A Small Person Far Away (3 page)

Richard put his hand over hers and said, “I’ve always been so sorry that I never knew him. Or read him. It seems he’s untranslatable,” and the Dillons, after James had refilled her glass, tactfully embarked on a discussion of translations in general and that of a recent French play in particular.

She was grateful for Richard’s hand and for not having to talk. She had not expected to be so upset. After all it had happened years ago. It was the thought of how it had happened, of course. She remembered Papa’s coffin draped with the Union Jack. Common practice, they had said for a British subject dying abroad. It had seemed strange, for Papa had never managed to speak English properly and had been a British subject only for the last year of his life. Then the icy hall where the German musicians had played Beethoven’s Seventh which Papa had loved so much, and the British soldiers who, together with Max and a local newspaperman, had helped to carry his coffin.

As Papa had planned.

If Mama died, it wouldn’t be like that. Anyway, Mama couldn’t die. She was too strong. Anna suddenly remembered with total clarity how Mama had looked when she and Max had arrived, stunned, in Hamburg.

“
Bitte etwas Tee.
” Tea in the hotel bedroom, the only warm place in the devastated city. Mama saying, “There is something I must tell you about Papa.”

As though anything else could possibly matter, Anna thought, apart from the fact that Papa was dead. Then Mama talking about how Papa had failed to recover from the effects of the stroke. But they knew that already. Something about German doctors. How you could get anything for a packet of cigarettes. What?? Anna had thought. What??

“He was paralysed and in pain. He felt he could no longer think as clearly as he wished. I’d always promised to help him if that happened.”

The sharp intake of breath from Max beside her. Mama’s eyes shifting minutely towards him.

“So I did what he asked. I helped him.”

She had said it in such matter of fact tones that even then Anna had not immediately understood.

“It was what he wanted.” Mama had stared at them both, white faced and steely.

Max had said in a forlorn voice, “But we never said goodbye to him.”

She could not remember what she herself had said. But she had known with complete certainty that what Mama had done was right.

She became aware of Richard looking at her. As usual, he knew what she was thinking. She sent him a reassuring look back and tried to listen to the conversation which seemed to have moved on from the French play to a discussion of its author. James Dillon said something witty and everyone laughed. Elizabeth, relaxed in her chair, brushed a strand of hair out of her face. She thought, I am the only person in this room to whom such things have happened. I don’t want to be. I want to belong here.

“Of course the French system of education…”

‘What was it like being a child in Paris?”

She realized that Elizabeth was addressing her.

“In Paris? Oh—” She made an effort and began to talk about her school, the teacher called Madame Socrate who had helped her learn French, the friends she had made, outings to the country and to celebrate the 14th July. “I loved it,” she said and found herself smiling.

“Of course you did.” James Dillon had risen and she saw that he was wearing his Head of Drama expression which she knew from the BBC. “Now here’s what we’re going to do. If your mother needs you, you’ll go and cope with whatever has to be done. And when you come back you’ll do that adaptation we talked about. But I’d like you also to think about writing something of your own.”

For the first time she was startled into total attention. “Of my own?”

“Why not? Needn’t be very long, but all your own work.” He raised his extravagant eyebrows. “Might be interesting.”

It was so good to think about coming back from Berlin rather than going away that she tried to stifle her doubts about writing something original.

“All right,” she said. “Though I’m not absolutely sure…”

“Think about it,” said James.

She was saved from having to say anything more by the arrival of the small boy with the guinea pig clutched to his chest. After being introduced, he wandered over to his mother and allowed himself to be hugged. Then he whispered in her ear, was told not to whisper and said loudly, “Can Patricia have a crisp?”

“I didn’t know she liked crisps,” said Elizabeth.

“I don’t know either.” His small face furrowed as he searched for the right word. “It’s an experiment,” he said precisely.

He was given a potato crisp from a dish and they all watched while the guinea pig sniffed it in a corner of the floor and finally decided to crunch it up.

“She likes it,” said the child, pleased.

“Go and get a saucer,” said Elizabeth. “Then you and Patricia can have some crisps all to yourselves.”

“All right.” He scooped up the guinea pig. “Come on, Patricia,” he said. “You’re going to have…” He hesitated, but as he got to the door they heard him say happily, “A banquet.”

In the quiet after he’d gone, Anna could hear the recorders, now both on the same tune, from the floor above.

“He’s got quite a vocabulary,” said Richard. “How old is he?”

“Six,” said Elizabeth. Clearly he was the apple of their eye.

“Loves words,” said James. “Been reading since he was four. Taken to writing stories now.”

“Most of them about Patricia,” giggled Elizabeth. “I bet you didn’t know guinea pigs can pilot aeroplanes.” She stopped as the child reappeared and helped him fill a saucer with crisps. Then she was struck by a thought. “I do find it absolutely extraordinary,” she said to Anna, “that when you were his age you were speaking nothing but German. Can you still speak it?”

“A bit,” said Anna. “I’ve forgotten a lot of it.”

Elizabeth handed the child the saucer. “This lady has forgotten nearly all the words she knew when she was your age, can you imagine?” she said. “And she’s learned a whole lot of new ones instead.”

He stared at Anna in disbelief. Then he said, “I wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what?” asked his father.

“Forget.” He saw everyone looking at him and took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t forget the words I know. Even if – even if I learned a million trillion new words. I’d always remember.”

“Well, it would only be if you went to a place where no one spoke English,” said James. “And you’re not going to do that, are you?”

“I’d still remember,” said the child.

His father smiled. “Would you?”

