One Damn Thing After Another (9 page)

Is it so much to ask? To want to know one's father? She … They wished him no harm, they had no resentment. They did not want money. But to know … why. Not even that – to be accepted. To have one's bare existence acknowledged. To put, to put, to put things right, at last.

Frau Hartung was sorry, for her incoherence and her poor self-control. She apologized, she had been travelling all night; in the train; she hadn't slept. She did not wish to be an embarrassment, an annoyance, a pest. The man she loved could
not come himself, could not bring himself to face this moment. She had come for him. Herself, she had no importance.

What was her work? asked Arthur quietly.

She was a nurse, in a children's hospital, in northern Germany. But forget that: forget her.

Certainly not, said Arthur. But he had one question. However stupid it must appear to her. Why come to him?

Her tension was mounting in a way painful to see, but she kept hold of herself.

But he knew, very well. Wasn't that true?

Yes, he thought he did. She was talking, he thought, about Jacky Karstens. Whom he knew, though not well. Who lived in Spain. He would help her, as far as he could, which was not much. But why these phone calls, these anonymous letters? These presences, amounting to a threat, outside the door? Aggressive behaviour – one got nowhere that way.

She was sorry. That had not been her way of doing things.

Her way, undoubtedly, was better. Very well. This much he could do – an address, in Spain. Because there was undoubtedly a responsibility there, that Mr Karstens must understand, and accept. But – a word of warning. He had a wife there, a family. If he might offer some advice, to go bursting in there, making scenes outside the door, was not at all clever. One must save people's face. He was sure she would agree.

The young woman sat still, looking at him with steady pale eyes.

“I think you can do better than that,” she said.

Arthur smiled, but without condescension.

“How do you reach such a conclusion?”

She gathered herself for the last effort.

“Jacky Karstens is here. I am speaking with him.”

Arlette, forgotten in her corner, sat stiller yet.

It was funny, if ever this could be called funny. Arthur, for once, was fair flabbergasted: he would have said himself, if able to find a word at all, a splendid word.

Doctor Davidson's self-control, so conspicuously absent when, for example, he had mislaid his reading glasses, was quite unimpaired.

“You are convinced of that?” he asked gently.

“Totally.” She was free of it now: her voice had an altogether different timbre. “Beyond any possibility of error.”

“I see,” musing. “You, of course, have never seen Mr Karstens.”

“There is no need.”

“I suppose,” said Arthur, half-voice, “that we do have about the same height and build. No facial resemblance; mm, features become effaced in the memory. He's some seven-eight years older – after thirty-five years, good God, that doesn't have much bearing. But a voice, surely, one doesn't … Tell me,” in his speaking voice, “is there among the people outside, anyone who has ever seen Mr Karstens?” He could not avoid giving the ‘has' a slight sarcastic emphasis, without any wish to be cruel. The cruelty was not of his making …

“Of course,” she said with perfect calm.

Arlette got up and slipped quietly out of the room. They stood on the pavement in a group talking; the young woman with fierce emphatic arm movements, the old woman passive, the man calm. Nothing irrational in his bearing, at least.

“I think,” said Arlette smiling politely, “there's a good chance of getting this unravelled. If everyone can manage to stay unexcited, why don't you all come in?” They all trooped soberly
up the stairs. She stole a glance at that placid elderly soul, who was the key to all this. A vaguely expectant look: one would say of mild curiosity. Yet she saw him – on the pavement, close up – heard his voice – saw him walk. Wasn't that, surely, the moment the bell would ring?

Arthur was standing, with no undue show of dignity, and had lit a cigar; with no need to give himself a countenance. It had occurred to him that he would enjoy one.

“Do you mind introducing yourselves?” in a very British accent.

The girl stood a few paces away, eyes devouring, tense as a cat before the pounce. Pretty girl, if rather too tuned-in.

“I'm your daughter, Angelika. This is my husband, Ernest. My mother – Magda – needs, I think, no introduction.” Self-possessed, and polite, he did not laugh. Arlette could see that this Lady-Bracknell situation was afflicting him with a sense of farce. He gave a small formal bow. She's not that old, thought Arlette suddenly. Faded, certainly. But only a few years older than me.

