as neither German nor Swedish; they were European like Karl.

Anne, however, had always been very clear about one thing – she would have hated to be born German and had no reservation admitting it.

“What about Margarethe? She will be German, with that name anyway,” Anthony said in response, looking at Claire with a squished smile.

“For Margarethe it will be fine because she is a new generation. She won't have that guilt complex.”

“No, much worse, the poor thing will be living in a world overrun by terrorism. Besides, I don't have a guilt complex,” Karl said, staring in his half-empty glass.

“That is because you didn't actually grow up here; you don't relate to the history that much. It also helps that you don't have any relatives who were Nazis.”

Karl looked up. “You have a point there. A friend from work told me recently over lunch that he'd found out his great-grandfather was an SS officer in Bergen Belsen, responsible for hundreds of death. He's absolutely crushed.”

“Well,” Anthony added, leaning back on the sofa, “my ancestors were probably involved in the crusades back in medieval times, killing innocents in the name of God. I'm sure somewhere down the line we are all related to some pretty grim people with blood on their hands.”

Claire walked over to the bookshelves that covered the whole length of the wall. The upper shelves contained complete editions of Thomas Mann, Goethe, Hermann Hesse and history books. It was Karl's territory; Anne was more into art. She had a taste for expensively made art books with high-resolution prints. There was also a significant number of books about architecture she used for work. Claire recognised some of them, like the book about Palladio and his Italian villas that she had given her once for Christmas. On the bottom shelf were a range of home magazines and also a few copies of the magazine that featured Anne's house. It was presented over five pages as an example of a modern eco-home. They highlighted the fact that the whole house was powered by solar panels on the roof. The magazine had been circulated around the family and every member owned several copies. Everyone was proud of her. Anne, the brilliant architect. In their parents' house, the magazine was still on top of the coffee table.

Just when Claire wanted to turn away, she noticed something familiar: Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales. It used to be in their parents' house in the living room cabinet and she recognised the book immediately. The cover, with its ancient engraved letters, was worn from rereading, the cloth binding slightly loose. It was an old edition and as children they were not allowed to touch it. When Mother came into their room at night to read from it, sitting on the edge of the bed, there was always a special, almost ceremonial atmosphere. Maybe this was because the book was unreachable for them and its mysterious content full of adventures and hidden secrets. It was a fond childhood treasure, and it gave Claire a strange pang that this book was now here, in Anne's possession.

“Mum gave it to me so I can read it to Margarethe. If you have kids, I'll pass it on.”

Claire turned her head. “Of course,” she said, immediately ashamed of her feelings of jealousy.

She emptied the glass and slumped into the Charles Eames chair. Anne was watching her on the swivel armchair, turning around as though she were on a carousel.

“You know this is the only piece of furniture I still have from Berlin?”

“Of course I remember. We were living off pasta for weeks because of it.”

Anne had spent a whole month's wages on it. The chair became the centrepiece of their living room. When they had shared their flat in Charlottenburg it was Anne who was in charge of the decoration. One of her favourite subjects was talking about creating a whole range of furniture on wheels that would reflect the new mobile and flexible way of living. The walls were white, and Anne forbade her to hang anything up. For her there was nothing more anachronistic than hammering a nail into a wall. “As long as we can't afford Mark Rothko, we will leave the white wall as it is. Why put up a crappy poster? A white wall is perfectly beautiful,” was one of Anne's typical arguments and Claire never objected. After all, Anne did make the flat look special. She even had a way of arranging lemons on the kitchen table to make them look like an
objet d'art
. Right back then, Claire knew Anne would one day build her own house. She started spending her spare time building prototypes. The floor of her room was always scattered with perfectly built little cardboard houses. And here she was, in her own nest. Everything exactly the way she wanted it.

Claire stopped turning around on the swivel chair. Maybe it was the wine that had suddenly made her feel unpleasantly off-balance. She looked at her sister and realised how accomplished she was, that she had carefully planned this all along. Just like the flat they had once shared, the house was perfect. There was nothing obtrusive or too much. Everything had its place and purpose, without being overly minimalistic – even the concrete ceiling didn't seem cold. As she had dreamt in her student years, everything was mobile and neat. The coffee table was on wheels, even Karl's Brompton bike in the hallway could be folded together and carried under one arm.

Anne was now talking about her plan to start her own architecture firm. As soon as Margarethe was old enough to go into a nursery she would start drawing up a business plan. Karl was clearly proud of her intentions. “She is just not made to be an employee,” he said to Anthony, lovingly rubbing Anne's arm. “She is too talented and thrives on stress.”

Karl himself was quite happy to work for a company. As team leader of the web development department at a big publishing house, he had a very good job. Claire could see that he loved Anne and, more, he was proud of her. Was Anthony proud of
her
? She wasn't sure. It confused Claire that her sister seemed so complete and accomplished. When she got up from the chair she was still a little dizzy, blaming herself for drinking the wine too quickly.

“Are you alright?” Anne asked. At that moment Margarethe started to cry and, almost instantly, as if mother and baby were somehow invisibly wired, Anne hurried into her room. When they said goodbye, Anne holding Margarethe on her hips and Karl behind them, forming a perfect triangle, Claire embraced them dewy-eyed.

It was in the taxi on the way to the airport that Claire realised it would never be the same again, that with the baby came a distance that, no matter how happy she was for Anne, made her inevitably that little bit lonelier.

“Relax,” Anthony said, moving closer on the backseat and caressing her as if he could sense her worries. “We will soon have our own little family.”

It was this scene in the taxi that Claire remembered two years later, while digging holes in the earth. How convinced he had sounded, she thought. He couldn't then have anticipated how difficult it would be for them. She pushed the shovel harder into the ground, removing chunks of earth. It hadn't rained for over a week and the earth in the flowerbed between the patio and the brick wall was dry. They were having a barbecue and Claire had gone to the garden centre; now that people were coming over she had an incentive to do the garden. The flowerbed was only about a metre wide and she realised she had bought far too many plants and a complete mismatch of colours.

Overwhelmed by the enormous range on offer, she had just loaded up the trolley with whatever took her fancy. She went for strong colours as well as for names she was fascinated by, like freesia, ranunculus, salvia. In the centre they had looked promising, but in her patio they just looked displaced. Taking them out of their plastic pots, the bare roots dangling in the air, she felt a certain satisfaction putting them back into the earth, pressing the compost down and then watering it.