The Other Me (36 page)

The words are blunt now. I’ve worn them away with my weeping. I remember when I first heard. Even though I’d suspected for a long time that Sarah was dead, it had been as if I was hearing unexpected news.

I catch the movement of his shrug.

‘You knew them,’ I persist.

But he didn’t really know them. And so many have died. But not him: safe on a Welsh mountain, building a chapel, falling in love. He won’t understand about bearing witness. He doesn’t think of the Baumanns as people. He can’t let himself do that. I nod towards the glass on the side table. My tongue is dry as a piece of tinder. ‘Could you?’

He approaches slowly, takes the glass and holds the straw to my lips, pinching it between his fingers. Drops of moisture slide down my throat. The intimacy seems to repel him, or perhaps it’s my ravaged face. He looks away.

‘There’s something else,’ I say.

He replaces the glass on the table.

‘I went back to the farm. A few years ago. Meyer and his wife are both dead. Only Agnes was there. She runs it now, with her husband. They have three sons.’ I pause to gather strength. ‘After the shock, she was polite. Pleased, even. She invited me in. I shared their supper. I asked her if she had any information that might help track down our parents.’

Otto breathes out, interested at last. ‘And?’

‘She did. Her father confessed to her before he died that we weren’t foundlings. Not exactly. Our father was a wealthy German. Although she didn’t know his name. Meyer wouldn’t tell her, and she’s found no papers since his death.’

I pause, sucking in oxygen; the effort has winded me. Otto hovers impatiently.

‘Our mother,’ I continue, ‘apparently, she was his mistress. A household servant set up in a flat after I was born. When you were born, at his wife’s insistence, our father ended his relationship with our mother. He paid Meyer to take us in and look after us… paid him well to conceal our identity.’

‘Why would he need to do that?’

‘Because our mother was a Jew. Our father didn’t want to be associated with his ex-mistress or us. But he did his duty, kept us alive.’

‘How do you know that Agnes was telling the truth?’ He paces beside the bed. His face is flushed. ‘Or Meyer? He could have told her anything.’

‘What reason did either of them have to lie?’

‘One of them was lying. We’re not Jewish, Ernst. You forget, we passed every test…’

I roll my head on the pillow. ‘That’s all nonsense. You know it is. Feeling skulls, checking eye colour? There is no such thing as Aryan. The idea is ludicrous.’ I stare at him through the gloom. ‘You don’t still believe in blood being pure?’

He is stiff. ‘But there is no proof, is there? About our parents. It’s all just… what do they call it? Chinese whispers.’

‘No. There’s no proof. My detective got nowhere. But I keep thinking of that woman who came to the farm. Do you remember?’

He looks irritated. ‘What woman?’

‘We saw her standing under a tree one evening. She came to see us, I think.’ I swallow, rising above the pain in my ribs. ‘I believe she was our mother.’

‘Our mother?’ He snorts. ‘We have always had different beliefs, Ernst.’

I feel weary. ‘It’s your information… to do with as you will.’ I want to sleep, to slide back into unconsciousness, but I’m curious too. ‘Your God, Otto. Isn’t he the same one as the Jews’?’

Otto shrugs heavy shoulders.

‘And will this God of yours really forgive those that repent? Will he forgive Hitler? Himmler? All those camp guards? Will he forgive the Russian soldiers, the German soldiers? The British and the Americans?’ I force myself to go on. ‘What about the good German citizens that refused to give back the house they’d been keeping safe for their Jewish neighbour? And will he forgive the partisans that nailed German tongues to a table, the children in the Panzer division that executed prisoners old enough to be their fathers?’

I stop, panting. The list is too long. I don’t have the strength.

‘Only God knows what God will forgive,’ Otto says without expression.

He looks out of the window at the shimmering lights and explosions above the apple tree.

‘People say that Hitler set himself up in God’s place. They say the world was bound to fall into sin after that.’ He rubs his forehead, making a strange, strangled noise in his throat; I realise that it’s a laugh. ‘You call him my God. He’s not mine. He never was. He left me when Gwyn died. He only existed through her. And now my guilt sits on my back like a devil, digging its claws in.’

‘What are you guilty of, Otto?’ I’m trying to be kind. I want to reassure him. ‘We were just boys. Our minds were warped. You weren’t in the SS. You didn’t even fight in the army. You were captured so close to the start of the war. You’ve lived a good and ordinary life. And you loved your wife.’

