Bone and Blood Read online

  ‘Three weeks!’ When she had first realised that this trip was more than a few days she had been pleased. But three weeks was way over the top.

  ‘Yes, I know it is rather long. In Ireland it is much quicker.’

  ‘Three days.’

  Aisling felt like telling Monika she’d arrange a funeral pyre herself rather than wait three weeks.

  ‘It is possible to make it a little bit sooner with a special arrangement in Poland. I would like Brigitte to tell me what she wants. Should we wait three weeks for a cremation in Germany or should we have the cremation in Poland sooner but…,’ Monika sighed and stopped – her face a question mark. ‘Maybe you could find out? I know she likes you. You are good to her.’

  She hesitated again, ‘ I could ring back later this evening. Or you could ring me. You have my handy number?’

  ‘Handy?’

  ‘My mobile telephone.’

  ‘Very handy, I’m sure,’ Aisling muttered, she could see why this ‘Jules’ and Brigitte would find it difficult to communicate. Both created a sense of expectation that other people would fit into their plan. She pitied Katharina stuck somewhere between the two of them.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said,’ Monika’s voice had the echo of defeat.

  ‘Nothing. No I don’t have your mobile number. Maybe Brigitte has it,’ Aisling shrugged, ‘I’ve only known her a few days. But if she talks about it I’ll let you know. Would we all have to go to Poland?’

  ‘No, the cremation is arranged by the… Bestattungsunternehmer, sorry I don’t know this word in English – the people who make the funeral arrangements.’

  ‘Undertakers,’ Aisling inserted.

  ‘The undertakers bring the urn to the cemetery.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Aisling replied, promising herself that she would be long gone if the funeral wasn’t for another three weeks. It would be someone else’s problem. She waited a while after Monika and Yola had both gone before going into the living room. She changed out of her lounging – about pants and into some jeans so that she could make a quick exit if she felt like it.

  Brigitte looked at her suspiciously, ‘Monika was here earlier.’

  ‘I know. She popped in to say hello. She said there may be a bit of a wait for the cremation,’ Aisling replied.

  ‘So she drags you into this now too.’

  In spite of the words of disapproval, Brigitte looked pleased at Aisling’s surly tone. ‘I suppose she told you that she wants to send my daughter to an oven in Poland. To think that I carried her away from the camp and fought for us to live through the end of the war to have such a death. I asked her was it done in Auschwitz still or did they have a new place now?’

  Aisling couldn’t help smiling and turned away before the aunt could see it. There was no longer any doubt in her mind now about the wicked strain in the aunt. She could certainly pick something that was bound to make Monika suffer more. She took a matter-of-fact tone for her reply, ‘Apparently it could take three weeks at least here in Berlin and it would be quicker in Poland.’

  ‘Yes and cheaper too.’

  Aisling decided to ignore the Monika wind-ups and do a side kick of her own. ‘I suppose she could have done it without asking you. You´d never have known,’ she paused before adding, ‘I wonder what Katharina would think about it?’

  The aunt’s mouth worked in silence like she was chewing her tongue.

  Aisling persisted, ‘If the funeral is not for another three weeks, I’m sorry but I’ll have to go back. I have to start back at Uni.’

  ‘Uni?’

  ‘University. I could manage two weeks maximum. Maybe Dad would come over for it.’

  Brigitte was silent for a while. Aisling helped herself to some juice from the fridge. She’d buy herself an energy drink when she went out. When she went back into the living room, the aunt muttered in her direction, ‘That Jules should never have asked me about Poland. Why is she waiting? Katharina told her to make the arrangements, so that I wouldn’t have to suffer: still she comes round here with her questions that have no answers.’

  ‘Why don’t we ring her and tell her to go ahead and arrange the cremation as best she can and just let us know when the funeral is arranged for. I’ll do it if you like.’ A nod was enough for Aisling to lift the phone and dial the number before the aunt changed her mind.

  She struggled with how to name her but it came out before her mind engaged, ‘Aunt Bridget has decided that you should go ahead with the cremation wherever you think. Oh, and could you let us know what is happening when.’ The aunt nodded her approval at this last request.

  ‘Enough of this,’ Aisling told herself. She could hear the escape, escape, escape alarm in her head. She mumbled about fresh air and headed out before the aunt could ask her when she would be back. She would try out the S-Bahn. Just hop on and see where one stop would lead her. No ticket to give her a buzz. Maybe here they fined you on the spot. Maybe she could get away with playing innocent tourist.