“I’d remember Patricia.” He pressed the guinea pig hard to his small chest. “And what’s more,” he said triumphantly, “I’d remember her in English!”

Everyone laughed. Richard got up and said they must leave, but before they could do so there was a noise on the landing and a girl of about nine appeared, lugging a large impassive baby in her arms.

“He wants his supper,” she announced, and a slightly younger girl following behind her shouted, “And so do I!” They both dissolved into giggles and Anna found herself being introduced to them while at the same time saying her farewells to their parents. In the confusion the baby was dumped on the floor with the guinea pig until Elizabeth picked it up again and it began with great concentration to suck the end of her sleeve.

James saw Anna and Richard to the door. “Best of luck,” he said through the children’s shouted goodbyes. “And think about what I said.”

Anna was left with the picture of Elizabeth standing at the top of the stairs and smiling with the baby in her arms.

“I told you she was nice,” said Richard as they started on their walk back.

She nodded. The rain had stopped but it must have lasted some time, for the pavements were sodden.

“I wonder if I could really write something of my own,” she said. “It’d be interesting to try. If I do have to go to Mama, I don’t suppose I’d have to be away very long.”

“Probably just a few days.”

Notting Hill Gate was deserted. The demonstrators, no doubt discouraged by the downpour, had all gone home. A torn placard lying in a puddle was the only sign that they had ever been there.

“You know what I really hate about going to Berlin?” said Anna, picking her way round it. “I know it’s stupid, but I’m frightened the Russians might suddenly close in and take it over and then I’d be trapped. They couldn’t, could they?”

He shook his head. “It would mean war with America.”

“I know. But it still frightens me.”

“Were you very frightened when you escaped from Germany?”

“That’s what’s so silly. I never realized till much later what it had been about. In fact, I remember making some idiotic remark at the frontier and Mama having to shut me up. Mama made it all seem quite normal.” They trudged along among the puddles. “I wish at least I’d answered her letter,” she said.

Once back in the flat, she became very practical. “We’d better make a list,” she said, “of all the things that have to be seen to, like the rug being delivered. And what are you going to eat while I’m away? I could cook something tonight for you to warm up.”

She made the list and decided about the food, and by the time Konrad’s call was due she felt ready to cope with anything he might say. Sitting by the telephone, she rehearsed the various things she wanted to ask him and waited. He came through punctually at nine o’clock. There was a jumble of German voices and then his, reassuringly calm.

“How is Mama?” she asked.

“Her condition is unchanged,” he said and then in what was obviously a prepared speech, “I think it is right that you should come tomorrow. I think that one of her relatives should be here.”

“Of course,” she said. She told him the number of her flight and he said that he would meet it.

Richard, listening beside her, said, “What about Max? Has he told him?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “What about Max?”

Konrad said that he had not yet cabled Max – that must mean that there was no immediate danger, thought Anna – but that he would do so if necessary in the morning. Then he said in his concerned refugee voice, “My dear, I hope you’re not too upset by this. I’m sorry to have to break up the family. With luck it won’t be for long.”

She had forgotten that he always referred to Richard and herself as the family. It was friendly and comforting and she suddenly felt much better.

“That’s all right,” she said. “Richard sends his love.” There was something more she wanted to ask him, but she had trouble remembering what it was. “Oh yes,” she said. “How did Mama ever develop pneumonia in the first place?”

There was a silence, so that at first she thought he had not heard. Then his voice answered, and even through the distortion of long distance she could tell that it sounded quite different.

“I’m sorry,” he said flatly. “But your mother took an overdose of sleeping pills.”

Anna’s feet were so heavy that she could only walk very slowly. It was hot in the street and there was no one about. Suddenly Mama hurried past. She was wearing her blue hat with the veil, and she called to Anna, “I can’t stop – I’m playing bridge with the Americans.” Then she disappeared into a house which Anna had not even noticed. She felt sad to be left alone in the street like that, and the air was getting hotter and heavier all the time.

It shouldn’t be so hot so early in the morning, she thought. She knew it was early because Max was still asleep. He had taken the front wall off his house to let out the heat, and she could see him sitting in his living room with his eyes closed. Beside him, his wife Wendy was blinking drowsily in a chair with the baby in her arms. She looked at Anna and moved her lips, but the air had become too thick to carry the sound and Anna could not hear her, so she walked away, along the hot, empty street, with the hot, empty day stretching before her.

How did I come to be so alone? she thought. Surely there must be someone to whom I belong? But she could think of no one. The heavy air pressed in on her, so that she could hardly breathe. She had to push it away with her hands. And yet there
was
someone, she thought, I’m sure there was. She tried to remember his name, but her mind was empty. She could think of nothing, neither his name nor his face nor even his voice.

I must remember, she thought. She knew that he existed, hidden in some tiny wrinkle of her brain, and that without him nothing was any good, nothing would ever be any good again. But the air was too heavy. It was piled up all round her, pushing in on her chest, even against her eyes and her nose and her mouth. Soon it would be too late even to remember.

“There
was
someone!” she shouted, somehow forcing her voice through the thickness. “I know there was someone!”

And then she was in bed with the sheets and blankets twisted all round her and a pillow half over her face, and Richard saying, “It’s all right, love. It’s all right.”

For a moment she could only lie there, feeling him close and letting the horror flow out of her. She half-saw, half-felt the familiar room, the shapes of a chair, a chest of drawers, the faint glint of a mirror in the darkness.

“I had a dream,” she said at last.

“I know. You nearly blew me out of bed.”