‘I loved her too much.’ He falls heavily against the bed and sinks to his knees. ‘I didn’t tell her everything. I lied.’ His voice is hoarse. ‘Before we were sunk, we torpedoed a passenger ship bound for Canada, full of children. No survivors.’

I flinch. I wish I were strong enough to sit up so that I could comfort him properly. ‘I’m sorry. That must be a terrible thing…’

He clears his throat. ‘They were all Jews, Ernst. Before the war I killed two more of them. On
Kristallnacht
.’

I remember the blood on his head. His sleeve.
Not mine
, he said.

‘A boy about my age. It felt like running a blade through butter. I hit his artery, watched him crumple… there was a lot of blood…’

Otto’s hands grip my sheet. It pulls tight across me.

‘And a man. The SS knew him – he’d made trouble before. They wanted to make an example of him. They rigged up a noose over a lamppost, and they said I could be the one to put the rope around his neck. Then I helped kick the chair away.’

Memories flicker. Daniel is looking at me across the years behind the glitter of his glasses. I put my fingers out to touch Otto. He moves away and, with a creaking lurch, pushes against the bed to stand up.

‘It was your friend’s father.’ He rubs his face. ‘Baumann. He would have died anyway. Later.’

‘I don’t… I don’t understand,’ I say.

‘What’s so difficult, Ernst? Despite your little tryst with the girl, you know the Jews deserved to die as well as I. No. My guilt is for Gwyn. She was my wife. But her heart was too soft, like a child’s. She didn’t have our education. She didn’t know any better.’ He stands over me, and the words keep falling from his mouth. ‘I wanted to tell her, but I had to protect her from the truth. I was afraid she might not love me if she knew. Not if she knew everything. I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t lose her. And then you came into our lives, trying to pollute what was pure, forcing more lies into our marriage.’

The room sways. He sways with it and I cringe against my pillow. There are so many wrongs – and no way of righting them. But he is my brother. And there are more unfinished things. I try to raise myself on my elbows. My arms are like cotton threads. ‘I am sorry… for loving your wife. ’

‘Maybe God will forgive you,’ Otto says. ‘But I can’t. I never will.’

He leaves quietly. The room is thick with his words. They press against me, surrounding my bed: flapping layers of darkness, impossible to breathe through, impossible to shift.

When the door opens, my heart leaps. I think he’s come back. He made a mistake. He didn’t mean it. Any of it. But it is Klaudia. She creeps close, her face crumpled with anxiety. I inhale her clean scent, her youth. The room brightens. I can breathe. She plumps up my pillow and talks about soup and I nod, to please her. It isn’t food I need anymore.

She asks about the medals I gave to Gwyn. She flings it out as a casual question, but I see the look on her face. She is suspicious. I want to tell her the truth. I want to tell her that I am her father. A selfish longing for it makes me tremble. But it wouldn’t be fair on her. I have no rights to this beautiful creature. I’ve played no part in her life. I am unclean. My past is ugly. I want to keep her free of it. I’m afraid it will corrupt her.

KLAUDIA

Weeks slip by. Time has become irrelevant. I don’t even read newspapers. We three exist, and Amoya comes and goes, bringing shreds of the outside with her, bits of gossip, the smell of buses and hospitals, and her good-humoured common sense. Even my father is drawn to her, suddenly entering the kitchen when she’s in it. She is full of life, full of ordinary human grace.

It’s late. Ernst is asleep. I draw the curtains, sitting next to him on a chair because it hurts him now when the mattress tips. His face is more skull than flesh. His mouth hangs open and the thin skin of his eyelids flickers. I wonder what he’s dreaming about. Was it really him in that picture? Does he ever think about the girl? Were there others? I thought I’d inherited guilt through my father. And all the time it was this man, a stranger, my uncle, that was the link. It’s odd, but I feel the spooling of our blood running between us. Cosmo and I could never have stayed together – not with our two histories – not when I feel love for this sleeping man, despite what he’s done. And I can’t stop thinking about my mother, how she kept Ernst’s medals for him, and the perfume he gave her. I’d thought she was angry when I asked where Uncle Ernst had gone; now I wonder if it had been disappointment, not disapproval, plucking at her.

He moans and opens his eyes slowly, blinking. He smiles when he sees me and moves his hand to cover mine. His touch is cold and dry.

‘Beautiful Klaudia,’ he whispers. ‘I’m glad you’re here. Talk to me.’

‘What do you want me to talk about?’

