A Small Person Far Away

  Anna drank her coffee and felt suddenly better. It was all going to be all right. Unlike the Nazis, the Russians were not going to get away with it. Mama was alive and almost well again. She was going home – Konrad had said so. Just as long as nothing happens to stop it, she thought.

  “I can just imagine how they’re feeling in Hungary,” said the woman, lingering by the table with the empty tray in her hands. “When I think of what the Russians did here…” And she embarked on a long rambling story about a soldier who had fired six shots into a stone gnome in her front garden. “And he was shouting, ‘Nazi! Nazi!’ all the time,” she said in a shocked voice. “After all, the gnome was not a Nazi.” After a moment’s thought she added, “And nor, of course, was I.”

  Anna struggled to keep a straight face and stuffed herself with the rolls and butter. She did not want to be late for her visit to Mama, especially if she were leaving the following day. Even so, she missed her usual bus and had to wait ten minutes for the next.

  It was cold, with dark, drifting clouds which every so often erupted into drizzle, and when at last she arrived at the hospital, the warmth of the entrance hall enveloped her like a cocoon. The receptionist smiled at her – I’m beginning to belong to the place, she thought – and Mama’s little room, with the rain spitting on the double windows and the radiator blasting away, was welcoming and snug.

  “Hullo, Mama,” she said. “Isn’t it good about Hungary?”

  “Incredible,” said Mama.

  She was looking much brighter, sitting up in bed in a fresh nightie, with a newspaper beside her, and began at once to ask about the party and about Max’s departure. “So Konrad drove him straight from the party to the airport,” she said when Anna had described it all. It was the bit that pleased her most.

  There were new flowers on her table, as well as a lavish box of chocolates from her office and a coloured card with “Get well soon, honey” on it and a lot of signatures. Konrad had rung up earlier, while she was in her bath, but had left a message that he would ring again. She leaned back into the pillows, relaxed for the first time since she had got better.

  “By the way,” she said in the warm, no-nonsense voice which Anna remembered so clearly from her childhood, “the nurse told me what you did when I was in a coma – about you being here so much of the time and sitting on my bed and calling me. I’m sorry, I didn’t know. One doesn’t remember, you see.” She added with curious formality. “She says you may have saved my life. Thank you.”

  Anna found herself unexpectedly touched. She cast about for something to answer, but could think of nothing adequate so she grinned and said, as Max might have done, “That’s all right, Mama – any time,” and Mama giggled and said, “You’re dreadful – you’re just as bad as your brother,” which, coming from Mama, she supposed was the nicest thing she could have said.

  She looked so much more like herself that she decided to broach the question of leaving.

  “Mama,” she said, “I’ve been here nearly a week. I’d really like to go home. Do you think, if I could get a flight tomorrow, you’d be all right?”

  She was about to add various qualifications about keeping in touch and not going unless Mama was absolutely sure, when Mama said, in the same sensible voice, “I’m much better now, and after all it’s only ten days till I go away with Konrad. I think I’ll be all right.” Then she said, “But I’ll miss you,” and touched Anna’s hand gently with her fingers. “I’ve hardly talked to you.”

  “You were talking to Max.”

  “I know,” said Mama. “But I see him so seldom.” She said again, “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll write every day,” said Anna. She had decided this in advance. “Even if it isn’t very interesting. So that if you’re feeling low or Konrad is busy or anything, at least you’ll know that something will happen.”

  “That’ll be nice,” said Mama. She thought for a moment. Then she said, “I’m sorry – I realize now that all this has been a lot of trouble to everyone, but, you know, I still can’t see any reason why I shouldn’t have done it.”

  Anna’s heart sank.

  “For God’s sake, Mama—”

  “No, listen, let’s not pretend. Let’s talk about this honestly.” Mama was very serious. “I’m fifty-six, and I’m alone. I’ve done all the things I had to do. I brought you and Max up and got you through the emigration. I looked after Papa and I’ve got his books republished, which I promised him I’d do. Nobody needs me any longer. Why shouldn’t I die if I want to?”

