Bone and Blood Page 7

  ‘Burnt to ashes and stuffed in some hole in a wall!’ Brigitte sucked through her teeth again.

  There was a fair bit of Gran there in that response. Aisling smothered a smile.

  ‘We can arrange that Katharina’s ashes are buried in our family grave. She is in the earth then at least.’

  ‘And what if your family say no?’

  ‘There’s no question of that: my mother and my brother both love Katharina. They have already agreed to do whatever you want. It’s what you want.’

  ‘Humph! What I want. As if it matters what I want,’ Brigitte fought the tremble in her voice and the wetness of her eyes. So they had got round her after all. Katharina would be cremated and put in Monika’s family grave. The worst of all options. ‘You do what you think. Katharina appointed you. I have no say.’

  ‘I know it’s hard for you,’ Monika’s voice was gentle now. ‘I know Katharina found it hard to talk about these things. We all do.’

  She turned to Aisling, ‘It seems as if the best is cremation and burial in our family grave. We will put a special stone there on the grave with Katharina’s name.’ Aisling saw her hesitate then dive in, ‘We will have to wait for the cremation.’

  ‘Wait?’ Brigitte’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Yes. I will find out how long.’

  ‘And Katharina? She must wait in some fridge with a tag on her toe?’

  ‘It’s not like something out of a ‘Tatort’; it is quite usual that it takes time to make arrangements,’ Monika showed a bit of mettle in her tone but quickly turned conciliatory again, ‘You will have the opportunity to visit her. I can arrange it.’

  Would the carrot work? The aunt had one of Gran’s mulish expressions on her face. It made Aisling want to smile. She wanted to warn this woman there was no chance of winning against that expression. She’d better be careful or she’d get caught between the two of them. If it came to taking sides, she’d take the aunt’s but ideally she’d find a way to escape while this Monika was there.

  ‘You mean that if I want to see my daughter one last time, I have to agree for her to be cremated and buried in your grave.’

  Monika could barely conceal her exasperation, ‘I did not say this. I am presenting you with the choices we have to make. Often, in this country, people do not go to the… ’ she looked for a word and couldn’t find one, ‘to see the person in the coffin but I thought you may like it because this is what they do in Ireland.’

  ‘Well, it is the custom in Ireland for everyone to visit the house and pay your respects to the dead.’ The aunt’s stone-grey face was set even harder than Monika’s, ‘It is not allowed in this country. ‘

  ‘So a wake is not allowed here. Just as well,’ Aisling thought, ‘They’d be fighting about where to hold the wake.’ Her desire to escape was increasing. She certainly did not want to be involved in organising some German version of a wake even if it was in a morgue. She assumed a bright tone, ‘I thought I might go out for a little while to get some fresh air. I know you have lots to sort out.’

  ‘Aisling, you could come with me to see my daughter one last time?’ The aunt’s expression was a mixture of bossy and persuasive. A sure winner.

  Monika looked from one to the other. ‘Could you go to the place with your aunt, if I arranged it? Sorry I don’t know the English word? Bestattungsunternehmer.’

  Aisling guessed, ‘Do you mean a funeral parlour? Well I don’t really know my way around yet. I’ve just arrived and I don’t know much German.’

  ‘English is not a problem. They speak English. It’s even better when you know some German. In any case, Brigitte knows German and you would take a taxi there and back. I will write the address for you now and ring you when I have arranged it.’ Monika kept her remarks directed at Aisling. ‘It is good that you are here. Brigitte needs her own family at this time.’

  Aisling shrugged, ‘O.K.’ She could hardly say no in the circumstances. She wasn’t that keen on this Monika either, in spite of the funky hairstyle. She could see that getting caught between these two was worse than being the meat in a Gran-Mum sandwich.

  Chapter Eight – Funeral Parlour

  Brigitte was even more brusque than usual on the phone. When she finished, she kept repeating an address as she looked for a pen to write it down. Aisling guessed it was Monika with the address of the funeral parlour. Her first bit of sightseeing in Berlin. Alternative or what? A few words of explanation to Aisling, a phone call for a taxi and Brigitte was ready and waiting. She was moving quicker than Aisling had seen her move so far. She should do it more often – it took years off her.

