The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days Read online

  You start walking towards the kitchen.

  Nope, Brynja. Not the kitchen. Not this time. Oh, I know how much you like playing with the sharps and pointies. But not today. To the balcony! Come on, you know it’s time.

  You turn and head back through the living room to the balcony door. Still crying.

  You’re making me do this. You know that. We’ve got to a point where this is just not working anymore.

  You touch the handle. Cold metal, makes you shiver. Shiver so hard you can’t turn it.

  No, please, don’t make me. You’re terrified and the words don’t come out properly.

  What’s that, Brynja?

  Don’t make me. Please.

  Come on, you can do it. Deep breath now.

  You breathe in and out and the shaking subsides. You turn the handle.

  Good girl. You see? It’s not that difficult, is it?

  You open the door and step out onto the balcony. The air is freezing but you don’t feel it. The balcony is enclosed by a wrought-iron railing you painted black last summer.

  One step, two step, three step, four. Go on, just keep moving, stop thinking. We’ve been through a lot together, you and me, girl. And now it’s time. You understand that, right? It’s time.

  You nod. The sobbing is making you shake again, or maybe it’s the cold.

  It’ll be over before you know it. A couple of seconds, tops. Milliseconds.

  You begin to climb over the railing. Your left foot gets caught on one of the decorative iron swirls and for a moment, you almost lose your balance and fall. Your stomach drops to your groin.

  Whoa! Steady there! We want to do this right, don’t we?

  Your heart is pumping hard now, as you manoeuvre yourself so that you’re perched uncomfortably on the outside of the railing with both buttocks, your feet pressed against a small protruding row of bricks.

  Do it. Do it. It’s not worth holding on. Do it. Now.

  You let yourself fall forward. Your body slices silently through the freezing air. You are still conscious when you hit the concrete, hear the sound of your skull cracking, feel the pain, spectacular pain. And then silence.

  Day One

  Here is how I met Alfred:

  I arrived at Hauptbahnhof – on the same day as Alfred – from a weekend trip, on the Eurocity 378 from Prague. The heating system on the train had been broken for the final hour of my journey, and so I was frozen through by the time we arrived in Berlin. It was only a couple of days before Christmas and the train station was teeming with people. I had every intention of quickly squeezing through the crowds and out, when I thought I heard someone calling my name. I turned around and scanned the crowd, straining to pick out a familiar face. But nobody was looking in my direction, and mine is a common enough name, so I turned back and headed towards the escalator. As I did so, the heel on my left boot got caught in a metal grating and snapped clean off. I cursed under my breath, and then remembered that I’d packed a second pair of shoes in my case – a pair of bright orange Nike trainers that would look atrocious with my burgundy jeans, but were better than limping about with a broken heel – so I looked around for somewhere suitable to sit and change my shoes. I spotted a bench at the middle of the platform holding four grey moulded plastic seats; an elderly man sat at one end and a young couple occupied the two seats at the other. I hobbled towards the bench and sat down between the young woman and the old man. As I began to rifle through my suitcase, which I’d placed on the floor between my legs, the old man spoke. Because there was no one else in the vicinity, I assumed he was talking to me. I sat up.

  ‘Wie bitte?’ I asked, as he had spoken quite softly and I hadn’t quite heard what he’d said.

  He turned to me and frowned; he had a kind of vacant look, as though he were just emerging from a daydream.

  ‘Haben Sie etwas gesagt?’ I asked. Did you say anything?

  He shook his head and looked away again. I bent down and continued to grapple with my bag: I’d packed my trainers at the bottom of the case – as one does – and was now fighting my way through hairbrush, toiletries, dirty knickers and a blouse or two to the bottom.

  ‘Utter nonsense!’

  It was the old man again. Rather than sit up straight, I looked up over my right shoulder at him.

  He continued. ‘No, no. She hasn’t forgotten. You wait and see.’

  I realised he was speaking English, although his voice was barely above a whisper. He was staring straight ahead, or rather, he was facing straight ahead, but it didn’t look as though he were staring at anything at all.