“Now let's see,” said Doctor Davidson clinically. “Is there any unmistakeable sign – you might perhaps know, Madame – by which Jacky Karstens could be recognized? Even at this date?”

There was a silence. Then Ernest said, “Yes; there is.”

“You see – we don't want any possibility of error.”

“Quite so. You,” emphatic; it was the clincher, “have a strongly incised scar on your thigh. You were hit by a shell splinter and roughly stitched in a field hospital. There are three small circular marks in a line on your abdomen; entry wounds from machine-gun bullets. And, of course, a tattoo-mark.” Arthur beamed, delighted.

“I seem to have a distinguished record.”

“After the first action a cross, second-class. After the second, a Knight's Cross.” Unsmiling.

“I am delighted to find you so well documented. You, my dear sir, are going to step with me into the next room. By removing my trousers I can rapidly overturn your convictions.”

“Cosmetic surgery,” said the girl fiercely.

“Not possible,” said Ernest shaking his head, with a soothing hand movement. “I'll accept that.”

Arthur, now plainly enjoying himself, put the cigar back in his mouth at a Humphrey Bogart angle (facially altered by the plastic surgeon) and stalked out.

Four women and none of them said anything. The Hartung girl sat with downcast eyes and her hands in her lap. Magda, plainly a good soul but a bit bypassed by events – and always had been, by the look of things – sat and looked dazed. Angelika went on standing in the centre of the room, looking at everything, all around, with naked hunger. Arlette felt ashamed of her own comfort. She went and got glasses, and a bottle of perk-Scotch (council-of-europe, duty-free) and Perrier water. Mucking about with all this gave Arthur time to reappear blithe as a bird, and Ernest behind him with a long face.

“We're mistaken, I'm afraid,” he said bleakly.

“No,” Angelika contradicted flatly. “We are not. I know, in my bones.”

“A drink all round,” said Arlette.

The goddam doorbell rang.

The circulation figures of
Graphik
are as sensational as its style: European society is fascinated by its own pathology. Every week the cripples and monsters are brought into the circus-ring, stripped naked, and paraded with a brass band. They need little prodding; most seem proud of their spectacular deformations. Fat Woman, Two-Headed Child, Girl-sodomized-by-Donkey beam placidly. Even above the smell of sweat, said Arthur Davidson, you smell cant. And cancer. If the metaphor seems too literary or the language too florid, consult any cop or fireman. A traffic accident on any scale above trivial will collect the circus audience from a hundred kilometres off. Showpieces should include ninety per cent third-degree burns, and with luck a good juicy decapitation. Public executions, in our little sea-girt European peninsula, having fallen into disrepute.

Arlette was interested in the acolytes of the ritual. The brass band glances at the acts with indifference; just enough to get
their timing right: like cops. But the discoverers, and promoters, of novelties may be expected to show interest in their protégés.

The door opening disclosed a female, normal-looking, but Arlette knew at once who it was. Thirtyish, modest manner, winning smile. This year's fashion; disparate motley of floating chiffons, leather boots, large bag as designed by female Kikuyu for gathering mealie-cobs. Mouth large and spongy; oversize sunglasses failed to mask a trained eye,

“Brigitte Buckenburg.”

“To be sure. I knew you were behind this somewhere.”

“And I got to thinking that if I came and explained …”

“I do think it a good idea. So come in. Things aren't turning out quite as you expected.”

Behind her stood a young man, a pleasant face and indifference written all over it. Cop eyes. Trombone-player.

“Oh sorry, I forgot. Herr Schumacher, our photographer,” unnecessarily.

“No pictures, I'm afraid.” He just nodded. During the next hour she lost sight of him often, for he had the gift of invisibility. She was sure he never uttered the slightest word. Took a drink when given one, with a nod of thanks.

Across what was rapidly becoming a crowded room, Arlette caught a comic look of consternation. What! – more of my putative family?

“From
Graphik
, Arthur.” His face cleared in a delightful grin; an interesting phenomenon had come into the sociologist's ken.