  The view from the taxi was pretty boring – broad streets, boring buildings and advertising but nothing that looked like a centre. No doubt the taxi driver avoided the centre. The aunt sat beside her, stiff with stubbornness, or maybe fear. When they got there, the aunt looked at her watch and told the taxi-driver to come back in half-an-hour. They went in through the entrance and found themselves in a little reception area that looked more like an estate agents than a funeral parlour.

  The aunt spoke in German and the round, comfortable woman on reception made reassuring noises. In complete contrast to her, there was a tall, thin, male assistant with square glasses and a decently gelled haircut, who came to take them into a little room at the end of a corridor where the coffin lay open. Thankfully the door was open because the place had no windows and was stifling in spite of the air-conditioning – set for cool of course. They had Katharina to themselves. Aisling was impressed at her Gothic style. Blackish-brown straight hair – too sleek to be her own surely but she didn’t sound the type to wear a wig either. The face whiter than white but the lips with a bit of lipstick. Born 8th September 1945 she read on the lid standing by the coffin. So Katharina was nearly 60 when she died – already an old woman. The aunt just stood there for long silent minutes– no tears or prayers. Brigitte was not the old biddy Aisling had expected from her father’s description of Aunt Biddy. Her composure in spite of the pain was worthy of respect.

  Finally she spoke, ‘It helps to see her. I wasn’t with her when she died you see. It helps to take it in. Lipstick. She is no longer here.’ The aunt’s tone was matter-of-fact. She produced a shuffle of yellow, discoloured paper; ‘I want you to put this in the coffin for me.’

  ‘Me? Don’t you think it would be better if one of the staff did it? I might wreck the… ’ Aisling stopped – what word to use? ‘Display’ came to the tip of her tongue but ‘corpse’ sounded worse.

  ‘I want you to do it.’ The aunt passed over the sheaf of paper. Aisling tried to lift the corner of the satin cover on the body to stick the paper in but it seemed to be stuck down. The aunt had turned away to sit on a chair against the wall. The tall skinny young man, who hovered outside the door, was speaking to her. Aisling was tempted to stuff the papers in her bag instead – it was easier. She could tell Biddy-Brigitte later that she hadn’t managed to do it. She wanted to giggle – it felt like the time she had ripped off a t-shirt from Arnotts for a dare – and, when she was successful, Maeve had dared her to go inside and put it back on the rail again. Typical Maeve.

  The aunt turned round and Aisling stopped fiddling with the satin stuff; nodded, blessed herself and went to stand by the chair. No lie intended. Brigitte wouldn’t like a fuss. The aunt took her arm when she went to get up and Aisling felt her lean into her. The undertaker’s assistant escorted them back to reception and checked for the taxi. Aisling looked at her watch. It seemed like they had been there for ages but the whole business had only taken twenty minutes. Luckily the taxi was already waiting outside. Aisling saw nothing interesting from the taxi this time either. If this were Berlin, a couple of days would be enough.

  When they got back into the house, she didn’t take her jacket off in the hope of making an escape into the city to have a better look. But the aunt took out two small glasses and put them on the table with a bottle.

  ‘Schnaps? I need one now.’ Still no sig
n of tears or distress.

  The glasses emptied, the spirit burning its way down inside Aisling. She didn’t usually drink straight spirit. It loosened the aunt’s tongue.

  ‘I’m glad I saw her and gave her the papers. Jules tried to put me off. She thinks she owns her, body and soul.’

  ‘Jules? Who’s Jules?’

  The aunt looked surprised, ‘Did I say Jules? I mean Monika. Jules was once our name for them because they look like men.’

  Aisling did a quick bit of mental addition. So Katharina and Monika were an item.

  ‘Monika doesn’t though – look like a man, I mean.’ She should have guessed there was more than friendship there. Not that Monika or Katharina looked unfeminine. Monika just looked German and Katharina too from the pictures she had seen. The aunt was more masculine than Monika could ever be.

