The Other Me (18 page)

He jerks his head from the cramped lines of text. ‘What’s that smell?’

I pause, swallowing guiltily. ‘What smell?’

He stares at me, his eyes accusing. ‘Your perfume.’

I clasp one wrist tightly with my fingers. ‘Mitsouko,’ I admit.

I’ve upset him. How stupid of me. It’s reminded him of my mother. It must be a shock. Smells are tripwires into memory.

He moves his lips over his teeth; the grooves between his nose and mouth stretch. ‘I don’t like it.’

‘No,’ I whisper. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You smell like a harlot.’

I blink, wiping my palm over my neck as if I could rub away the scent. He opens the Bible and lowers his gaze.

The restaurant is half empty. Cosmo is waiting at a table for two in the corner. He stands up and I hesitate, not knowing how to greet him, feeling shy. He makes a move towards me and we brush our cheeks against each other’s in a self-conscious, clumsy air-kiss. He inhales. ‘You smell wonderful.’

‘Really?’ I look at him doubtfully. ‘Not too… strong?’

He looks at me as if I’m mad and shakes his head.

I can’t think about food. I’m nauseous with anxiety. I nod and agree with his suggestions and wait while he orders sweet and sour pork, chicken with cashew nuts and bowls of egg-fried rice. The waiter pours out steaming cups of jasmine tea.

Cosmo lifts his cup. ‘Firstly, I’d like to celebrate the fact that we can be friends.’

I lean across the table, clinking china against china. His dark eyes are impenetrable, despite his smiling mouth.

‘Secondly, I got another commission today.’

‘That’s great.’ I dip my head and sip. The tea is fragrant and hot.

‘A local French restaurant,’ he adds. ‘They want an underwater scene.’

‘How are your parents taking it?’ I manoeuvre a piece of bamboo shoot into my mouth with chopsticks. It’s weirdly chewy. ‘You said they didn’t get the art thing.’

He tilts his head. ‘They don’t. But they’ve accepted that I want to give this a go.’ He waves his hand as if it’s unimportant and shifts his chair closer to the table. ‘You never said how it went in Paris.’

‘It was lovely.’ The truth feels like a luxury. ‘We had a decadent time. Ate too much. Took in the usual sights.’ I curl my hand around the warmth of my cup. ‘It was great just to be with Meg again.’

‘She’s a good friend.’

There’s a sharp pain inside. I stare into my unfinished food. It is cold, congealing. Bits of spilt rice stick to the table.

I watch him transferring sweet and sour pork to his lips. I used to steal food from his plate in restaurants. It was a joke that I’d always prefer what he ordered. Chinese meals solved the problem.

‘How are you getting on at the club?’ He pours more tea.

I clear my throat. ‘I’m enjoying it.’

We’re making conversation like strangers. Reading from a script. I should have listened to my doubts. I should never have come.

‘Glad you like working behind the bar. But I thought you’d end up dancing burlesque.’ He’s looking at his hands, turning them over. ‘Seemed like the natural thing for you to do. Has anyone talked about it?’

‘No.’ I duck my head. ‘I don’t want to.’

‘Because you don’t approve? Or because it would interfere with your dance training…’

‘Nothing like that. It’s great. What Scarlett does.’ I spin my cup slowly on the table, leaving damp rings. ‘I’m full of admiration. But I think you have the wrong idea about me. Remember the party? I was happy to dance, not just because I was drunk, but because it was a private party. No audience. If you’d seen me just a few hours before on stage, you’d understand. I was completely frozen with stage fright.’

‘You never told me,’ he says slowly. ‘That’s why you were drinking as if your life depended on it.’ He taps his chin with his thumb.

‘Yes. So you see, I don’t have nerves of steel. And I won’t be doing any burlesque at the club…’

I have a memory of us in his bed; my spine curled into him as he held me in his arms.
You’re so brave
, he’d said. The thought of losing his respect is unbearable.

He leans back in his chair and we sip our tea in silence. The atmosphere tightens.

‘Have your brothers come back?’

I snap my head up. Confusion scattering my thoughts. ‘My brothers?’

‘Yes.’ His eyebrows pull together, creasing the top of his nose. ‘For the funeral? To help?’

‘Oh,’ I collect myself. ‘No. It’s a long way away. Australia.’

‘Seems you have to do everything on your own.’

I drop my gaze to my lap, and squeeze my fingers tight, nails digging into flesh.

