Days in the History of Silence (10 page)

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AFTER THAT SHE
phoned now and again, Irit Meyer, but it was her letters that arrived most regularly. I didn’t like them writing to each other, I never liked the letters and the conversations about the time in their homeland and the holiday resort and the past. Why didn’t I like this? When she rang, she always talked German to me, I tried to reply with the little I could muster of the language, that Simon had taught me. German is a language where it seems you can speak a whole chapter to the conclusion, sentence by sentence, without inserting periods or indicating who and what is being spoken about, until the very final syllables. The actual contents are elegantly packaged, like the yolk inside an egg, you crack it carefully on an edge and the contents run out, self-assured, sticky, but beautiful and rich, down into the bowl. One says that one has seen, one has had some thoughts about.
Man hat sich Sorgen gemacht
.

In the conversations with Irit they came to life again, he said they came to life for him. His parents of course, but also other relatives. The younger aunt who had lived with them for a longish period together with her little son. One of his father’s sisters. When he thought back, he was less concerned with her, she was part of the adult world. The adults he knew as snatches of conversation, good and bad weather; the grown-ups gathered around the table in the living room with cherry wine or anxiously huddled around a newspaper, heads close together as they sit looking at an article, reading about new regulations, about war brewing.
But then the aunt had a son aged five or six. His cousin was more indistinct. Irit Meyer remembered some things. Fragments. The boy’s family had come to visit on some of the vacations, he liked to spend time on the beach, liked the sand, the waves, but he was shy, she thought she remembered that he collected things in his pockets, she thought it was him, but he had lived for too short a time to leave any deep impression. There were a few sketches remaining, some children’s books, she thought there might be some photographs. Simon recalled that his aunt spoke very little, that during the time they were living together, she was preoccupied with her husband who had gone under cover because of the work he had been involved in, he stayed away permanently, although the intention had been that he would come and live together with them. She altered clothes, Simon had a clear memory of that, she fixed the clothes when you were growing, he recollected the strange feeling when she measured him, the length of his legs, his arms, he stood with his arms exactly as she had instructed him, perhaps he liked her firm and at the same time careful hands. His aunt recorded the measurements in a little book, she always had a suitcase sitting there, she never unpacked properly. He remembered that suitcase. And also the contents that he glimpsed on the occasions when she opened it to fetch something or place something inside. The suitcase was important, it was always ready. Like a warning, an imperative long before anything took place. Several times he had wanted to sprint out into the
street with it, put it down in some random place and leave it there.

He remembers two things: The cousin has a visual impairment, he has strong glasses it is forbidden to touch, without them he would just stumble around helplessly, and if he gets milk, something there is very little of anyway, he becomes ill. He vomits on the kitchen floor, the smell permeating the entire apartment. Simon comes into the kitchen, and there is vomit on the tablecloth and across the floor, his cousin has been taken behind a curtain to be washed. It is a curtain made of hand towels. Behind that curtain is a tub of water, and there are voices there, probably his aunt, the young mother, talking to her son. He remembers it like that. He remembers everything else so perfectly well, but not his cousin. Only these two commands. Don’t touch his glasses, don’t give him milk. That his cousin’s glasses should not be touched is something Simon has been told by his mother, probably also that he is helpless without them, for he has no memory of that, no picture in his memory of his cousin at all. He is hidden behind the curtain of towels, he only pops up in his mother’s admonitory voice about his glasses, the sight and smell of vomit, the open windows in the tiny kitchen. Simon is confused, he can’t recall anything about this boy, he searches in the photographs his second cousin sent, rummages through the words he believes he has heard.

It was as though he avoided being seen, he told me. His cousin was small, he sometimes sat by the window, his face
directed out toward the street. No, that was himself. Simon sat looking out the window and down into the street, he loved to look out the window. He thinks he waited while his cousin was on the toilet, heard him in there. Does he ever come out? He goes past him in the dark passageway, the cousin looking away, they take a photograph, the cousin stoops down. But in one or two of the photographs he is visible all the same, a newborn in a blanket, a tiny speck bundled up in another lighter speck.

