Without further ado, I raced out of the room. The consultant wanted her to stay a few more days. So we came to an agreement. And then, at last, on the twenty-fifth day, I draped her fur coat around her shoulders and led her down the stairs. I took her home in a taxi and the driver helped me take her up; but even so, by the time she’d undressed and got into bed, she was exhausted.
From then on I was truly the only one who looked after her, except for the old woman who came in the morning to do the cleaning, light the large tiled stove and cook a meal for the patient. Despite my pleas, she refused to summon her mother. In the letters she wrote to her with trembling hands, she said: ‘I’m fine. You have a good time and spend the winter there.’
‘She wouldn’t be any help to me if she came. She’s the one who needs help … she would worry needlessly, and before long I would be worrying too.’ And then, in that same blithe whisper, she would add: ‘And you’re already looking after me. Or are you tired and beginning to lose patience with me?’
But she wasn’t joking when she said these words, and she wasn’t smiling. Since falling ill, she’d almost never smiled. When she first set eyes on me in the hospital, she’d smiled, but after that she’d turned serious. Whenever she asked me for something, or thanked me for something, or spoke of anything at length, her manner was solemnly pensive. I’d sit with her until late at night, returning early in the morning. Later on I took to sleeping on a good-sized sofa in the same room, using the blanket from her mother’s bedroom. We’d not said a word about our contretemps – although it would not be right to call it that – our little chat on the first morning of the New Year. My visits to her in the hospital, and our life together since I’d brought her home – it had all happened so naturally there’d seemed no need to discuss it. Indeed, we both avoided even the slightest reference to the new arrangements. Yet clearly she was mulling something over. As I pottered about the apartment, or read to her out loud, I could feel her eyes on me constantly. It was as if she were looking for something in me. One evening I was sitting in the lamplight, reading her a long story by Jakob Wassermann entitled ‘The Mouth That Was Never Kissed’. It was about a teacher who’d never known love, and who’d grown old without so much as admitting to himself that he longed for the human warmth of love. It was a masterful depiction of a man struggling to keep his dying hopes alive, unbeknown to anyone around him. After the story finished, Maria closed her eyes and fell into silence. Then she turned to me and in a languid voice asked: ‘You’ve never told me what you did after New Year’s Day, during that time we weren’t seeing each other.’
‘Nothing,’ I replied.
‘Really?’
‘I don’t know …’
Another silence fell over the room. It was the first time she’d broached this subject. But I was not surprised. Indeed, I realized that I had been waiting for this very question for some time. But instead of answering, I gave her something to eat. Then I wrapped her up nicely and sitting beside her I said: ‘Shall I read you something?’
‘As you wish.’
I had become accustomed to reading her something faintly tedious after supper to help her fall asleep. I hesitated for a moment.
‘Why don’t I tell you about the first five days of the new year. That will put you to sleep right away,’ I said.
She did not smile at my little joke; she just nodded, as if to say, ‘Go ahead then.’ I began very slowly, pausing now and then to gather up my memories. I told her where I’d gone after leaving her house, and what I’d seen and what thoughts had passed through my mind as I’d walked around the Wannsee and how, as evening fell, I’d headed back to Berlin – to circle her building; and finally I told her about the last evening when I’d heard she’d been taken into hospital – how I’d raced straight over and waited there until morning. My voice was calm, as calm as if I were recounting events that had happened to someone else. I poured it all out – everything I could remember, piece by piece – lingering on the details, stopping from time to time to attempt an explanation. She listened in silence, her eyes closed. She was so still I thought she might be sleeping. Nevertheless I went on. It was almost like speaking to myself. I admitted to feelings I had never acknowledged until now, and I questioned them, but before I could draw any meaningful conclusion, I would move on. Only once, when I was telling her about how I had imagined bidding her goodbye on the telephone, did she open her eyes. She looked at me intently, and then shut her eyes again. Every line of her face was still.
I concealed nothing, I felt no need to do so. Because I had no particular motive. My imaginings seemed so strange to me now, so distant in time, and so far away. That is why there was not a trace of subterfuge or calculation in what I said about her, or about me: in that regard, I was merciless. I could not recall a single one of the delusions that had assaulted me during that night I’d spent waiting outside, nor did I seek them. I wished only to tell a story and nothing more. I judged each event on its own merits, and not by what it meant to me personally. And she gave me her full attention, though she never stirred.
I felt this in my bones. When I told her of my thoughts as I sat at her bedside, and of how I’d imagined her dying, she blinked several times … but nothing more …
At last I reached the end of my tale. I had nothing more to say, and neither, it seemed, did she. We sat there in silence for perhaps ten minutes. Then she turned to face me, opening her eyes and, for the first time in a long while, she smiled faintly (or so it seemed to me) and in a soft voice, she said: ‘Shall we go to bed?’
I got up and prepared my bed, then I undressed and switched off the lights; but I couldn’t get to sleep. I could tell from her breathing that she was still awake too. With time, I could feel my eyelids growing heavy, but still I waited for that soft and steady whir I had come to know so well. I struggled not to drift into sleep. Yet I was still the first one to succumb.