‘Eliza Bennet,’ he muses. ‘Does anyone ever call you Elizabeth?’

I can’t look up. I gaze into the tea leaves in the bottom of my cup. ‘No.’

‘
Pride and Prejudice
.’ I hear the clink of his chopsticks as he puts them down. ‘Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Took me ages to make the connection. But then you know I’m not exactly the literary type. Did your parents choose Eliza to go with your surname on purpose? Were they Austen fans?’

My face flames. ‘It’s just a coincidence. Just one of those things.’

I am crushed by my own deceit. I fiddle with my cuff and look at my watch, wanting to go home, because this was a mistake. We’re not friends. We can never be friends. And after he finds out what I’ve done and who I really am, he’ll never want to see me again. He’ll hate me. Like Meg does.

He calls for the bill. Outside, the street is busy. Church bells are ringing, competing with the sound of booming car basses and distant sirens. Cosmo buttons up his jacket.

‘It’s early still. Would you like to come back to the flat?’

He rocks onto his heels. I see him notice my hesitation, and he adds carefully, ‘Scarlett and Luke are probably there. They’d love to see you.’

I look out into the traffic, fighting with myself. I want to place my hand in his and walk through the streets. I want him to take me into his bedroom, close the door and pull me close.

He’s waiting. He tips his head back, exposing paler skin under his chin. I remember the vulnerable patch behind his ears, the pinkness under his hair and the tender place at the bottom of his spine, where tan slips into white over the curves of his buttocks.

‘No. Thanks. I should get back.’

He frowns, ducks his head and looks at me sideways, his expression puzzled. ‘Is this really what you want?’

‘Of course,’ I say brightly. ‘We’re friends. Aren’t we?’

He walks me to the Tube station and we hold ourselves apart. At the musty, dark entrance, we brush each other’s cheeks with empty air-kisses.

‘Eliza?’ He’s staring at me. ‘It’s odd… but since you’ve left Leeds, it’s as if you’ve disappeared.’

‘What?’ I press the back of my hand to my cheek.

‘The girl I remember. My brave dancer. The girl on the roof. That Eliza. She’s not here anymore.’

We look at each other and something rips, like a plaster tearing away from a wound. The moment is raw and bright. Sounds drain into silence. Nothing else exists except us. The hairs on my arms rise. My eyes blur. I blink and a tear slides onto my cheek.

‘I’m sorry.’ I turn away, searching for a tissue in my pocket. ‘I wish I could bring her back.’

‘Eliza…’ He’s calling my name, but I’m blundering through a crowd, scrabbling to find my ticket, pushing through the barrier, the doors sliding closed behind me.

ERNST

1933, Germany

The nuns are in a fluster. The Führer has ordered that all unpatriotic books be burnt. There’s a long list of banned authors, books full of
undeutsche Gedanken
– un-German thoughts. The authors are mostly Jewish. These books, the nuns tell us, betrayed German youth and must be burnt immediately.

Lessons are cancelled. Flushed nuns climb stepladders in the library, tripping over their robes, pulling out volumes. They stagger back and forth, arms overflowing with books. We’ve been enlisted to help, pushing heaped handcarts from the library past classrooms, and finally, outside into the yard. There’s a pile of books already there: broken spines splayed, pages flapping, torn-out lines of text, ripped and dirty covers. Excited by the lack of routine and lessons, we lend our strong arms and willing legs to the cause.

As I trundle a handcart up and down the corridors, the reality of what we’re doing hasn’t really sunk in. Albert Einstein’s
Relativity
lies on top of the haphazard heap of books in the cart I’m pushing. I tried to read the book in the library just days before. It was too hard for me; but the glimpse I had of the ideas in it, ideas about space and time, about what truth is, and the difference between what we can see and what we think we see, had intrigued me. I wanted to know more. If the book was burnt, I’d never have a chance to unpick the locks to all those ideas, never discover the secrets it contained. I glance around to check that no one’s looking, and stuff it into the back of my trousers, tucked safely in my belt, hidden under my jacket.

The pile in the yard grows. There are names I’ve never heard of. Others I recognise, although I’ve never read them: Walter Benjamin; Ernst Bloch; Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann. I begin to feel uncomfortable. To a boy who’s always had to share his text books, this waste seems frighteningly extravagant.

