Letters From Prague (17 page)

‘Go to his old apartment, and take it from there.'

‘A needle in a haystack. After twenty-five years.'

‘I know. Do you think I'm barmy?'

‘I think you're romantic and adventurous. And barmy.'

‘You do remember him?'

‘A bit. I remember the invasion, and all that. He was a nice chap?'

‘The love of my life,' she said slowly.

‘Are you serious?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Well. I wish you luck.'

‘Thank you.'

‘So.' They watched two children run up and down, called by their parents. ‘So. Anything else?'

‘Just one more thing,' she said, remembering the dinner, the tension, her sudden speculation. ‘But this
will
sound mad.'

‘How intriguing.'

She turned on the bench to look him full in the eye. ‘I had a sudden wild thought, once, when I looked at the map here. You know in the park –'

‘There are lots of parks.'

‘The Parc de Bruxelles. Where the Palace is. The lake and the paths – they form the Masonic compasses, don't they?'

For a moment Hugh looked bemused. ‘Er – yes. Yes, I think I knew that.'

‘Well, it just made me think, that's all. About you. You're very powerful now –'

‘I wouldn't say very.'

‘I would. In comparison with quite a lot of people. You're rich and successful, and influential –'

‘Come come. What are you getting at?'

‘Just – you're not, are you?'

‘Not what?'

‘A Mason.'

He laughed at her. ‘What do you think?'

‘I don't know. I realised it was possible.'

‘And?'

‘And I didn't like it.'

‘Well,' said Hugh, and his foot moved, for a moment or two, up and down along the pavement, much as Susanna, weeping in that little garden, had moved hers over the gravel: a repetition, a distraction, a gesture almost unconscious, but imperative. ‘Well – if I were, do you think I'd tell you?'

Harriet looked at him: at the moving foot, and at his face, so dear and so familiar.

We all have our boundaries
–

And secrets; and vows.

‘No,' she said, after a while. ‘No, you couldn't.'

‘Quite. But I'm not, I assure you.' The foot stopped, he gave her a smile. ‘Believe me?'

‘I think so.'

‘Good.' His arm went round her; she leaned once more against him. ‘What a thought. What a lot of thoughts you have. Have we dealt with the issues of the day?'

‘I think so.'

‘Shall we walk on?'

‘In a minute. It's nice sitting down for a bit.'

‘Yes.'

They stayed there, talking about nothing very much after that – train times, the morning's arrangements – looking out over the water, at the boats, leaving and returning.

The train went at half-past ten next morning, from the Gare du Midi. It had a German engine, and carriages from Belgium and Austria.

‘How do you know?' Marsha asked Hugh, as he put down their bags on the platform.

‘I know all sorts of things. And I like trains.'

‘So do I.' She looked at this one, raised, like the one from Ostend, high off the rails. ‘I feel excited now.'

‘The prospect of departure from kith and kin means nothing, I suppose.'

‘What?'

‘Come on,' said Harriet, who had been putting their tickets back in her shoulder bag. ‘Carriage F. Three along.'

They found it, and climbed on, looking for their seats in the open gangway. Marsha was disappointed.

‘It's modern. It's all clean.'

‘What do you want, the Orient Express? Here we are.' Hugh stowed away the bags.

‘Where's Susanna?'

‘Right behind you.' Susanna touched Harriet's arm. Last night, after the theatre, she had looked drawn and tired, and had gone to bed, full of apologies, almost as soon as they got home. This morning she had risen early and set out a wonderful breakfast.

‘All my favourite things,' said Marsha, looking at cherries, heaped-up croissants, jams, vanilla yoghurt, a honeycomb.

‘Tuck in, then.' Susanna poured her a bowl of hot chocolate.

‘She won't have room for lunch,' said Hugh, joining them.

‘Oh, yes I will.' Marsha broke up her croissant and reached for the honeycomb. ‘I love train food.'

‘We're taking sandwiches and fruit,' said Harriet, drinking her coffee.

‘What?'

‘Ssh. If you behave yourself there might be a little visit to the buffet at some point.'

