Almost Everything Very Fast (36 page)

“A son,” I said, more to myself than to her.

Alfonsa stood and brushed the dust from her cloak.

“Wait,” I said. “Maybe there’s another way.”

She looked at me in silence.

“Do you know,” I asked, “what a Most Beloved Possession is?”

On April 5, 1983—as I lay in my new, distinctly more humble room at the Zwirglstein, staring up at the plasterboard ceiling, and began, for the first time in decades, to scratch my elbow—our son was born. The infirmary at Saint Helena was white like apple blossoms. The little scarlet head of our son formed the only contrast—a drop of blood in the snow. One of the wrinkles on his forehead was so deep, it was as if he’d been brooding for nine long months over when and how he’d finally be able to give that imprisoning belly the slip. Because of that thoughtful crease, Alfonsa named him Albert. Her cheeks were red, but they were no match for his—flushed as a putto’s in a painting. And Albert, our Albert, didn’t scream at all, because he had no reason to. After all, he was there with his mother, in the safest place in the world.

Albert walked slowly toward Alfonsa, and as he approached her told himself that he was approaching the woman who’d brought him into the world; he attempted to see that woman in her, to find some evidence of it in her gaze, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t manage it. Before him stood Sister Alfonsa.

He stopped short before stepping on her shadow on the floor; he groped for words; he couldn’t find them.

Alfonsa moved to the elevators and pressed the button. “I want you to meet somebody.”

Albert didn’t move.

“We’re almost there,” she said.

“How come?” He looked upward. “Who lives here?”

“You’ll see.”

Now he stepped onto her shadow, and said, “Fred isn’t doing well.” He ran off, so that she wouldn’t notice his tears, toward the exit.

“He isn’t your father,” Alfonsa called after him, drawing the attention of the old couple at the kiosk, who were watching them now from over their trail map.

Albert stopped and pretended he was scratching his forehead, so as to wipe the tears away unnoticed.

The elevator doors opened with a bright
pling.

“Come on,” said Alfonsa. “I even have a handkerchief for you.”

The elevator was small for the two of them. Albert refused Alfonsa’s handkerchief and pressed himself into one corner and focused on a pale yellow leaf on the floor, with a tear in its side that resembled a gaping beak. He struggled not to think about the fact that Alfonsa was the woman he’d been searching for all his life.

“Will this,” he said, and had to clear his throat, “will this take long?”

“Fred will be able to hold on without you for a few more minutes.”

“He needs me.”

“Actually, I believe it’s the other way around.”

Albert stepped on the leaf on the floor and ground it beneath his heel. “I never saw him as my father.”

“Just because you never addressed him as
Father
doesn’t mean you didn’t see him that way.”

Albert didn’t know how to respond to that.

They left the elevator on the third floor and walked through a rectangular glass tunnel that connected the building’s two sections.

Albert said, “Wait a minute,” reached into his pocket, took the makeup compact, opened it, and showed her the hair: “Is that yours?”

“I don’t know. I never knew.”

Albert looked at it for a moment. Then he snapped the compact shut, and tossed it into a trash bin.

They stepped into a common room painted in warm colors, where a few patients lingered, reading newspapers, playing Scrabble, and following a TV program about the fall of the Berlin Wall. The place smelled like vanilla tea.

Alfonsa knocked at the door of room 341, and without waiting for a response, walked in, gesturing for Albert to follow.

Hardly any light penetrated the drawn curtains, and it took a moment before Albert’s eyes adjusted. The first thing he saw was a framed picture hanging on an otherwise empty wall. It was a black-and-white aerial photograph of Königsdorf, showing the farmhouses huddling close to the church.

On the opposite side of the room there stood a hospital bed, in which a man lay whom Albert had never seen before. A tube connected his left arm to an IV bag. In the dimness it was hard to tell his age, but it was clear that the bulk of this man’s life was now behind him. His body seemed as delicate as a child’s, and sank into the pillow and mattress; shimmering silver hair grew from his scalp, his skin was the light-gray color of dirty snow. His deep-set milk-white eyes scanned the room: “Who’s there?”