“Very nice,” he said. “For a moment I thought it was another of my daughters.” Arthur needed no help with
Graphik
.

Angelika was crying noisily, being comforted, and having her nose blown by her husband, whom one was warming to. The other young woman was sitting quietly, controlling pain. A nurse in a children's hospital; she knew how to do it. Strangely apart and silent sat Magda, a stiff, half-silly expression on the used, worn face.

“Do you think,” said Arlette smiling, “that you could give me a hand making coffee for all these people?” She agreed with
alacrity. And a quick, neat-fingered help she was, needing no telling where to find things, nor where things went. A sensible, experienced housewife.

“I'm so sorry,” she said. “I didn't want to cause you any trouble. I only wanted to see the children happy … I'll just rinse these spoons, shall I?”

It became quite like a party. The young women, repaired and organized by withdrawal to powder their noses, became quite animated. The charming Brigitte and the worthy Ernest explained the comic misunderstanding to one another at some length. The photographer, retired in a corner, made common cause with Hangdog, who loathed people. Arthur got into serious talk with his former daughter, and daughter-in – well, common-law, Arlette supposed it would be called. Magda, having emptied, washed, and polished all the ashtrays, was all set to begin again. The expression on her face said she was itching for a tin of furniture polish in her hand. Arthur, suddenly getting sick of all this, gathered them up with the clear intention of throwing the tribe out.

“You do see, I hope,” he was saying to Buckenburg, “that there's nothing to print.”

“Oh no. It's dead. I'll be phoning my editor straightaway. What a pity though – would have made a great, great story.”

“I'm glad to hear it. A sad story, about simple and honest people.” His voice was sinking as his mouth approached her ear: Arlette got closer, to hear.

“Of course, of course; no, dead.”

“Because if you printed anything, I should come after you in the middle of the black night, grab a great handful of your pubic hair and give the most unmerciful twist.” Great trill or perhaps peal of girlish laughter, eyes blinking very fast behind the huge glasses.

“Scouts Honour,” she said.

“Libel wouldn't stop them; it never does,” sticking a pipe between his teeth. “I could sue them of course and get damages. They'd risk that happily, if they saw a killing.”

“Getting damages is to make a meal of ashes,” in a para
phrase of Paul Friedmann's advice to poor Solange Bartholdi She gave herself some whisky. There weren't even coffee-cups to wash up; Magda had done them all. “I don't really grasp how those people came to make such a foolish error in the first place, and having made it, to persist in it so rigidly.” He drew hard on the pipe to get it going.

“They did a bit of bad detective work that connected me with the family Karstens and jumped to a conclusion. The boy – interesting that he couldn't bring himself to face me – was at the bottom of it.” The pipe refused to draw and he tapped it out. “In days when I was still interested in such things, I wrote a piece once about soldiery, and the mentality of the Waffen SS. Illustrated by some first-hand details I actually got from Jacky Karstens, one night when we had a few drinks together. This somehow reached the boy's eye. From thread to needle, as you say, the conclusion was jumped at because he wanted to jump at it. For the rest, they were worked up by that infernal press cow. She didn't deny it. Showed me her file. The boy put a silly insert in the agony column of a national newspaper, saying Daddy – should I call you Jacky Karstens or should I say Doctor Arthur Davidson?
Graphik
have a very keen eye for things like that. Said Davidson, within a narrow field, is not an unheard-of person. He's working in Strasbourg; oho, rope the bloodhounds in, let them loose outside his door. Sit back, and watch mischief working. It would, as she said so wistfully, have made a great story.

“A thing, though, I have not grasped. The girl saw her father last when she was two; the boy can never have seen him at all. But that woman – for several periods of up to months at a time I was supposed to share her life. I'd been to bed with her, she'd borne me two children. She knows me, dammit. In her head is a whole fictitious ‘me'. Now when she arrives here, the fiction has to be superposed upon a reality, and the two don't fit.”

“As you remark, people believe what they want to believe. Rather glib, perhaps, to say Especially Germans of the wartime generation. But it was wartime. It was very long ago. She was very young.”