  I straightened up. ‘Can I help you?’ I asked.

  Again, he looked at me, moving his lips soundlessly at first. Then finally he said, ‘I am dreadfully sorry to impose on you, but the person who is supposed to pick me up hasn’t arrived yet, and I would very much like to . . . to make use of the lavatory facilities, but I am unfamiliar with this train station and don’t know where they are and my suitcase is far too heavy for me to be carrying it around looking for the public toilets. Assuming there are any. So I was wondering if you might be kind enough to keep an eye on my case while I pop off and . . . ’

  It came out in such a rush and with such urgency that I couldn’t help but say, ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I was afraid that if I left the platform for a moment, my granddaughter might think I had never arrived.’ His face seemed to melt a fraction. ‘She was supposed to pick me up at two o’clock,’ he added.

  ‘Well, I’m sure she just got held up,’ I said. ‘Just take the lift down two floors, I think it’s best to avoid the escalators or you might get lost, and then keep to your left. There should be a sign, anyway. I’ll keep an eye on your case and look out for your granddaughter. What does she look like?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, frowning. ‘I’m not quite sure. Never actually met her. I had a photograph, but . . . Blonde, I think. Yes, quite sure about that. Blonde hair. Rather short. Has a pretty smile. Though I can’t say I much like the way she laughs. Oh dear. Now . . . if I may?’

  ‘Of course, off you go,’ I said. ‘I’ll be right here when you get back.’

  The man hurried off toward the lift. I sat down again and changed into my trainers. I shivered and hoped he would be back soon. Keeping my eye out for a petite young woman, who may or may not have blonde hair, my mind wandered forward to the next couple of hours, where I had mentally unpacked my suitcase, taken a hot shower and eaten whatever was left in the fridge.

  But as it happened, things turned out very differently.

  Some ten minutes or so after the old man had left in search of the public toilets, I spotted him ascending in the glass lift, looking very worn and old and helpless, and for a fleeting moment this uninvited responsibility overwhelmed me, and I imagined taking my trainers at the advertised promise of their manufacturer and to just do it – to just grab my case and run. But I didn’t. And my reward was Alfred’s story.

  1932

  Alfred climbed down the steep narrow staircase – backwards, as he had been taught – looking for his mother. For days now, there had been a general sense of unease and excitement at home; a thundercloud of a feeling, crackling and heavy, that seeped into the cracks of conversation, scooped out the silences, blossomed darkly on his father’s face when he put Alfred and his siblings to bed at night with a kiss. Alfred had been too young to experience this feeling consciously in the days before his younger sister Martha was born, but now, at the age of six, he was old enough to understand that his mother might give birth at any moment. So when she failed to appear at lunch, Alfred had taken his father’s request to find her as seriously as if he’d been asked to ensure that the cowshed was properly locked.

  The cottage was so tiny that it was impossible to remain undetected there for any length of time, forcing games of hide-and-seek to the outdoors. So Alfred began his search outside. At first, he ran around the farm randomly, checking the barn, the henhouse, the cowshed, be
fore – quite anxiously now – backtracking to the small outhouse that stored the winter wood. The outhouse, though primitive in structure, had a small cellar. This was the only underground construction on the estate – with the exception of the expansive wine cellar beneath the von Markstein manor house – and was perhaps the best aspect of Karl Werner’s job on the estate, as it enabled the family to store food for far longer than would otherwise have been possible. They stored whatever the season had produced in excess, or whatever their small self-cultivated vegetable patch yielded, and usually had a reliable stock of onions, carrots, cabbages and potatoes.