  “Of course we need you,” said Anna, but Mama gestured impatiently.

  “I said, let’s be honest. I don’t say that you wouldn’t be pleased to see me occasionally, say at Christmas or something, but you don’t need me.” She looked at Anna challengingly. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me honestly, what difference would it have made if I had died?”

  Anna knew at once what difference it would have made. She would have blamed herself for the rest of her life for not having, somehow, given Mama enough reason to go on living. But you couldn’t ask people to stay alive just to stop you feeling guilty.

  “If you had died,” she said after a moment, “I would have been the child of two suicides.”

  Mama disposed of that in a flash. “Nonsense,” she said. “Papa’s suicide didn’t count.” She glared at Anna, daring her to disagree.

  “One suicide, then,” said Anna, feeling ridiculous.

  They stared at each other, and then Mama began to giggle.

  “Honestly,” she said, “can you imagine anyone else having a conversation like this?”

  “Not really,” said Anna, and somehow they were back in Putney, in Bloomsbury, in the cramped flat in Paris, in the Swiss village inn – a close, close family surrounded by people different from themselves. As the familiar sensation enveloped her, she suddenly knew what to say.

  “I’ll tell you what difference it would have made,” she said. “Though you may not think it enough of a reason. But whenever anything happens to me, anything good like a new job or even something quite small like a party or buying a new dress, my first thought is always, I must tell Mama. I know I don’t always do it. I don’t always write, and when we meet I’ve maybe forgotten. But I always think it. And if you were dead, I wouldn’t be able to think it any more, and then the thing that happened, whatever it was, wouldn’t be nearly as good.”

  She looked at Mama expectantly.

  “That’s very sweet of you,” said Mama. “But it’s not a reason to go on living.” Then she sniffed, and her eyes were suddenly wet. “But it’s very sweet of you, just the same,” she said.

  After this neither of them knew quite what to do, until Mama grabbed hold of the box on the table and said, “Would you like a chocolate?”

  Anna made a great fuss of choosing one, and Mama told her, as she had often told her before, about a governess she had had as a child, who, for reasons of daintiness, had insisted on always eating chocolates in one bite. “So you never found out what was inside them,” said Mama indignantly, as always when she remembered the story.

  They were just choosing another chocolate each when the telephone rang on the bedside table.

  “That’ll be Konrad,” said Mama, and as she put the receiver to her ear, Anna could hear him saying, “Good morning, ma’am.”

  “Give him my regards,” she said, and went over to the window, so as not to look as though she were listening.

  It was still raining outside, and she could see the tops of the trees, now almost bare, blowing in the wind. Someone had tried to sweep the carefully laid out paths, but already the leaves were drifting back across them from the grass.

  “Oh yes, I’m much better,” said Mama behind her, and went on to talk about what she had eaten and what the doctor had said. Some birds—sparrows, she thought – had found an old piece of bread and were pecking at it, jostling each other and pushing each other away. She could see their feathers glistening with the rain,
but they did not seem to mind.

  “Have you fixed up about your leave?” said Mama. “Because, if we’re going to book the hotel—”

  The piece of bread, pecked by one of the birds, rose up into the air to land a foot or so away, and all the rest half-hopped, half-flew to follow it.

  “What do you mean?” Mama’s voice suddenly sounded different. “What do you mean, see what happens in the office first?”

  Anna tried, without success, to keep her mind on the sparrows who had now pulled the bread in half.

  “But you said – you promised!” Mama’s voice was rising. Stealing a glance at her, Anna could see that her face was flushed and upset.

  “Well, I’ve been ill as well. Don’t I deserve some consideration? For heaven’s sake, Konrad, what do you think I’m going to do?”

  Oh God, thought Anna. She took a step towards Mama with some idea of offering support, but at the sight of her face, closed to everything except the crackle from the telephone, abandoned it.