‘Tell me who you love.’

I’m startled. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ I say.

‘But there’s someone you think about, isn’t there?’ he persists. ‘You get a look on your face. A faraway look.’

I frown. ‘Yes. But I made a mistake. I lied and he discovered my lie before I could tell him the truth.’

‘Ah.’ He squeezes my fingers. ‘Don’t let him go. Love is the thing that makes us human. Don’t lose it.’

I shake my head. ‘I have lost him. It’s over.’

‘But you must explain.’ His voice becomes strained. His eyes widen. ‘Explain your reasons. I know you would have had your reasons. If he loves you, he’ll understand.’

‘It’s too late,’ I tell him.

‘It’s never too late,’ he whispers.

We sit in silence, until he stirs again. ‘Would you do something for me, my darling?’

‘Of course.’ I lean forward.

‘I’m tired of the pain. So tired. I have nothing left to do in this life, but I seem to lack the ability to die.’ He gives a faint smile. ‘There have been so many opportunities for me to leave. But here I am. I want to die, Klaudia. Please.’

I stare at him. My numb mind not understanding.

‘Will you help me?’

I gasp, sitting back, pushing myself away from the bed. ‘I couldn’t!’ I can’t keep the horror out of my voice.

‘I know. It’s too much to ask.’ He sighs and drifts away. ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps though… you’ll think about it?’

I walk to the window and look out into the dark garden.

‘You don’t have to let me know right away,’ he says quietly.

Sometimes, in the night, I hear his low, keening wail. The morphine only takes the sharpness away. Nothing gets rid of it. I remember Amoya’s shoulders shifting as she told me that he could live for months. I go back to the bed and bend to kiss his forehead. I smell the sickness, the cloying scent of death that clings to him.

Cosmo would think it was wrong. He said his family believed in saving lives, even the terminally ill. My father is adamant too: the Church teaches that we cannot make the choice to end a life. It is a sin. But I will never be free of sin. I was born into it.

I still can’t give Ernst an answer. I wish more than anything that I could discuss this with someone. The only person who would listen without judging is Meg. But it’s not the kind of thing you can talk about on the telephone. So I do the only thing that always helps. I pull on my running shoes.

On the pavement, the cold air hits me. I shiver, shaking my freezing hands to get some blood into them. It will be Christmas soon. Nearly a year since I came home. A plane roars low overhead, its white undercarriage a shark’s belly moving through a dark sea. I begin to run in the direction of the park. My feet smack down on the pavement in long, purposeful strides. I begin to get warmer, rolling up my sleeves as I run. My back is damp. My fingers tingle. I increase my stride, arms pumping, my heart banging at my ribs. I notice the way my feet strike the ground, moving from heel to toe and pushing off. I’m aware of the sensations in my body, the healthy push and pull of muscles, the rush of blood.

Behind me, stretched out in the narrow spare bed, Ernst is waiting for my answer. He is a skeleton, too weak to even sit up. Amoya fetches and empties bedpans for him, gives him bed baths, feeds morphine into his veins. I can see the pain moving inside him: a writhing, stabbing daemon. I understand now why some societies try to expel it with witchcraft. I wish I could drag it out too, chase it away with prayers or spells, sprinkling the blood of hens and hair pulled from the tail of a fox. Magic is what I need. But the only magic available is hope, and it’s too late for that.

I stride out, the road passing in a blur under my feet, my focus trained on the air just before me, as if I’m racing towards a goal. It’s Cosmo I want to run to. I imagine hurling myself at him, colliding with him, crashing chests, finding a way to cross borders of bone and flesh, a way to enter him. I keep running, tears and sweat stinging my cheeks.

A streetlight flickers above me. I have a stitch in my side. Trees and buildings are crow-black shapes looming over me. My legs are trembling. I drag at the air with greedy gasps. It scorches my throat. I come to a halt and bend over, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath.

I look up into the night sky. Something comes fluttering towards me. White stars falling. A flickering cloud. Snow. I catch a flake on my tongue; it melts immediately, icy water pooling inside my mouth. I laugh aloud. Forgetting everything for a brief second. I can’t remember when I last saw snow. I turn to walk home, my trainers already soggy, slipping in the fresh fall that’s coating cars and bushes, sticking to dustbin lids and railings in clumps of crystals. I walk faster, breaking into a jog, suddenly anxious about Ernst, thinking of him in the darkness, the cold settling against the windows of the house like white wings, feathers folding shut.