‘There'd better be.'

Harriet reached for the bowl of cherries. ‘This is so nice, Susanna. When you visit us in London I'll do it for you.'

Susanna smiled, seeming better this morning.

And now, looking up and down the carpeted gangway, at other passengers settling themselves, spreading out Belgian Sunday papers on the tables before them, she said: ‘I wish I were coming too.'

‘So do I,' said Harriet, kissing her, but it wasn't true. The truth was that she was longing, suddenly, for time to herself: time to look out of the window and think, to read her book – providing Marsha read hers – and to do what she wanted. Yesterday's nervousness at the prospect of knowing no one in Berlin had vanished, at least for now. How refreshing: to be in charge of her life again.

Hugh was looking at his watch. ‘We're in good time.'

‘Yes.' She stood aside to let someone by. ‘You don't have to stay – I mean, if you don't want to …'

‘Oh, sure,' said Marsha, who had taken her book out and put it on the table. ‘Sure. We're going to say goodbye and they're going to leave us without waving us off or anything, and just
go.
Honestly.'

Everyone laughed.

‘Well,' said Hugh, as a door slammed. ‘There's a good few minutes. What shall we do?'

‘Sit down,' Marsha ordered. ‘Sit down with us –' She looked at Harriet. ‘Or are these seats next to us taken?'

‘They're reserved,' said Harriet, and as she spoke an enormous German appeared in the gangway, with an enormous wife. There followed some stepping aside, and general kerfuffle with cases, and Hugh said, ‘Let's go back to the platform.'

They made their way out there, began their goodbyes.

‘It's been –'

‘We'll miss you –'

‘Thank you for everything –'

‘Write to us –'

Hugh picked up Marsha, and staggered.

‘What a
weight.
‘

‘You can talk.' She hugged and kissed him.

Harriet looked at this scene, and she looked at Susanna, standing apart. She went over and kissed her, again, with real affection.

‘It's nice, having a sister.'

‘It is.'

‘I hope everything – I hope you –'

‘Thank you.' Susanna turned to the others.

A whistle blew, on another platform. Everyone jumped.

‘Hugh,' said Harriet, moving towards him.

They hugged, for the first time in years. No formal kiss on the cheek, as he'd given her when they arrived, but a real embrace.

‘You're a darling,' she said. ‘I'm so glad I've got you.'

‘Likewise.' He patted her shoulder.

And then their own whistle blew, and they climbed back on again. Doors slammed: they settled themselves with the enormous Germans, and looked out of the window at Hugh and Susanna, standing next to each other, not touching. They waved, and the train began to move.

‘Goodbye, goodbye!'

The carriage swayed, they went faster. Hugh and Susanna were moving alongside, trying to keep pace. They waved again, laughing as Hugh made a marathon runner's face, doubled up in exhaustion, and then the train had really picked up speed, and then they were gone.

‘What time do we get to Berlin?'

‘Just after six. I'm going to gather my thoughts for a minute, okay?'

‘Okay.'

Harriet leaned back, and looked out of the window. They were moving into the suburbs: life on a Sunday morning went past. She watched windows being opened, windowboxes watered; people collecting the papers, greeting each other at the church door. Cars were washed and grass was cut and lovers slept late behind drawn curtains. They went faster, they travelled through woods. Opposite, Marsha, too, was quiet. Harriet closed her eyes, making the most of it.

She let her mind drift over the days in Brussels: over conversations, revelations, things – so many things – left unsaid. She moved through Hugh and Susanna's spacious, sad apartment, and she moved through the city, revisiting streets, galleries, churches, parks. She saw the lovely merchant houses on the Grand Place, and the House of the Swan, where Marx had taken rooms. For a moment, remembering that, she remembered the rainy afternoon of their arrival, feeling so strange and unsettled, falling asleep in a low buttoned chair over her notebook –

Marx, almost forty, unpublished, expelled from France.

Charlotte, not yet thirty, craving the reciprocation of passion. An invisible person, a writer, going home to the moors to write and die.

Revolution.

A secluded life.