“It’s me.” Alfonsa opened a window slightly, settled herself on a stool beside the man, and took his hand. “It helps if you touch him while you’re talking,” she said to Albert.

“How well can he see?”

She shook her head. “Detached retinas.”

“I’m blind, not deaf!” said the man. “Who’s there?”

“Julius,” explained Alfonsa, “I’ve brought along a friend.”

“What kind of friend? Since when do you bring friends with you?”

Albert noticed that one of Julius’s elbows was bandaged.

“We’re in a good mood today, aren’t we?” said Alfonsa.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m an old man.”

“You are an old man.”

“So what if I am?” Julius pointed to his cheek. “Give me a kiss.”

Alfonsa exchanged a look with Albert. “Later.”

“What,” said Julius, “you’re embarrassed in front of your friend?” He smiled. “Have you told him that we were lovers, once upon a time?”

“That was long ago.”

“Only nineteen years,” said Julius. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“Do you have children?” asked Albert.

Julius made a smacking noise, as if he were trying to taste something. “Sounds young, this friend of yours,” he said to Alfonsa. “Have you seduced him?” And without waiting for her answer, he said in Albert’s direction, “I know all about that.”

“Do you have children?” Albert repeated, and saw how Julius held Alfonsa’s hand somewhat tighter.

“He isn’t especially polite, though, your friend. He still hasn’t introduced himself.”

“My name isn’t important,” said Albert, before Alfonsa could say anything.

Julius smacked his lips. “Afraid I won’t be able to keep your affair to myself?”

Alfonsa sighed.

Albert moved a step closer to the bed. “How long have you been here now?”

“My turn first, my nameless friend: how do you know our pretty little nun?”

“I was brought up at Saint Helena.”

“An orphan! So we have something in common.” Musingly, Julius brought his free hand across to the bandaged elbow, and immediately Alfonsa grabbed it and laid it back in its place; it looked habitual, as though she’d been doing it for years. “Though I didn’t have the luxury of growing up in an orphanage like Saint Helena. Did you know that Alfonsa was one of its founders?”

“No.” Albert glanced at Alfonsa, who dodged his look. “I didn’t know that.”

“Before that, war veterans were housed at Saint Helena. Alfonsa had the idea of turning the facility into an orphanage. She claims it had nothing to do with the fact that we’d given our son away. But I don’t believe her.”

“Julius.” Alfonsa let go of his hand.

“I believe,” Julius continued, “that she founded that orphanage to salve her conscience. That’s just how she works, our Sister Alfonsa. On the outside, a statue—on the inside, an emotional hurricane.” He turned his head to her. “What did you call the boy, again?” He ran his hand over his face.

“Albert,” said Albert.

“Albert, right. I would have remembered it on my own.” Julius pressed a switch, and raised the bed’s backrest. The conversation was clearly giving him strength. “Do you know him?”

“A little,” said Albert.

“How’s he doing?”

“He lives in Königsdorf. Have you ever met him?”

“Who, Albert? Never! But that doesn’t mean much. He was only one of many,” said Julius, smacking. “Children, I mean.”

“How many did you have?”

“Five? Eight? Twelve? Who can say for sure.”

“Are you still in contact with any of them?”

He didn’t answer that.

“Albert sent you here?” said Julius finally; it was less a question than a statement.

Before Albert could answer, the door opened and Fred stepped into the room.

Alfonsa rose.

Albert said, “What are you doing here? How did you find us?”

“A woman woke me up. She asked why I was here. I told her that me and you and Sister Alfonsa—” He fell silent. The smile slipped from his face.

“Fred?” Julius croaked. “Fred, is that you?”

