Necessary Lies (39 page)

Ursula leafs through the last of the documents and leans back on the chair, closing her eyes. They sit silently for a while in this dreary room with its faint reek of cheap cigarette smoke. Lighter rectangular patches on the wall reveal the places from which pictures have been removed. Anna puts the papers and photographs back into the file and carefully ties the grey ribbon. When she is finished, Ursula places her hand on hers and squeezes it gently. Not a sound reaches them through the padded door.

In Käthe's nursing home, the doors to the residents' rooms are left opened, and as always Anna tries not to see what's inside, not to mind their disinfectant and other smells. Waves of recorded television laughter burst out of the rooms, mixing with cries and groans. There are a few Alzheimer's patients here. The nurse who is taking Anna to Käthe's room says that out of all the ways to grow old, this must be the worst. She used to think that not remembering saved them from pain, but it wasn't so. At least for most of them. Memories leave slowly, lingering for months. They cry. They call for their parents, long dead. They think they are being robbed, held captive. One resident, she says, literally walked himself to death. Even when he no longer had the strength to stand up, his feet kept moving.

“Distraction,” she says. “We try to distract them. This is all we can do.”

In the dining room, the nurse says, a man of seventy has been hitting the arm of his chair incessantly for days. He won't talk with anyone anymore, but speaks to himself. A long string of curses, always the same. His daughter says he has always been such a gentle man. She is surprised he would even know words like that. The doctor ordered a foam pad around the arm of his chair, to soften the blows, but his hand is bruised and bloodied anyway. “Like a piece of raw meat,” the nurse says, shaking her head in defeat. “He won't stop.”

They walk down the corridor. The door to Käthe's room is closed. Anna knocks.

They can hear the shuffling of feet, and the door opens. Käthe is wearing the same old black dress with white lace collar and the pink angora sweater that softens the paleness of her face.

“Anna,” she says, her eyes brightening up. “You are back.”

Anna places a terra-cotta pot with a blooming azalea on the table in
Käthe
's room. Nothing has changed here. The photographs of William, Marilyn, and Julia on the night stand. A music box on the side table. The wicker chair by the window.

There is a small canvas stand right beside
Käthe
's armchair. The sweater she is knitting is thick and soft, done — Anna thinks — in what
Babcia
used to call a Norwegian pattern, two deer eyeing each other, their heads ready to lock in a fight. Navy blue and white.

“It's for Julia,” Käthe says. “It will suit her. I'll make one for you, too, if you like it.”

Anna has brought a tin of Turkish Delight, soft fragrant pieces buried in powdered sugar. The tin is decorated with painted figures of elephants, and Anna places it in Käthe's hands. The taste of sugar is one of the few tastes still left to Käthe.

The nurse has brought a tray with juices in small, plastic cups and the pills. Käthe swallows the pills one by one, twisting her mouth in a grimace. Anna watches, half expecting her mother-in-law to argue with the nurse, but Käthe doesn't complain. The nurse must have been bracing herself for some protests too, for she smiles and gives Anna a telling look.

Anna walks toward the window. There is a cluster of wheelchairs outside, on the lawn, beside the oak tree. She might take Käthe for a walk, she thinks. If Käthe gets tired, she will use one of the wheelchairs to push her.

In her purse there is one more letter from Germany, this time addressed to her. At the Berlin airport, Ursula leaned forward to embrace her. It was a long, silent embrace neither of them wanted to break.

Dearest Anna, Forgive me for calling you that, but you have read enough of my letters to know I am not going to stop myself from being rash and impatient At the airport you said, “Please write to me” I was so moved that I couldn't go back to the apartment. I got into the car and drove to Berchtesgaden. Straight from the airport, like a fool. I asked for the same room at the hotel where I stayed with William last time I saw him. Sat at
the same table. Tried to talk to him, but I thought of you, the hesitation in your face, and your pain.

In the morning, in Berchtesgaden, I walked alone in the streets, just walked and thought of how intertwined our lives were. It was beginning to rain, but I could still make out the shapes of the mountains. Then I thought of what you told me about this letter you got from a priest, about the boat ride on Königssee William took many years ago. It was like a sign, a thread I had to follow.

So I took a boat to Königssee, in the rain, past the white foam of waterfalls drowning in the lake. The boat was almost empty and I sat in the back, watching the waves. The young attendant came by, smiling, and asked if I were all right where I was. The drizzle was getting through, he said, and the seat around me was wet already. I said I was fine, but he lowered a see-through plastic cover, to protect me from the rain.