I seemed to hold two lives – the life of thought and that of reality
…

The outer and the inner, and which, thought Harriet, as the train went faster, is the more important?

She thought of Germany, and of public, politically passionate women – Rose Luxemburg, Ulrike Meinhof, Petra Kelly – meeting their violent ends. She saw the divided city of Berlin, the wall down and a river of refugees from the Eastern Bloc pouring across the border.

She thought of the city she had left, where Marx, working late into the night, had written the
Communist Manifesto.
She saw Charlotte, hurrying back to her school for young ladies, craving a look, a word, and she saw Susanna, privileged, desperate, pacing, weeping, locking herself away.

And where, on that scale of public and private, am I, she wondered. I am a single parent, caring for a child, leading a useful working life. I have, now, no passionate engagement with anyone. Where does my destiny lie? She thought of Karel, whose choice had been unequivocally political: to go back, to resist.

A velvet revolution in the snow.

‘Mum?'

Harriet returned to her daughter as though from another country.

‘Hello, there. Yes.'

‘I thought you were asleep. I'm going to the loo.' She nodded towards the sign at the end of the carriage.

‘Okay.'

She watched Marsha struggle past the Germans and move down the gangway, and then she looked through the window again. They were out in the country. Flat, harvested fields lay cropped and golden, the weather was fine. She glanced at her watch. Three hours and a bit to Cologne.

They read, they went to the buffet for drinks, they played pocket Scrabble and talked. They had lunch: the sandwiches and fruit Harriet had brought and a bar of Belgian chocolate. They stood out in the corridor, watching the landscape change, growing hillier, and wooded, then making a descent into the great Rhine valley. Vineyards stretched away to the horizon; clouds sailed above castles on distant hilltops. Marsha was entranced.

They followed the line of the river, mighty and broad. Oceangoing vessels headed slowly northwards, to the coalfields of the Ruhr and the North Sea; they came in with billowing chimneys, to dock at Cologne. The train slowed, approaching the outskirts: they looked out at factories, office blocks, the twin spires of the cathedral.

‘I wish we could get out.' Marsha's face was pressed to the glass as they drew into the station.

‘I know.' But people were getting on and off, and Harriet drew her away, and back to their seats. They'd be moving again in a minute.

They crossed the river, looking down on to more ships, and smaller vessels, everything busy and sunlit, and then they were picking up speed and Marsha, in Harriet's corner now, began to yawn and stretch. She leaned against the head-rest, she slept.

Harriet sat reading, feeling free. After a while, she thought she might go to the buffet, taking her book, and enjoy a peaceful coffee; she looked at the German couple opposite. He, too, had fallen asleep and was snoring lightly; she was knitting, and glanced up as Harriet rose. In her broken German Harriet indicated her intention and the woman nodded and smiled towards Marsha. She would keep an eye.

Harriet moved along the aisle and along to the next compartment. One or two people were getting up, moving ahead of her, and one or two more came back, carrying luggage or cups. The train swayed, rounding a bend. She held on to a seat, and moved on, coming at length to the buffet entrance, and the bar. A small queue waited: a family, two middle-aged women, a man on his own.

The man was tall, and heavily built, holding a briefcase, feeling for change with the other hand. He nodded to the barman and took a can of beer with an upturned glass and as he moved away somebody came towards him, trying to get past, and he stepped aside, clumsily, apologising to the two women. Harriet now could see his face, and it was too late to pretend that she hadn't, or that she wasn't there, as Christopher Pritchard frowned in surprised recognition, and came towards her.

In 1945 Berlin, a devastated city, was salvaged by women. Tap tap. Tap tap tap. In print wraparound pinafores, hair in turbans to protect it from the dust, they moved through the ruins, picking up the pieces, chipping away with trowels at broken bricks and old cement, piling the bricks up four by four, neat stacks between bombed-out houses, on the comers of obliterated streets. Tap tap, chip chip chip, four by four, so. One hundred million tons of rubble. Brandt, looking back on those eerie, postwar days, described Berlin as a no man's land on the edge of the world, every little garden a graveyard.