But Fred didn’t seem to hear him. He pushed Albert aside, stretched out his arm, and touched the framed photograph; he whispered, “Segendorf.”

Julius sat up in his bed. Alfonsa went to lay a hand on his shoulder—he slapped her away. “What’s he doing here?” he went on. “I’ve told you, I don’t want that!”

Fred turned to him and said, casually, as if he came to visit daily, “Hello, Julius.”

Julius froze. “Fred.”

“I have less than two fingers left, Julius.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Fred looked at Julius. “How about you? You also don’t have many fingers left, do you?”

“Possibly.” Again, he grabbed for his elbow, but this time didn’t let Alfonsa stop him from scratching at it. “You should go now.”

“Not yet,” said Albert.

And Fred said, “I’m hungry, Albert!”

For a few seconds, long seconds, nobody said anything.

Alfonsa was the first to stir. “Let’s go have a look at the cafeteria,” she suggested to Fred, and pushed him out of the room.

Albert watched them go.

The door shut behind them, and the room went dark again.

“Well, what now?” asked Julius.

“You know.”

“Ask Alfonsa.”

“I’m asking you.”

“You don’t want to hear it.”

“You don’t know me,” said Albert, who was losing his patience. “You have no idea who I am and what I want.”

Julius sighed.

Then he nodded. “Let’s get it over with.” He pointed to the place beside the bed where the stool stood.

Albert came closer, but didn’t sit down.

Julius extended his hand, mottled with age spots. It didn’t tremble. “It helps if you touch him while you’re talking,” Julius said.

Albert couldn’t bring himself to do it. That’s when Julius grabbed his arm. Albert tried to free himself, but Julius’s grip only grew firmer. “I was against her bringing you here. I always wanted this to be a place that had nothing to do with things from before. A place in the present where I wouldn’t have to remember things, especially Anni. A place where I could forget.” Julius let go. “But I can’t forget.” He shut his eyes and smacked his lips a few more times and pointed his index finger straight at the photograph. “I haven’t forgotten a thing.”

Albert took a closer look at his face. This man is my father, he thought, wishing he could feel something other than irritation and repugnance.

“When was the last time you saw Anni?” Albert asked, and immediately wished he could rephrase the sentence.

“I’m not sure anymore.”

“I thought you hadn’t forgotten a thing.”

“A long time before she died,” Julius said quickly.

“You didn’t go to her funeral? Weren’t you close to her?”

“No. No, no.”

“Not even earlier?”

Julius ignored his question. “Alfonsa and I agreed that it would be better if you were raised by her.”

Anni had always wanted a healthy son, a Most Beloved Possession, he explained, and she would have raised him like her own child. If only her heart hadn’t stopped. After Anni’s death, Alfonsa had decided to bring him to Saint Helena. “She loves you,” said Julius. “It’s just that she isn’t especially good at it.”

“And Fred?”

“What about him?”

“Why him?”

“As a father?”

Albert nodded, and Julius reacted as if he’d seen it. “It was the obvious choice.” He tugged at the bandage on his elbow until at last it unraveled, and Julius was able to scratch at the scabbed skin beneath. “That’s all.”

Albert let himself fall onto the stool.

“I’ve warned you,” said Julius. “There are a lot of things one doesn’t want to know.”

Albert was forced to think of the many nights Fred had crawled into his bed after having a nightmare, and Albert, a child, had to comfort a man more than forty years older, and what a painfully lonely feeling that had been. And yet, on those same nights, cuddled up with Fred, he’d always felt safer, less lonely, than in his bunk bed at Saint Helena.

Julius smacked his lips. “At least you’ll be free of him soon. Are you making plans already? Hopefully you won’t stay in Königsdorf. I can only advise you—”

Albert grabbed Julius’s hand. “He wasn’t such a bad father.”

“Only natural that you defend him. Who wouldn’t? After nineteen years with him!”

The knuckles on Albert’s hands stood white beneath the skin. “He risked his life for me!”