‘Then who looks after your children?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Wäspli, look at me …’
He lifts his gaze, his face is large and loose, his open mouth seems too soft and fleshy for the delicate mouthpiece of a clarinet, its bamboo reed. I try to picture his large hands together with tone holes and finger keys, fumbling with the zip of a woman’s dress, clasping her hips, unhooking a bra, patting a child on the head. What kind of a man is this?
‘A joke, Wäspli, I’m sorry …’
‘No, it was funny. You got me there … not married, who looks after the children, ha, ha …’
‘Sometimes, Alfred,’ I say, more seriously now, ‘sometimes everything back home seems like another world entirely, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I beg your pardon, Oberleutnant?’
‘Call me Heinrich, please. No need to stand on ceremony.’
I am being rather too loud, I swing my glass towards his, standing up to lean across the desk, and we drink to it, awkwardly as I insist we link arms.
‘And sometimes we do things …’ I say as we sit down again, ‘… things that perhaps might be hard to explain … but then, one has to distinguish, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Indeed …’
‘One must consider … the greater scheme of things …’
I almost bite off my tongue as I realise I am about to say the higher order, and trail off.
‘I’m not sure I understand. Is the Oberleutnant dissatisfied with me?’
‘No, not at all—’
‘If I’m doing something wrong—’
‘Wäspli, you’re not doing anything wrong. Please don’t think that.’
‘Thank you, Herr Oberleutnant. You had me worried. If I’m honest, I’m not much of a soldier at heart …’
‘You’re doing a splendid job, Wäspli, and if there’s anything you need, you know you can always come to me. Do you understand? Now, how about we find ourselves some dinner …’
‘Yes. Thank you. But I’m afraid tonight’s a bit …’
He pats his briefcase.
‘To the telegraph office, yes. Work. Always work, am I right? I understand. Enjoy your evening, Wäspli.’
He gets to his feet, nods and leaves.
_ _ _
I do not go home. I amble through the streets, sit on a bench in the park with a bottle from the shop, watch the sparrows and the straight-shouldered women auxiliaries. They come here on their breaks, it’s just below the civil commission offices, to smoke cigarettes in small clusters, their faces smooth and lustrous.
Dear E
Thank you for the parcel. Today has been
strange
good.
The weather too is go
I tear the page from the pad and take out Eline’s photograph from my wallet. She insisted it was the one I had to take with me to this raging war. It is far too posed, taken at Mertesacker’s studio on Alsterdamm; in semi-profile, her hair dyed red like the film star Zarah Leander, lips glistening black, with deep eyeshadow, too much rouge and lacquer; glancing away. It was taken just before the gala at the students’ association last year, during the blackout, when she wore her big black dress with the puffed sleeves, like Leander’s in Die grosse Liebe; she had been at the professor’s sherry, her cheeks were flushed, and she kept flicking open her fan as we went up the stairs.
Do you think the miracle will happen, Heinrich?
How do you mean?
That life will be wonderful?
I turn the photograph over. The writing is scribbled hastily, a girlish hand.
The nymphs have left the golden forests
Kisses
E
I look at her again. Zarah Leander.
Dear Eline
Today I signed a piece of paper and a child will die because of it. No, not just a child. She had a name. Etke.
Etke. Etke. Etke.
I feel compelled to write and tell you this. I don’t know how to
I place my hand over the page when a woman sits down next to me. She must have crept up from behind, I failed to notice her among the other auxiliaries. She is small, a telegraphist – the electric sparks on her sleeve. She stretches out her legs, points her brown laced shoes. She can’t be more than twenty.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I didn’t realise …’
‘That’s all right,’ I tell her. ‘It’s nothing official.’
‘Can I have a swig? What is it?’
‘I’m not sure. Kirsch.’
‘Kirsch?’
‘Kirsch. It’s quite acceptable.’
She puts the bottle to her mouth and takes a sip. She has a delicate mouth. Fine, broad cheekbones.
‘Ugh,’ she says.
‘Ugh,’ I say.
‘Actually, I’m quite cross.’
‘With me?’
‘No, not with you. I don’t even know you!’
‘Who are you cross with, then?’
‘Frida … the tall one over there, the one in red lipstick and gloves. She’s got dry hands.’
She points. I can tell they are watching us.
‘She says I’ve got a singular face. That’s what she said. Singular. But that’s the same as odd, isn’t it? Can I ask you something; do you think she’s right? … Go on, look at me!’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Is it my chin? I know it’s got a dimple in it …’
She holds her hand upright against her chin, dividing her face; the precise centre-parting of her hair, her small, blue eyes.
‘It makes it look sort of …’
‘Dimpled?’
‘Exactly!’
I smile and put away the notepad in my jacket.
‘You’re making fun of me.’
‘A bit, perhaps.’
‘Am I being stupid?’
‘No, I don’t think you’re being stupid.’
‘Singular, then?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘You don’t know much, do you, Herr!’
She pulls a packet of cigarettes from her breast pocket; it takes her a while to tap one out and light up.
‘Were you writing to your sweetheart earlier?’ she asks, picking a shred of tobacco from her lip.
‘Yes.’
‘Are you engaged?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘So you aren’t, then?’
‘How can you tell?’
‘I saw you were scribbling things out. Proper sweethearts know exactly what to write. The ones who are engaged; it’s all … flowers, flowers, flowers and oh, my darling … alas, he’s in Belgrade … While husbands, they just fill the page with what they’ve had for dinner and how are the kids. That’s what Renate says anyway, and she should know, she’s married. But you cross out. You must have run into problems! Maybe you want to finish with her? Is that what you want?’
‘No, it certainly