HE HAS MORE
dreams about his cousin later. A shadow he knows must be him. He almost always dreams the same thing, Simon says. He is in the old street where he lived as a child, he has been inside the old apartment, his cousin is waiting outside. Sometimes the cousin is a child, sometimes he is grown up. When he is a child, he is sitting in the enormous tree in the yard, a tree that is much larger and sturdier in the dream than Simon remembers in reality. Simon walks by, his cousin shouts, he calls out something, but Simon does not look at him. He thinks it is a dreadful thing to do, but he will not stop. It is even worse those times when the cousin is grown up. Then he is standing in the courtyard outside, they meet and take each other by the hand, say hello, sometimes the dream starts when he is going down the stairs, Simon says, and he knows there is something he wants to avoid, he searches for opportunities to leave, but there is no opportunity, he has to go out the same door, out
into the same courtyard where his cousin is standing, good day, they greet each other, his cousin takes him by the hand, walks by his side, but the cousin isn’t going anywhere. He asks Simon where he is going. And Simon is going to work, that is what he says. His cousin asks if he can accompany him. If he can come with Simon. Yes, Simon answers, because the question is like the narrow passageway, there is no other response, no other possibility, but nevertheless he knows that his cousin cannot tag along, and therefore he has to come up with a lie, and in his dream he is sweating, he is wriggling away, he has to run from his cousin, but can’t manage to do so. He awakens, lies there feeling as though his cousin has taken up residence within him. He never actually sees his cousin’s face now either, it reminds him of others, it is complex, it can’t be brought out of the dream. But then the dream or dreams change at some point in time. Now the cousin as child and adult are interchangeable, he stands there like a beggar, child, adult, old. And he always wants the same thing and Simon knows that it’s not possible, he can’t keep company with this creature, ghost,
Gespenst
, that is what he is. He says that. You can’t come with me. No, he says. Why not, his cousin asks. Because you are dead, Simon answers. The cousin looks at him, and appears to be just as alive as everything else Simon senses exists in this dream. You died as a child. How? his cousin asks and is so young, old enough to understand the words, but not to comprehend. He is eight or nine years old, older than he was when he disappeared. Simon cannot answer. I don’t know, he
says. His cousin asks if that is why he cannot come with him, if that is how it is. Yes, Simon says. He wakes. He falls asleep again, he dreams the same thing, with only small variations, with only small changes. He has this recurrent dream for several years. It constantly torments him. Sometimes Simon thinks he sees his cousin when he is awake too, he says, sees him someplace or other, in the background, in a corner of his own field of vision, but when he tries to turn around, he is erased. This ghost, this intruder.

I
phone Helena and invite her to come over, I need a few groceries. Yes, that is something she can help me with all the same. If she has time.

She seems pleased. I can do the shopping, she says. Just tell me what you need.

After twenty minutes I hear her car driving up in front of the house.

It’s me, Mom, she calls out. As if it could be anyone else. And then she says no more for a few minutes, before standing in the kitchen doorway.

The application form, she says. It’s still lying here.

Disappointment. Her face and her voice, her hand with the letter.

She gives it to me. And now I have to open the envelope, I have to look at the sheet of paper with the blank spaces where Simon’s name should be. I have to say oh, I have to say I must have forgotten about it. I have to find an excuse, she is right to be displeased with me, she has taken over that role. It is the intention that I should feel ashamed.

I’m a bit disorganized, I say and apologize to my daughter. She says it’s all right, Mom. Fetching my glasses, she places them in front of me on the table and puts the grocery bags on the counter. Sit down in the living room, Mom, I’ll sort out the groceries. I go into the living room and put the application form down in front of me on the coffee table, closing my eyes as Simon usually does. Open them again. From the window I see a flock of sparrows gathered on the terrace. The radio is playing the Beatles. It must be the Beatles, Simon likes them, he has never been too old for the Beatles. What’s that called, the song they’re singing. “Michelle.” It’s a long time since I heard that. Simon should have been here now.