  She got out at Oranienburger Tor and let Oranienburger Strasse roll on her tongue. Seedy and smart intermingled with the smell of fried onions and spices and a dream beer under a palm tree. She licked the edginess of the street from her lips when she reached the entrance to a little courtyard with delicate brickwork that reminded her of marquetry. She’d seen pictures of the courtyard at Hackesche Höfe – and examples of tasteful restoration of Berlin after the Wall – was it from an Internet search or her guidebook or was it somewhere else? She was impatient because she couldn’t work out where the boundaries were before and after the Wall came down. There was less of a contrast than you would find north and south of the Liffey.

  Wandering in a confusion of streets Sophienstrasse and big hamburger street with OMG an Irish shop! Window of icons, tweed caps, whiskey, Barry’s tea. Tempation to go in and get something for Brigitte. Resist, resist turning into Mum or worse still Gran. Sharp steps down the street, round again and circling back around the arches under the S-Bahn. An Irish pub too. Resist. Roasty summer so now a beer would be welcome. Try German Weihenstephaner. Cooler. Stylish. Tall wooden tables. Here’s a lesson in marketing history. “Oldest still-existing brewery in the world”. How old? 1000 years. Beat that! Good beer too. Imagine Matt here to take Michael’s screwed up face from the blank wall as he chokes on the beer she dares him to put down his neck. Aisling the winner. Thanks to him she developed a taste in beer. Wishing for Matt’s address to send him a postcard. Maybe Dad with 1000 years of history in a gulp. Weihenstephan in Mitte so in the former East. Hardly here in GDR days so what was here? Duck into Hackeche Höfe arching a way through designer goodies, finding postcard and coffee to sober up.

  Out to find U-Bahn and realised it was her U8. Easy to go ‘home’. The aunt was still sitting in the same place she’d left her in. She made polite enquiries about Aisling’s trip out but there was something else on her mind. Aisling sat down after getting the aunt some water and herself some juice. Damn, she’d forgotten the energy drink. She was about to head out again when the aunt asked, ‘Aisling, will you be there in case I need help this evening? ‘

  Help? Aisling recoiled: she didn’t want the old dear beginning to depend on her. Brigitte saw the unspoken response and fumbled with her cardigan – an uncharacteristic gesture – and spoke with her head down, ‘I want to take a shower to-night. I don’t think that I will need help but I am a bit shaky and I’m afraid of falling at this time. I know I will be all right if someone is nearby. If it was after the funeral, I wouldn’t care.’

  Aisling’s reflex action was to say no, sorry, I’m going out but she fancied just staying in and plugging herself into her I-pod.

  ‘Don’t you have a shower in the morning?’

  ‘I do but I like to take one sometimes in the evening. It’s easier. I sleep better after a shower and I haven’t slept much this last night. I would just like it if you were there. I don’t need you to do anything.’

  Better to stay than come back t
o find her on the floor. Avoid complications: lesser of the two evils before a grudging acquiescence. ‘Well, I was just going out for a few minutes but after that I’ll be in.’

  When she came back in, the aunt was already in the bathroom so she left her to it.

  It was nearly 10 o’clock. Aisling came into the living room feeling guilty. She should have given her a shout or something. At first she thought that Brigitte was already in bed. There was no light – just the curtain billowing out with the draught. She jumped when Brigitte spoke from her chair where she sat in a long cotton bathrobe that was a sort of puce pink. Gross.

  ‘Would you like something to drink?’ the aunt asked.

  ‘Water would be good. I’ll get a glass.’

  They sat in brittle silence for a while.

  ‘You’ve been in Berlin a long time?’

  ‘Delia and Dieter brought me back to Berlin with them when they were visiting Delia’s parents in Manorhamilton. To look after the children.’

  ‘So you were a nanny?’

  ‘More like a member of the family.’’

  ‘So didn’t you want to go home when the war broke out?’

  ‘Go home! That was my worst fear at first – greater than my fear of war. I loved this city. It was beautiful and modern. There were shops and stores and people lived in apartments with running water and bathrooms. There were more buses, trams and cars than horses – and even then they had bags to collect the horseshit so that it didn’t fall in the street. At first I thought that because the war wasn’t anything to do with me, it couldn’t touch me. It’s great to be young and foolish. I had no idea how quickly that would be taken from me. By the time that I might have been glad to go home, it was too late.’

  ‘So after it was over, why didn’t you go home then?’

  ‘I stayed then because Katharina belonged here. In Ireland they had no time for unwed mothers. I didn’t want to give Katharina up for adoption. After the hell I went through, Katharina was all I had left. She was my reason for living.’ Brigitte paused, ‘And now that I have lost her, I have no more reason for living. Katharina hated that. She hated to know that I had to struggle for her when I would rather have died. Maybe that’s why she died before me so that I could die in peace now. And what if this is all there is? No-one has ever come back to tell us that there is something more, something better. So what was the point in any of it?’

