“Did you get a letter from Maggie?”
“Yes, I did. “
“Ich auch. Wie toll, that she’s probably coming to visit, no?”
“Genau, I’m looking forward to it. She hasn’t been here since the Wall came down.”
“Ja, ich weiss. I wonder if she’ll like it better, like everyone else in the world except you.”
Eva knew there would be a jab. There rarely was a conversation without some sort of insult, some confrontation. She stayed silent.
“Willst du heute vielleicht vorbeikommen?” Elena then asked, with a kindness in her voice. Elena could be unkind, but she knew it at least; sometimes, she felt bad, felt contrite. “Come by. I’ll take you out to lunch.”
“Really? That would be nice,” said Eva.
“Yes! Come.”
The neighborhood where Elena lived had changed much in the past few years. Before the Wall came down, Kreuzberg was all Turks and a handful of crazy hippie artists like her daughter. It had been an immigrant neighborhood—run down, with crumbling buildings that had once been beautiful but had not been kept up. Small, gilded buildings—not the high rises built after the war, not like the building she lived in. They had “character,” or what the Soviets would think of as unnecessary decorative aspects. The neighborhood was known for having a lot of crime, and it still did, but much less. Most of the crime had moved east, to where Eva lived, as had the immigrants. Now Kreuzberg was somewhat fashionable. Cafés, hip clothing stores, renovation after renovation. Middle-class families with artistic leanings moved in and took over. Elena hated it. She found it “bougie.” But she wasn’t stupid enough to give up her great three-bedroom apartment, overlooking a canal. And she loved the cafés, although she didn’t care to say so.
Eva, on the other hand, flat out loved Kreuzberg. She loved how alive it felt. She loved the clothing stores, in particular. The clothes young people made! Some of it was too crazy for her—pants cut so low they showed the crack of your bottom and so long they dragged along the ground, T-shirts with ripped sleeves and safety pins and naked women painted on them. Yes, they were all too much, but she enjoyed looking at them anyway. Sometimes she found a scarf or a hat that she’d buy for herself. She loved clothes. She loved the way they could grab attention, bring attention to oneself. She loved clothes that made her feel pretty.
The door to Elena’s building was open and Eva walked up one flight and knocked. Elena answered, a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. She lived on beer and cigarettes, and it showed. She was thin and haggard and wore the same blue jeans every day. Yet she seemed younger than her nearly thirty years. She was a perpetual child. She goofed off, she acted out, she didn’t wear makeup or care about anything but her art and her friends. She wasn’t a bad person. But she confounded Eva. She could have been a beautiful woman, but she chose not to be. She could have had a job in a university teaching art, but instead she worked in a pub, serving beers and mopping floors. She embodied underachievement, and sometimes it made Eva ache.
“Hallo, Mutti!”
“Hallo, hallo, Liebchen.”
They kissed, straight on the lips, a tradition from Eva’s Austrian peasant roots, and Eva followed her daughter into her apartment. It was true, she was envious. But then, she knew she didn’t really need this sort of space. When Elena had moved here, it was worth nothing. And now it was worth a fortune. But Elena paid very little for the place because it was rent stabilized. The sun was trying to shine today, through the thick November air. Elena’s windows let the light in. Eva sat on the only chair in the room that was of normal height—everything else was pillowy and low to the ground and would make her knee-length skirt awkward.
“Willst du ein Bier, Mutti?”
“Ja, gerne, warum nicht?” Eva was not a big beer drinker, but she was fairly certain that was all Elena had in the house. Beer made her sleepy, but she’d be fine. She’d take an extra stimulant later, or take a nap.
“I have some new records that I thought you’d like. I can even give you one, as a present. How’s that? I found them cheap. They’re used. A bit scratched up. But it’s the blues, the real thing. You’ll love them.” It was something they had in common, music. It was something they both liked very much and liked about each other.
Elena walked over to her player, a new-looking, slick, black machine. Again, Eva felt the envy rise in her. Elena put on a record and brought over the sleeves and covers for Eva to look at. Nina Simone started singing. Elena sat near her mother, on an enormous pillow with a pink, paisley cover.
Nina sang as if she were Bess, begging her man Porgy to take care of her, to keep her safe from another man. Her voice was pure desire, embodying need.
Oh, what gorgeous suffering. Eva’s eyes filled. The music of God. Of God’s people suffering. She closed her eyes and listened. But the wetness dripped on her cheeks.
“Ah, Mutti, komm mir jetzt bitte nicht so komisch, so krass drauf, bitte,” Elena said, laughing.
“Laugh at me,” Eva said. “You know you cry when you listen to this music. You just do it when you are alone. I don’t have such control.” She said, wiping her eyes. Would Elena give her this one? Should she ask, or wait and see what happened? She would wait. Wait