Early in the morning I opened my eyes. The room was still dark. A faint light filtered through the curtains. But that soft and steady whir that I had come to know so well – I could not hear it. An eerie silence filled the room. For we had both reached our limit. There was so much – too much – welling up in our hearts. I could feel that, almost viscerally. And at the same time I was gripped by a fearsome anxiety: how long had she been awake? Or had she not even gone to sleep? Neither of us was moving, as our thoughts swirled around the room.
Slowly I looked up and, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I realized that Maria was looking at me with her head propped up against a pillow. ‘Good morning,’ I said. I went into the other room to wash my face. When I came back I found the patient in the same position. I opened the curtains. I put away the night lamp. I gathered up my bedding and tidied the sofa. I opened the door for the maid when she arrived and I helped Maria drink her milk.
I did all this with hardly a word. I tended to these tasks every morning, before heading off to the factory, where I would stay until noon. In the afternoon I would read to her from a book or a newspaper. I’d tell her about everything I’d seen and heard until it was evening. Wasn’t this the way it had to be? In truth, I wasn’t sure. But everything had fallen into place in a way that felt natural. No desires plagued me. I thought of neither the future nor the past; I lived only in the present. My soul was like a glassy, windless sea.
After I had shaved and dressed, I told Maria that I was leaving.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
Surprised, I said, ‘You know. I’m off to the factory.’
‘What if you didn’t go today?’
‘That’s possible, but why?’
‘I don’t know … I want you to be with me all day.’
I took this to be an invalid’s whim, but I said nothing. I opened the paper the maid had left on the side of the bed.
Maria seemed agitated, almost distressed. I put down the paper and sat down beside her and placed my hand on her forehead. ‘How are you feeling today?’
?
??I’m fine … much better …’
Despite her stillness, I could sense she wanted me to keep my hand on her forehead. And as I kept it there, I could almost feel her gathering up all her will.
Trying to sound light-hearted, I said: ‘So you’re doing well! So then, why didn’t you sleep at all last night?’
That threw her for a moment. Blood rushed up from her neck into her cheeks. I could see that she was looking for a way not to answer. Then suddenly she shut her eyes, leaning back as if drained of all energy. In the softest of voices, she said: ‘Ah, Raif …’
‘What’s wrong?’
She pulled herself up. ‘It’s nothing,’ she gasped. ‘I just don’t want you to leave me today … Do you know why? I suppose it has to do with what you told me last night. I know that once you’ve gone, it will all come racing back and I won’t have a moment’s peace …’
‘If I’d known that, I’d never have told you,’ I said.
She shook her head: ‘No, that’s not what I mean … I’m not thinking about myself … It’s just that now I can’t trust you anymore! I’m afraid to leave you alone … You’re right, I hardly slept at all last night. I couldn’t stop thinking of you. I could only think of everything you did after you left me that day and how you wandered around outside the hospital, and all those other things you told me about and even the things you didn’t … that’s why I can’t leave you alone anymore! I’m afraid … and I’m not just talking about today … I shall never let you out of my sight, ever!’
Little beads of sweat had formed on her brow. Gently I wiped them away. My palms felt warm and wet. I gazed at her in awe. She was smiling, the first pure and innocent open smile I had seen in some time; but tears were streaming down her cheeks. Taking her head in my hands, I pulled her into my arms. Now her smile was even softer, much, much softer; but the tears kept falling. She didn’t make a sound, and her chest was still. I had never imagined that anyone could cry in such stillness. Her hands were like two little white birds resting on the white bedcover and I took them in mine to caress them. Her fingers curled, opened again and then tightened into a fist in the palm of my hand. The lines on her palms were as thin as the veins of a leaf.
Slowly, I let her fall back onto the pillow.
‘Don’t strain yourself,’ I said.
Eyes glimmering, she said: ‘No, no,’ and she held onto my arm. Then as if she was speaking to herself, she said: ‘Now I know what’s been missing. It’s not anything in you, it’s in me … I cannot believe … I simply could not believe that you loved me that much and so I assumed I wasn’t in love with you … Now I understand. It seems that people have taken from me the ability to believe … but now I can … you’ve taught me how … I love you … not madly, but I love you with a clear mind … I want you … such an overwhelming desire … if only I can get better … When will I get better?’
Without answering, I dried the tears in her eyes with my cheeks.
Then I stayed at her side until she felt strong enough to stand up. If I had to step out to buy food and fruit or stop off at the pension to get a change of clothes, she was alone for two or three hours, which seemed to me like a terribly long stretch of time. When I took her by the arm and sat her down on the couch, or placed a thin sweater over her shoulders, I felt that boundless happiness that comes from devoting your life to another. We sat in front of the window, gazing outside for hours, saying nothing, only occasionally looking at each other to smile; her illness had brought out the child in her and my happiness had done the same for me. In a few weeks she regained much of her strength. When the weather improved, we began to venture out onto the streets, to stroll for half an hour.