  ‘Is Jules a term for lesbian?’ she added. Aisling couldn’t imagine using that word to her gran but it was the aunt, so different rules. If she said no she could just drop it.

  ‘Lesbian – you use such a word now in Ireland?’ The aunt’s tone was softer. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised. For you young people to-day, nothing is shocking. I’ve heard them here too. Getting married in the town hall. Now they make it out to be something clean and good.’

  Aisling shrugged.

  ‘Jules was what they called them in the Lager.’

  ‘Lager?’

  ‘The camp.’

  As if that said it all. Was there a camp for lezzies – or Jules as she called them. If so was the aunt a closet? She poured more Schnaps into both glasses.

  ‘In the Lager, there were many of them but I thought it was the dirt and evil in that place that made them do what they did.’

  ‘Lager? The only lager I know, you drink it out of a glass,’ Aisling wanted to laugh again – this time at her own stupid joke. This Schnaps must be strong stuff.

  ‘So does Lager mean work camp then?’ Aisling prompted but the aunt was on her own thought tramlines.

  ‘The first time I saw them, I thought they were men, because they looked just like men. Maybe because there were no men, they needed to lean on somebody. It was in the half-light of an Indian summer night in September. At first I saw only the turquoise light coming through the cloudy sunset. Then I spotted them behind the other block. I was on the way there to take a message from Anna to her friend. At first I wondered where did these men come from and where did they go? There were no blocks for male prisoners in the main camp though Anna said there were men in the prison block.

  When I went back I asked Anna. Who are these men? She looked at me. ‘Kein Mann, ein Jules’, and said nothing more. I was no wiser. No man I understood but Jules was a man’s name. At first there were none in the block where I was, I was with ‘Bibelki. Then they put some in our block too and I knew then. The other women would read and pray aloud pretending not to hear the noises of those two in the bottom bunk near the door. The Blockälteste put them there as a punishment. She knew it would hurt the Bibelki.’

  ‘Come again, the Bibel-ikies?’

  ‘Bibelki? That was what they called them in that place. I only knew later they are called Jehovah’s Witnesses in English.’

  Bible thumpers and lezzies. What a mix! The aunt was silent again but Aisling couldn’t really ask ‘How did you end up in a camp with bible thumpers and lezzies or how come the lezzies ended up in a camp with you?’ She had heard somewhere that homosexuals were sent to camps in the war but she didn’t think there were so many lezzies in those days. Her parents acted like lesbians were invented in the sixties along with marijuana. No need to make a big fuss about it as it was probably a passing phase and, if it wasn’t, it was grand as long as they made respectable couples with tidy gardens and invited heterosexuals to dinner.

  Maybe the aunt was exaggerating or doting or mixing it up with her daughter. Did Gran know her niece was a 60-year-old lesbian who had been in a couple for a long time? Her aunt had seemed to drift off into herself. Aisling wanted to bring her back but didn’t know how to ask or what to ask even. The voile curtain carried the smell of the freesia from Katharina’s ‘altar’ towards her, and withdrew with a mock bow.

  ‘So how long were you there – in that camp?’ She tried for cool and casual.

  ‘How long was I there?’ the aunt repeated, ‘I was one of the lucky ones – it was seven months – but the longest seven months in my life. Maybe it is because of me, she became a Jules. To punish me.’

  Aisling stayed silent. She knew from listening to her Gran reminisce that you could easily cut the flow and she would suddenly remember there were things that weren’t for Aisling’s ears. Better to go for a safe question.

  ‘Where did you say it was?’

  ‘That place.’ The word came out in a spray of dust motes lit by the light from the street lamp.

  ‘It wasn’t Auschwitz? That’s in Poland, isn’t it?’

  ‘That place is not so far; it is near Fürstenberg – not far from Berlin – in Brandenburg.’

  Brandenburg Gate rang some bell. Earmarked for a visit.

  ‘Katharina wanted me to tell her all but I couldn’t. Now it is too late.’ There was finality in the dry mouth and eyes that made her seem as transparent as the light from the street lamp behind her. With her back to the curtain she was enough to spook anyone.