  Since the unexplained disappearance of several jars of crab-apple marmalade a few months ago, the cellar had become strictly out-of-bounds for all the Werner children, which is why Alfred hadn’t considered looking for his mother here first. When he got to the bottom of the staircase, which was more of a ladder than a staircase, really, he wiped his hands on his short trousers. It was pleasantly cool down here, a refreshing relief from the heavy August heat that had sucked every ounce of moisture from the soil, scorching the crops and leaving the cows’ udders hanging slack and withered beneath their bellies. A few narrow sunbeams, made visible only by the motes of dust they carried, pierced the joints of several wooden slats that blocked off the high-set window. Alfred turned around and saw his mother. At first, he thought she was praying, which confused him, because he had never witnessed her doing so before and, even at his age, possessed a sensitivity acute enough to recognise – even if not to comprehend fully – that his mother’s lack of religiosity was one of the few sources of discord in his parents’ otherwise harmonious marriage.

  To be fair, to any casual observer ignorant of Freyja’s particular brand of spirituality, it would appear obvious that she was, indeed, praying. She was kneeling close to the centre of the room, head slightly raised, hands folded and resting atop her very large, very round belly. Her eyes were closed and the light from several thick, smelly candles beside her fell onto her hair and made the blonde appear golden-white.

  And she was speaking, or rather mumbling, to herself. As if in supplication. But no, something about the way she spoke – pauses where you wouldn’t expect them, not in a prayer anyway, the way she moved her face, frowning, then smiling, the tiniest shake of her head – appeared to Alfred that she was, in fact, in conversation. With whom, he couldn’t tell. He looked around, made a full turn to see if perhaps someone was standing or sitting in one of the many dark recesses of the cellar. A low scratching sound behind the vegetable rack, but that was most likely to be mice. Other than himself and his mother, there was no one there. He stood stock-still; his mother had her eyes tightly shut, but even in the gloom he could see her eyelids quivering as her lips formed words he could barely hear. He stood in silence and watched her, taking pleasure in this rarest of moments in which it was just the two of them: no father, brother or sisters clamouring for and receiving her attention, her words, her thoughts, her smiles and – occasionally – her fury. Yet then he realised that if she didn’t know he was there, then it wasn’t really the two of them, just him here and her there. He took a small step forward.

  ‘Mama?’ he whispered (for this seemed appropriate to him under the circumstances).

  She nodded, her eyes still closed, as though she had known all along that he was there. She muttered a final series of hushed words and then opened her eyes and turned to him. His heart seemed to expand as her mouth formed a smile, a perfect upward curve of bruised pink, directed at him. Then her smile faded.

  ‘How is Martha?’ she asked.

  ‘She’s still coughing,’ said Alfred and let out a little cough before he could stop himself. Martha was his younger sister, who had been ill for several weeks now.

  ‘But no blood?’

  Alfred shook his head.

  ‘Come here, mein Täubchen,’ Freyja said, unclasping her hands and stretching an arm out towards him.

  He walked forward and kneeled down on the ground beside her, ignoring the hardness of the floor against his knees. Freyja put her arm around him and drew him in close. He pressed his face against her body, his nose and mouth against her soft ripe breast, smelled her sweat and a vague odour of onions, and listened to her heartbeat. It was a slow gentle throb, regular as clockwork, but nothing so mechanical; no, it was organic, and to Alfred, contained all of life itself. Listening to the thump-thump of his mother’s heart, he suddenly became infected by his father’s anxiety, as though it had managed to creep out of the cottage and into the outhouse. It was so strong, it made his lungs feel tight. He let out a quiet gasp.

  ‘You’re not afraid, are you?’ his mother asked.

  Alfred shook his head without removing his face, then nodded, then shook his head again. Freyja laughed softly, making her breast tremble.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, mein Täubchen,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

  She took his hand and placed it on her belly. It was firm but soft. Alfred turned his head to look at her hand on his, keeping his head close to her chest. Her heart was drumming now.

  ‘She’ll be with us in a few days,’ Freyja continued. ‘Sweet and small and lovely, you’ll see.’

  Her belly hardened suddenly, he could feel it, hard as steel. He suppressed the urge to squeeze it, to see if it would soften again beneath his hand.

  ‘She’s getting ready to come. A few more days, that’s all.’