She would take great care getting dressed; when leaning over, she would often be overtaken by a fit of coughing, so I even had to put on her stockings for her. Then she would put on her fur coat and I would gently lead her down the stairs. Fifty metres from the house, we would sit down on a bench to rest. From there we would amble across the Tiergarten, to the shores of a pond, to watch the swans glide over the weedy waters.
Then one day it all came to an end … It was that simple, it ended so abruptly that I failed to grasp the enormity of what had happened … I was only a little surprised, but deeply saddened; and I would never have thought that such an event would leave such a great and lasting effect on me.
In those final days I was reluctant to go back to the pension. Though I had continued to pay for my room in advance, the manageress had become cold with me because I was so seldom there. One day, Frau Heppner said: ‘If you have moved elsewhere, then let me know and we can inform the police. Otherwise they will hold us accountable.’
I tried to make light of the situation: ‘How could I possibly leave you?’ I said and then went up to my room. I had lived there for over a year and now the personal effects I had brought with me from Turkey, like the books strewn across the room, seemed utterly foreign to me. Opening my suitcases, I pulled out a few necessities and wrapped them up in newspaper. Then a maid came into the room.
‘There’s a telegram for you, it’s been here for three days now,’ she said and handed me a folded piece of paper.
At first I could not take in what she was saying. Somehow, I could not bring myself to take the telegram from her hand. No, this piece of paper could have nothing to do with me … I hoped against hope that, whatever tragedy was looming, I could fend it off for as long as I refused to read that telegram.
The maid stared at me in disbelief. Deciding that I was not about to move, she put the telegram on the table and left the room. Whereupon I seized the telegram and tore it open.
It was from my brother-in-law. ‘Your father has died. Have wired money. Come at once.’ Nothing more. Only nine or ten words, the meaning all too clear … yet I stood there looking down at the page. Reading it over and over, each and every word. Then I stood up, stuffed my newly packed parcel under my arm and went out.
What had happened? I could see that nothing around me had changed. It was all just as it was when I came. I could see no change in me, or in the world around me. Most likely Maria was waiting for me at the window. Yet I was not the same person I had been half an hour earlier. Thousands of kilometres away, a man had stopped breathing; and though this had happened days, if not weeks, ago, neither Maria nor I had noticed. Each day had been the same as the one before. Yet suddenly a trifling piece of paper had turned our world upside down, swept it out from under my feet, pulling me away from this place and reminding me of the distant land whence it had come, the land that was now reclaiming me.
I could see it so clearly now. How mistaken I had been, to assume my life of the past few months was real; and to hope it would last for ever! But still, how desperately I wished to fend off the inevitable! It shouldn’t have been like this. It should not have mattered so much where we were born, whose child we were. All that mattered was that two people had found each other and achieved a rare happiness. The rest was incidental. It had no choice but to fall into place, giving way to that great felicity.
But I knew in my heart that this was not how events would unfold. For our lives were governed by trivial details. Indeed, trivial details were what true life was made of. The logic in our minds had always been at odds with the logic of life itself. A woman is gazing out of a train window when a fleck of coal dust lands in her eye; without giving the matter a moment’s thought, she rubs it in. A gesture as slight as this can end in a beautiful eye losing its power to see. Or a brick comes loose in the wind and crashes down on the head of an illustrious man. And what good would it do, to ask which is more important – an eye or a fleck of coal, a brick or a brain? We have no choice but to accept such accidents for what they are, along with all the others that life thrusts upon us.
Could this really be true, though? Yes, the world was governed by forces beyond our grasp or understanding. That much was true. But even if they were modelled on the natural world, there were certain absurd forms of corruption that could
be avoided. What, for instance, was binding me to Havran? A few olive groves, two soap factories and a family I barely knew and had no interest in getting to know better … My life was here in Berlin. I was bound to this place in every way imaginable. So then, why could I not stay? The answer was simple: our businesses in Havran would come to a halt, my brothers-in-law would stop sending me money, and I would be left floundering. There was also the question of my passport, my residence permit and the embassy register – matters whose importance we all too often underestimate, though in my case they were of huge significance, shaping my life’s very direction.
When I explained all this to Maria Puder, she said nothing for a time. Then she gave me a strange smile, as if to say, ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ While I, for my part, struggled to maintain my poise, fearing that I might look ridiculous if I opened my heart to her. Yet several times I said: ‘What should I do?’
‘What should you do? Well, you should go of course … I’ll go away for a while as well. In any case I won’t be going back to work any time soon. I can stay with my mother outside Prague. I suppose life in the countryside will be good for my health. I can spend the spring there.’
It felt odd, to be putting my dilemma to one side to discuss her plans in such a way. Now and then she threw me furtive glances.
‘When are you going?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. I should probably leave as soon as the money arrives …’
‘Maybe I’ll leave before you do …’
‘Really!?’
She laughed at my surprise. ‘You have always been a child at heart, Raif. Only a child would be this agitated in the face of the inevitable. And anyway, we have plenty of time, so we can talk things through before we decide anything …’