  Time to change the subject. ‘So what did Katharina do as a job?’

  ‘Teacher, professor. She taught in the university. She wanted me to write about my life. She gave me her computer and said she would show me how to use it for the Internet to keep in touch with my family in Ireland.’ Brigitte spoke with scorn in her voice. ‘What would I have to do with the Internet at my age?’

  ‘Why not? You can do your shopping on the Internet – get the news, all sorts.’ Aisling heard her own voice but it sounded different – bright, insincere and unfamiliar – she sounded like her own mother.

  ‘She never showed me how to use it.’

  ‘I could show you how to use the computer if you like.’

  ‘All you young people know about computers, I’m too old to learn. ‘

  A piece of good news – a computer in the house and set up for the Internet. Aisling looked around her. Where was it? She could imagine these two old women fighting it out – both of them probably blaming each other for something or other.

  ‘I don’t want any computer. If you want it, you can have it.’

  ‘I could take a look?’ Aisling hadn’t spotted it yet. ‘I could type some things for you if you want. I have time.’

  ‘If you want the computer, it is there in the drawer,’ the aunt shrugged, ‘I have no use for it.’

  A laptop would be very handy. Aisling felt like a thief or a grave robber when she looked in Katharina’s room for the computer. She brought it back to the table. It was a bit heavier than her own but with the same software so she could navigate around it no bother in spite of the German. There was some stuff still on it too – mostly in German. She’d find a way to delete it after she had a chance to read it.

  Shame there was no wifi. Maybe she could buy a dongle. Time for the old-fashioned guide book to come in handy for the escape plan while the aunt dozed. Where to first?

  Brandeburg Gate of course. The core of Berlin and of Europe. Well why not? Dominating and big. Symbol of peace for over 200 years. Looks more like the triumph of war. Kinging it over the square and the linden avenue. How did the bombers miss it in the war? It’s big enough. Why does Greece come to mind? Good marks for observation, Aisling. Guide says architect creating “Athens on the River Spree”. What else does the book say? Willie Brandt arriving in 1961 when they closed the gate. Great man, great speaker, one of Dad’s heros with photo on his study wall. Could have listened to him hold forth. No more traffic between East and West. Communism one side of the gate and capitalism the other. Need Dad now for detail. Or Katharina. What was it like being 16 years old and they cut your city in two. Wall going up a few streets a
way from where she lived.

  Was she political? What was the story between 1945 and 1961? Something to do with the occupation of Berlin in 1945 and how they divided it up. Soviets got as far as Brandenburg Gate. Brits, Americans and French on the other side. Brigitte in the middle of all that making me take more notice of history than ever before. Maybe because she doesn’t want to talk about it. More to history than the history books, Gran would say but then say no more. Why did they take so long before deciding to build a wall – sixteen years? Dad would have plenty to say and go on and on about the Cold War and the Iron Curtain. Family photo with bit of wall we saw in the states. Reagan challenging Gorbachev in 1987. Wonder what Katharina thought then? Was she one of the people climbing Brandenburg Gate in November 1989 or in the crowds at the official opening in December 1989? Who really took it down? Why did they not shoot the people in 1989 when they shot them in 1961? The spotlight of the TV cameras or Soviets giving up the ghost? And Brigitte? Was she right here in 1945 with her brick-rebuilding from the ruins? Meeting American soldiers? What was she doing in 1989? Somebody said something about her early retirement at sixty. Or was she still working? Could ask her. More interesting history here. Things happen at the centre to real people.

  Chapter Nine – Left to Jules

  Aisling sat with her earphones on, pretending that she didn’t hear Yola open the door to Monika but she couldn’t ignore the tap on her room door and mumbled, ‘Come in.’

  Monika’s face was so tight she looked worse than Katharina in the coffin. So what had the aunt said to her this time? Distracted, Monika looked around the room – of course it was Katharina’s room and she was Katharina’s partner. Aisling felt herself blush and swung her legs off the bed.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I came to talk about the… ’ she paused then restarted, ‘I came to tell Brigitte it will take three weeks to arrange the cremation.’