  They sat like that for a while, Freyja’s belly contracting and softening painlessly every so often. One of the candles beside them spluttered noisily; the flame expired briefly, and then came back to life for a short, glorious farewell before dying completely. Alfred shifted his position so that he could look at his mother’s face more clearly.

  ‘Mama?’ he said. ‘Who were you talking to?’

  Freyja smiled and stroked his hand, still resting on her belly. ‘Friends,’ she said, and nothing more. Alfred placed his head back on her breast and closed his eyes. He was tired; Martha’s coughing had kept him awake for most of the night. That, and the fact that since she had become ill several weeks ago, he no longer shared a bed with her – tip to toe – and his sleeping self missed the warmth and plumpness of her three-year-old body next to his. Now, she slept alone in the bed and he slept, or tried to sleep, on a mattress of blankets in the corner of the bedroom.

  He felt his mother changing position. ‘Come on, help me up,’ she said, rising to her knees. ‘I’ll be glad when I’m only myself again.’

  Alfred got up, far more lightly than his mother, and held out a hand. She smiled at him and heaved to her feet. Alfred took a step towards the ladder, but Freyja didn’t move.

  ‘Alfred,’ she said, and in the dim light she suddenly looked very troubled. ‘You must – ’

  ‘Yes?’

  But before she continued, she gave out a low moan and bent forward, squeezing her eyes shut.

  ‘Mama?’

  She breathed in deeply, once, twice, through her nose and then straightened up. ‘Just a few more days, mein Täubchen, just a few more days.’

  And Alfred wasn’t sure whether she was addressing him or the baby in her belly.

  Four days later, on Sunday, Alfred’s sister Marie was born in less than an hour. The following Tuesday, Alfred’s sister Martha died of tuberculosis. It took her many hours to die. And that was the day the voices came to Alfred for the first time.

  It had been the longest day any member of the Werner family could recall; each minute of Martha’s dying was experienced by Karl and Freyja, as well as their children Emil, Johanna and Alfred, acutely and consciously – each minute as inflamed and painfully swollen as Martha’s joints, from that moment at seven in the morning when it had become clear she was dying, until she exhaled her final, wispy breath just before sunset, some fourteen hours later. These long hours of anticipatory grief affected the family most profoundly, invoking a synchronicity of feeling, as though these weren’t five individual people at entirely dif
ferent stages of emotional development, but instead a unit of desperation, anxiety, pre-grief, in which there was no room for Karl and Freyja’s parental authority, or Alfred’s infant solipsism, or Emil’s recklessness, or Johanna’s bossiness. Although every one of them, from the oldest to the youngest, had witnessed the harshness of nature – lambs asphyxiated by umbilical cords, chickens decapitated by foxes – the impending death of one so close was impossible to bear alone.

  However, when Martha finally died that evening, the spell broke, and the unit fractured back into the sum of its parts: Freyja retreated to grieve in bed with baby Marie latched – permanently, it seemed – to her breast; Karl wailed openly and relentlessly, pacing the tiny cottage, which had always felt too small for the large man at the best of times and had now shrunk even smaller faced by the enormity of the man’s grief; Emil took his slingshot and sat in the front yard on the dusty ground for hours, firing pebbles at dandelion clocks that burst into a thousand spores when he hit his target; and Johanna held a doll on her knees and sang lullabies until her throat grew hoarse.

  And Alfred did what he always did when overpowered by feelings his childish spirit couldn’t comprehend. He hid. He ran into the forest that began just behind the cowshed, picked his way through bushes and brambles and thousand-year-old tree roots, until he was so far inside the forest that the fading sunlight came through in dapples of emerald and gold. He found a huge ash tree, whose trunk had split into two just a metre above the ground, and climbed into the age-old nook carved out in the fork of the trunk. He pulled his dirty knees to his chest and rested his chin there. He stayed as still as he could, fearing that if he moved, this feeling of dread inside him would intensify. It was the kind of feeling he experienced when he accidentally bashed his bare toes against a rock: for a split second, there is no pain, just that frightening anticipation of pain, which is just as bad as the pain itself, if not worse.