At St. Bartholomä peninsula, I wandered inside the old chapel with its red onion-shaped domes. When I left the chapel the rain got worse, so I decided to go back. I joined the line-up, which wound around a wooden shed, mostly young families with children, joking, trying to keep warm. A little boy in a pointed Bavarian hat, a little troll, tried to charm me. He hid behind his father, and then poked his head out and smiled. “I'm a real mountain climber,” he said. “See my tooth,” he said and opened his mouth wide to show me the empty space, “I lost it yesterday.” Kids in yellow raincoats, rubber boots were running around, screaming and laughing. An elderly woman in front of me was writing her name on the wooden beam of the shed.

The boats arrived, one by one, silently. “Berchtesgaden,” “Obersalzberg,” “Königssee,” filling up quickly. I got a seat across from another family, parents with three children, the youngest around two. The father's hair was wet and curly, and, with his right arm, he was holding the little one who was standing on his lap. The child was leaning backwards and was trying to smack the father over the head, and the father ducked. Every time he missed, the little boy burst out laughing. There was no echo, no flügelhorn…

You said you came here looking for an epiphany. Will that do? Urs.

“Julia brought us these,” Käthe says, when the nurse leaves closing the door behind her, pointing to a bouquet of yellow daffodils on the table. “She said you would like them, too.”

“I have something for you, from Berlin,” Anna says and takes out the present Frau Strauss has given her. The parcel contains a beautiful edition of Goethe's
Faust
, leather bound, with gilded pages. Käthe opens it and leafs through it.

“You liked Ulrike,
nein
?” she asks.

“Yes,” Anna says. “I liked her very much.”

“We were always good friends, in Breslau and in Berlin,” Käthe says. “I don't know what I would have done without her. She helped me a lot.”

“I've also brought these,” Anna says, handing her the photographs Frau Strauss gave her in Berlin, and the ones she herself took of the Herzmanns' Breslau house. “You and Ulrike, William, Moni, Frau Strauss's daughter,” she says as she gives the pictures to Käthe one by one. But it is only when Käthe sees the snapshot of her old house, that Anna can see she is truly moved. She looks at it for a long time, and then points to the sharp endings of spikes in the iron gate.

“The gate,” she says. “Willi liked to swing on it. Back and forth. Back and forth. I told him not to, but he wouldn't listen. I was afraid he would hurt himself.”

Anna is waiting for Käthe to say more, but her mother-in-law is silent again. So it is Anna who speaks instead. The house is in a good shape, she says, well cared for. She has been inside. Admired the view of the back garden. The evergreens have grown tall — the hostas are especially beautiful. The street couldn't have changed that much, either. Karlovitz was not bombed, like other Breslau districts. There were no empty places, no signs of ruins.

Käthe has closed her eyes. She is listening.

“Frau Strauss asked me to tell you that you did the right thing—leaving. She said that you would know what she meant.”

Outside the window another scrawny black squirrel digs into the ground, his whole body shaking from the effort. They are hungry now, rooting for last year's acorns, the ones they buried. Silly, they never know where to dig, ruining the lawn.
Through the window, Anna sees patches of bare earth and tufts of upturned grass.

No echo, no flügelhom
… Anna murmurs to herself. No, this is not much of an epiphany. Once, when she first fell in love with William, she prayed that with him she would be better, that she would understand more. Now, she can only wait. Wait for the sound of the elevator stopping at the floor and for the sound of Julia's fast, determined steps along the corridor. Until then she will watch how the darkness gathers outside the window, how the retreating light transfigures the spreading crown of the oak tree in the yard.

Käthe is clearing her throat. The picture of the Breslau house is still in her hand.

“I want to ask you something,
Annchen”
her hoarse voice breaks the silence. “Willi, he turned out all right,
nein
”

“Yes,” Anna says, softly. “Yes. Willi turned out all right.”

THE END

I would like to thank Canada Council for financial support that assissted me in writing this book.

My specials thanks go to Christopher Reynolds, Shaena Lambert, Barbara Lambert, Lilian Nattel, Ruth Beissel, Jutta Spengemann, Leanore Lieblein, Florence Rosberg, Piotr and Anna Wróbel for their insights and generous comments that kept me going.

I owe personal notes of thanks to my agent, Anne McDermid for her tireless persistence and encouragement, and to my editor at Dundurn, Marc Côté, for his guidance, sensitivity, and advice.

And, as always, to Zbyszek and Szymek.