  “Yes, I know the work is important, but this is the one thing that’s kept me going. Surely Erwin could manage. Why are you suddenly so concerned for him?” Mama was biting back her tears, and her voice was almost out of control, “Well, how do you know it is serious? Are you sure it’s really Erwin you’re worried about and not someone quite different?” The telephone crackled, and she shouted, “No, I don’t believe you. I don’t know what to believe. For all I know, she’s there with you now, or listening on the extension.”

  “Mama—” said Anna, but there was no stopping her.

  “I’m not hysterical,” yelled Mama. “I’ve been ill, and I nearly died, and I wish to God I had.” She was crying now, and angrily wiping the tears away with her hand. “I wanted to die. You know I wanted to die. Why on earth didn’t you let me?”

  The telephone spat, and her face suddenly went rigid.

  “What do you mean?” she cried. “Konrad, what do you mean?”

  But he had rung off.

  Anna went over to the bed and sat cautiously on the edge. “What’s happened?” she said in as matter of fact a voice as she could manage. She suddenly felt very tired.

  Mama took a trembling breath. “He hasn’t applied for leave,” she brought out at last. “He doesn’t know if he can get away.” She turned her head away. “I always knew,” she said indistinctly into the sheets. “I always knew it was no good – that it could never come right.”

  “Mama,” said Anna, “what exactly did he say?”

  Mama looked at her with her hurt blue eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “Something about Erwin being ill. And then, at the end—”

  “Erwin is ill,” said Anna. “He was sick yesterday. Hildy told me.” But Mama was not listening.

  “He said something about it not being the first time. I said I wanted to die, and he said – I couldn’t quite catch it, but I’m sure he said, ‘Well, it isn’t the first time, is it?’” She stared at Anna, her face working nervously. “Why on earth should he say that?”

  Anna felt as though a huge stone were rolling slowly towards her and there was no way of escape. “I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps he was just upset.”

  “It didn’t sound like that.”

  “Oh God, Mama, how do I know what he meant?” She suddenly wanted nothing further to do with it, not with Mama, not with Konrad, not with any of them. “It’s not my business,” she shouted. “I came here because you were ill, and I’ve done my best to make you better. I can’t do anything more. It’s too complicated for me. I can’t tell you how to run your life.”

  “Nobody asked you to.” Mama was glaring at her and she glared back for a moment, but could not keep it up. “What’s the matter with you?” asked Mama.

  “Nothing,” she said, and then, to her relief, there was a knock at the door and a nurse came in.

  “Excuse me,” she said. (It was the friendly one.) “I’d like just to take a peep at your telephone.”

  They both watched her walk across to the bedside table, and heard the tiny ping as she adjusted the receiver on its support. “There,” she said. “The cord had caught under it.” She smiled at Mama. “Dr Rabin telephoned for you. We couldn’t get through to your room, so he left a message with the switchboard. He’s on his way to see you.”

  “Now?” said Mama.

  “That’s right. I told him he mustn’t stay long because it’s nearly time for your lunch, and then you must have your rest. All right?”

  “Yes,” said Mama, looking confused. As soon as the nurse had gone, she turned to Anna and said, “It’s no distance in the car. He’ll be here in a moment.”

  “I’ll go.”

  “Could you just – I’d like to wash my face.”

  “Of course.”

  She climbed out of bed, looking as she had looked in the mornings in Putney, the pink nightdress clinging to her middle-aged legs (they were short and chubby like Anna’s), the childlike eyes tense. While she poured water on her face with her hands and nervously combed her crisp grey hair, Anna straightened the sheets. Then she helped Mama back into bed and tucked the bedclothes round her.

  “All right?” she said. “You look very nice.”

  Mama bit her lip and nodded.

  “I’m sure it’ll all be fine.” She tried to think of something else to say – something that would give Mama courage, that would make her say all the right things to Konrad and at the same time, somehow, exonerate herself – but there was nothing.

  “See you later,” she said. Then she smiled hypocritically and left.