Sister Sommer, the youngest and prettiest nun, sets the match. The dry paper catches instantly and within moments the whole pile is burning fiercely. Scraps of paper fly upwards in the scorching air. Swirling fragments of text, quickly shrivelling into blackness, begin to shower our heads and shoulders in ashy rain. I look across at Otto, who stands to attention with his class; he stares directly into the flames, his face bright with fiery reflections. Led by our teachers, we sing ‘Deutschland, Deutschland Über Alles’, our voices rising over the crackling flames.

As I breathe and sing, my ribs move up and down and Einstein’s
Relativity
digs its hard contours into my spine. I have to stop myself from wriggling, or twisting my arm around to reposition it inside my waistband.

I snatched the book up on impulse and I’m already regretting it. It was a stupid thing to do. Now I’ll have to find a place to hide it. Otto won’t let me keep it. He might even report me if he finds it. But I can’t think where’s safe from his searching fingers. My eyes sting. I’m sweating, not just from the heat, but from the fear of what I’ve done. Then a thought comes to me like a cool breeze wafting through a window: Daniel and Sarah’s cottage.

Mrs Meyer sits at the kitchen table while she works on the
Ahnenpass
, the obligatory Ancestor Report. She’s dragged old birth certificates, marriage documents and sepia photographs from envelopes and drawers. Neither of the Meyers is a practised reader or writer. She agonises over the report, her hands blotted with ink, her forehead furrowed. Bettina and Agnes annoy their mother by shuffling her carefully ordered piles, examining bits and pieces, rubbing their fingers across the documentation that ensures their places in the Fatherland. Otto cannot contain his jealousy. He paces the yard outside and kicks stones against the wall.

‘It’s not fair.’ He wipes his nose on the back of his hand. ‘We look more German than anyone. But we’re nothing without papers.’

I shrug. ‘Nobody is accusing us of not being Aryan.’

‘But I need proof.’ He frowns and digs his hands into his pockets. ‘I want to be without a speck of reproach.’

I turn away to hide my smile. Otto has begun to copy Winkler’s formal speech and mannerisms. My brother, who’s considered a bit of a dunce at school, and who’s never wanted to read a book or learn vocabulary, now gathers long words like a squirrel hoarding nuts. The Third Reich counts physical prowess, discipline and obedience far above academic abilities, but the people who hold the highest positions in the Nazi order all have the ability to spout pompous prose. My brother listens to those speeches of Hitler and Goebbels with glazed eyes, his lips moving soundlessly, parroting phrases.

I slip away from Otto and the farm on the pretence of going fishing, and follow the path that leads from the lake into the tangled woods. The track narrows, tall trunks either side pressing so close they cut out the light. I shiver in the gloom, glancing over my shoulder, jumping when a bird flies up or a stick snaps. After an hour and a half of searching, just as I’m about to give up, I find Daniel and Sarah’s cottage.

It is just a tumbledown ruin. Bindweed and ivy claw at crumbling walls; the roof is a slump of old thatch, slimy and ragged. It’s fallen through completely in one place. Windows are cracked and broken. Tall nettles guard the doorway: an impenetrable fortress of stinging leaves, thick and green. Pushing my way through brambles to the back of the building, I see that the nettles have been cut down to make a narrow entrance to a downstairs window. Making my way through them carefully, I find a path beaten by human feet.

The catch has been left unfastened, and it’s easy to swing my leg over the sill. I blink and listen, holding my breath, nostrils curling as smells press in on me: mould spores, damp, rotten fabric, dust. I hear nothing but the sounds of my own body, the gurgle of my stomach. The air is green-tinged from the ivy leaves and nettles leaning against the windows. As my eyes get used to the lack of light, I begin to explore, spotting signs of recent habitation: a bundle of clean blankets on the floor, a small jam jar with a handful of wild flowers in it. I find a blackened kettle sitting in the grate, and squat to touch the cold, battered metal. There are two cups on a shelf. Ten books have been stacked next to them. I run my finger across the spines, seeing that they are all by forbidden authors.

I take the Einstein from my pocket and slot it into the middle of the row. It strikes me that Daniel will be impressed by my choice of book. I hang around for as long as I dare, imagining that I hear approaching footsteps, twigs snapping, muffled voices. Crows fly overhead, their hoarse cries echoing. Nobody comes. I go home clutching my rod and say that I’ve been unable to catch anything. Meyer cuffs my ear and Otto glares at me, angry that I left him behind.