The newspaper is lying folded on the table. She is busy tidying up out there, opening and closing the doors to the fridge, the kitchen cabinet. I read the newspaper headlines upside down, managing to read a whole column, a whole paragraph. I watch the sparrows.
Michelle, ma belle, these are words that go together well
. Simon loves that song.

Or am I the one who loves it.

Do you remember that book Dad liked so much? she shouts. The history book.

I know what she means. His great hobby, battles of the First World War. She is still standing in the kitchen, shouting. Yes, I say.

I promised him I would read it.

Michelle, ma belle, sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble
.

But the truth is I haven’t got the time.

Très bien ensemble
.

I don’t think I’m going to do it, she says, there isn’t really any point. Now.

Is it written to a sweetheart, I wonder. The song. It really must be.

I don’t understand why they haven’t delivered the newspaper, I say. It didn’t come yesterday, but today it was there again.

I really should bring it back here with me, she shouts.

What do you need to bring with you, I ask.

She clatters the dishes, putting them into the dishwasher, pushes the door closed. The song is finished, there is someone talking now.

She stands in the living room doorway. Helena, who has always been the youngest. She sits down beside me, stretches out her arms and embraces me, rocking. I accept the sign of affection and hug her back. If you fill out the form, I’ll fetch it for you meanwhile, she says.

What, I ask.

The book, she says.

Why does it not matter anymore, I inquire. What do you mean?

I just mean that I won’t actually be able to tell him if I like it, we aren’t going to be able to discuss that book now.

She strokes her hair with her hand as she speaks, pulling it behind her ears. I can bring it to you, she says. I can come in again afterward in any case.

Yes, I say.

Mom, she says, giving me a hug.

And then she leaves.

SHE WANTS TO
return the book she has borrowed from him, as though there really is a rush. An hour later she phones to say that it took awhile to find it. As though I have asked her to do it, as though there is a hurry and it’s important. Take your time, I say. I’m here.

But just after that she is standing in the house again. With the book and frozen raspberries she was out picking in our garden earlier in the summer. Everything is contained in two bags. She couldn’t be bothered to read it. Although she feels, she says, that he still wants her to do it. The book means something, he was so enthusiastic about that author, the historian who has written it. They talked about it. It was one of the last conversations they had together, when Simon at least spoke a complete sentence to her. Perhaps that was why it seemed so important, she says. She has picked up the book, placed it on the coffee table.

We remain standing for a moment.

I’m always trying to guess what you’re thinking, Mom.
Are you? I say. You know I talk all the time. No, she says. You don’t.

I OBSERVE MY
daughter, the dark hair, the blue eyes. Exceptionally blue. Simon’s eyes. I study Helena, there is something I have always regarded as glassy, brittle, about her. She was always afraid when she was little, afraid of the water, of the attic, of the dark.

Perhaps it comes from the fear she has inherited without actually knowing what she is scared of, could not know.

At one time I must have thought it would protect her. Not knowing, that it would make her, make them, safer. But when I look at her now, it strikes me that it has had the opposite effect. Maybe it works that way, that what you guess at terrifies you more than what you are told. The blurred, nameless apparition.

As a child she invited friends to visit on her birthday. They arrived in starched party dresses, eight eleven-year-olds, stiffly dressed up and critical, going around looking at everything we had in the house, lifting things up and peering at her belongings. No one talked to her, they ate our food, delivered their presents, chatted together in her room without letting her in. She did not complain, I think she was afraid I would be angry with them.

A few hours later, they traipsed home.

I don’t know why, there seemed to be no reason. When I asked her, she just said that she was not very popular.