  As she passed through the entrance hall, she saw Konrad coming up the steps outside. For a moment she thought of intercepting him – “Please don’t tell Mama that I told you…” But what was the use? Instead, she went and stood behind a group of people buying flowers at the kiosk, and he stumped past with his stick without seeing her. She did not dare look up until after he had passed. From the back, with his thinning hair disarranged by the wind, he looked old – too old, she thought, to be involved in a love affair, let alone a triangular one.

  Outside, the cold stung her face and she walked as fast as she could down the wide, windswept road. It was no longer raining, but the temperature must have dropped several degrees, for her coat seemed suddenly too thin. The wind blew right through it, round her shoulders and up her sleeves, and since she had no idea, in any case, where she was going, she turned down a side street to escape from it.

  Here it was more sheltered, and she slowed down a little, though still keeping her mind on her surroundings and on putting one foot in front of the other. She had no wish to think of Mama’s room in the hospital, or of what she and Konrad might now be saying to each other.

  “I can’t cope with all that,” she said aloud.

  There was no one to hear her except a dog loitering in the gutter. No people. They were all at work, she supposed, rebuilding Germany. She passed only two or three cars, a boy on a bicycle and an old man swathed in jackets and scarves, snipping away in one of the overgrown gardens which edged the pavement.

  What shall I do? she thought, sinking her chin into her collar against the cold. She couldn’t go on walking about for ever. Sooner or later she would have to go back to Mama – and what would happen then? I’ll have to find out from Konrad what he said to her, she thought, but her heart sank at the prospect.

  At the end of the street, the view became more open. A main road led to a square with shops and buses and a taxi rank. Roseneck said a sign, to her surprise. When she was small, she had come here once a week for her dancing class. She had come on the tram, the fare money tucked inside her glove, and when the conductor called out the stop, she had jumped off and run across – where?

  The trams were gone, the square had been rebuilt, and she recognized nothing. She stood disconsolately in the icy wind, trying to work out where the tram stop would have been, so as not to think, instead, how Mama was probably feeling about her at this moment, but it was no use. It??
?s all gone wrong, she thought, meaning both the business with Mama and her unrecognizable surroundings. She longed for somewhere familiar and reassuring. A sign in the road said, Richtung Grunewald, and she suddenly knew what she wanted to do.

  It felt strange, giving the taxi driver the old address, and she half-expected him to look surprised. But he only repeated, “number ten,” and drove off.

  Hagen Strasse, where buses now ran instead of trams, Königsallee, with the wind bending branches and tearing through the awnings outside the shops. Turn right into the tree-lined side street, and there they were. It had taken no time at all.

  “That’s the house,” said the driver, as she lingered on the pavement. He seemed anxious to see her actually go in, and only left her there reluctantly. She watched him drive away and disappear around the corner. Then she walked a few steps along – there was nobody about. She found a tree to lean against and stared across at the house, waiting for some kind of emotion.

  The house stared back at her. It looked like anywhere else, and she felt put out. There are the steps I used to run up, she told herself. That’s where the currant bushes used to be. That is the slope where Max taught me to ride his bicycle.

  Nothing. The house stood there like any other. There was a crack in one of the windows, some yellow chrysanthemums were shivering in a flower bed, and a dog was barking shrilly somewhere inside.

  But I remembered it all the other day, she thought. She wanted to feel again as she had felt then, to sense with the same ghostly clarity what it had been like to be small, to speak only German and to feel utterly secure in the knowledge of Mama’s existence. It seemed to her that if only she could do this, everything would come right. Everything between Mama and herself would be the same as before.

  I wore brown lace-up boots, she thought. I had a satchel on my back and I used to run up those steps after school and shout, “Ist Mami da?”

  “Ist Mami da?” she said aloud.

  It sounded merely silly.

  On the other side of the road a woman had come out of a house with a shopping bag and was staring across at her. She began to walk slowly down the street. The house next door had been completely rebuilt. Funny, she thought, that she hadn’t noticed it the other day. The one beyond that she could not remember at all. Then she came to the corner and stopped again.