She lifted the needle from the record when the song was finished. Carefully, she put the album away.
Chapter 28
She wore her good walking shoes, black lace-ups she’d bought fifteen years ago. They weren’t pretty, but she didn’t care. She had always taken good care of them, twice a year taking them to the cobbler to maintain them. He was gone now, the cobbler; everything was gone now.
As she walked, she noticed the skinheads were out on their corner for the first time in quite a while. She began to walk more quickly, with determination. She wasn’t afraid of them; she was not afraid of anything right now, but she was angry that they were there. They were a stain on her city. A disgrace. As she approached the three men, she noticed that they looked awful. Thinner, their complexions greener and more mottled. One of them, the smallest of the three, shivered uncontrollably even though he wore a black leather jacket and a hat.
The little one came toward her and she veered away into the street, but he kept coming. Eva kept walking. She did not run, but then, for some reason, she felt compelled to look back at him. “Fräulein,” he said. “Können Sie mir helfen? Ich sterbe wahrscheinlich bald.”
Eva stopped. He was shivering so much, he could barely stand, bent over, drooling. “Was? Drogen töten immer. Das muss dir doch klar sein, Junge?” she snapped. Why was she talking to this cruel, horrible boy?
“Meine Mutter will nicht mit mir sprechen. Aber hier, hier ist ihre Nummer.” He tried to hold out a piece of paper with a name and phone number on it to her, but he dropped it. Eva quickly picked it up. “Bitte, Fräulein. Ich kann sehen, dass Sie eine gute Frau sind.”
Eva said nothing. He had turned away, walking back to his friends. She kept going toward Maggie’s. What had happened to them? Such a sudden change. She shoved the paper into her pocket. As she got close to Maggie’s, she saw a Turkish restaurant on the corner. She decided to go in and have a coffee, maybe a brandy. Inside, there was one table occupied by three Turkish men, smoking, talking in Arabic. They stopped talking when she came in, looking at her. Two other small tables were empty and she sat at the nearest one. One of the men came to her.
“Einen Kaffee und einen Brandy, bitte.”
The man said nothing but shortly brought her a sweet, Turkish coffee and a small glass of brandy. She drank the brandy first. It was sharp and cheap but she didn’t care. She took out the piece of paper the skinhead had given her, sipping the thick, cloying coffee. Frau Baerbel Weber. The number was local. She carefully folded the paper and put it in her wallet. And if she were to call this woman? It would be what Jesus would have done. Loving thine enemies. The sweetness of the coffee clung, but grounds at the the gritty bottom of the pretty, tiny cup, stuck like mud to her tongue. She could see the darkness of it in her mouth, in her mind, she saw it.
One thing at a time. She dropped some money and left without saying anything, which felt unlike her, was unlike her.
In the twenty minutes it took Eva to walk to Maggie’s apartment, the evening turned to night. Eva never walked around this part of Berlin at night if she could help it. She had left the house later than she thought. Standing outside of Maggie’s building, waiting for the wave of fear, of apprehension to rise inside of her, Eva fumbled around in her purse, looking for her nighttime pills, but her heart beat only slightly faster than normal—she had been walking quickly, after all—and her mind did not jump around with terrible thoughts. She stopped searching for her pills and closed her eyes. Jesus, bist du bei mir? She pushed at the door—it was open. The calmness she felt was so unlike her normal state of mind. She didn’t trust it, but she tried to. Danke, Jesus. Behütest du mich? God was giving her strength. It was the only explanation. When she reached Maggie’s apartment, she knocked firmly. No one answered. She knocked again, banging hard this time. A door on the ground floor opened and a middle-aged Turkish woman came to the hall and looked up the stairs.
“Das Mädchen ist drinnen,” she said, in heavily accented German. “Ich habe sie gesehen.”
“Danke,” Eva replied. She tried the doorknob and the door swung open easily. It had been unlocked. Hot rage knifed through Eva. How could Maggie be so careless? Maggie the teacher, Maggie, her American niece who loved her? How could she be so stupid?
Quickly the rage dissipated and she saw the shadow of her niece on a large floor pillow by the back windows. It was dark in the apartment. The calmness that infected Eva earlier came back. Maggie is dead, she thought. And it’s not my fault. But she saw her niece stir, ever so slightly.
“Tom? Tom?” Maggie lifted her head slightly.
“No, Maggie. It’s Eva.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh no?” Eva shut the door behind her and reached around the walls, looking for a light switch. She gave up and walked to Maggie, her eyes slowly adjusting. “Why ‘oh no,’ Maggie? It’s me. It’s just me.”
“I don’t want you seeing me like this.” Maggie’s voice was hoarse. “I’m ashamed.”
Eva sat next to her. The apartment smelled bad, like sour fruit, the fresh smell of paint gone. Eva wanted to ask where a light was. She wanted to turn on the lights. But it didn’t seem the right thing to do.
“Your mother is coming.” She reached out to her niece, to stroke her hair. It was damp with sweat and thick with dirt. “Why did you call your mother? Why didn’t you call me first? I am here for you. Me. I am here.”
“I