  The matter-of-fact way Brigitte talked about death was out of sync with Gran.

  ‘Don’t you believe in God and in heaven?’

  ‘If there is a God with power to change things then he must be cruel. I’d just as soon go back to hell again.’

  It felt odd for this gran-like person to be coming out with heresy, ‘Well at least Katharina had a good long life. It’s not like she died young.’

  ‘I suppose sixty seems old to you but she was my child and I could never think of her as old.’

  ‘So what did Katharina do before… ?’ Aisling couldn’t say the words ‘she died’ but she refused to say ‘passed away. Brigitte didn’t deserve euphemisms.

  Brigitte didn’t need her to fill in the blank, ‘She did what she always did all her life – reading, studying, writing – even after she left work because of the illness, she kept it up. She taught at the University. They paid her for doing what she loved most. She used to laugh and say that one day they would catch her out and she would be out on her ear. A good job with a pension that she didn’t live to see. “Mama, you’ll get my pension if I die before you, you know. At least you won’t be short of money.” I laughed then at the thought of my daughter dying before me. She said that before she told me about the first lump. What do I want with her money when I hope that I won’t be long after her?’

  Aisling sat silent. She wished she’d put on the light when she came in. The streetlights and the open window were deathly. She couldn’t disagree. What was there now for this old woman to live for? For a moment she had some sympathy for the way that her own mother had clung to her since Michael died. For a moment she forgave Michael for topping himself. He was the sensitive one. It was like he felt everything for everybody not just himself. There were times she thought him stupid or even selfish for taking it all onto himself but maybe he couldn’t stop himself.

  ‘I will have some Schnaps,’ the aunt announced into the silence.

  Aisling leapt up to put on the light before rooting in the sideboard that stretched along one wall. ‘Would whiskey do?’ She pulled out a bottle of Jameson’s

  ‘Yes, Katharina got it last Christmas for me.’

  Time for a change of topic. She had spotted an ancient record player in the cupboard and a collection of vinyls – antique or what? ‘Can I put on some music?’

  “Flesh and Blood”.Johhny Cash was top of the pile. It took the aunt on another beautiful Berlin trip. Coffee and cake with Katharina on the Spree. Look now at this calendar, Katharina got me – photos of old Berlin before they bombed it to bits. The joy of Museum island still there, to see the Reichstag being built again, to feel Friedrichstraße back to life again and remember weaving a way between the trams, the cars and the double decker buses to meet Delia in Loeser and Wolff’s. So many brands of cigarettes in Berlin but no Sweet Afton! But now even in Ireland she didn’t manage to find Sweet Afton. The tumbler-full of unfamiliar whiskey burned its way inside. She should have put some coke in it to drown the taste.

  ‘And the dancing we did the first year after I arrived – usually at parties. Herr Goldmann lost his job in the orchestra then and Frau Goldmann was free to sit with the boys so I could go too. Delia would teach me to waltz in the living room to the Blue Danube. I used to play it every Friday night after I did the ironing. I would have a little Schnaps and sometimes dance too.’

  The aunt rose to look for it but Aisling found it first. Both on their feet and several steps beyond tipsy moving now to the music – the aunt in the arms of Delia or some dream lover and Aisling holding her at arms length moving with her to make sure that the old bat didn’t fall over. If any of her friends could see her now. Steering her finally to fall back into the chair. Aisling laughed a whiskey laugh. Brigitte’s head sank onto her chest and she roused her and shuffled her off to bed.

  She heard her after that in the bathroom – just as well. Aisling hadn’t thought about that. Well she wasn’t here to baby-sit. Whiskey sleep with no dreams this night.

  Chapter Ten – Past and Present

  Aisling was bored and hungry. The aunt was sitting dozing but she’d be sure to wake up if Aisling started rooting around in the kitchen. She lay on the bed, plugged into her music. The bookshelves in Katharina’s room held mostly history text books. Those in English were mostly about Ravensbrück concentration camp. The aunt hadn’t given her the name but a quick flick through one of Katharina’s books in English told her Ravensbrück was near the place called Fürstenberg, mentioned by Brigitte. The sample of drawing from prisoners fascinated her. Violette Le Coq drew stick figures reminiscent of Lowry, one of her favourite painters. The contrast between her drawings and one by another prisoner which was all buxom women with rounded buttocks was curious. Which was more honest? Or were they both true? Reading some excerpts whetted her curiosity. No wonder Katharina felt a bit cheated if Brigitte kept the shutters down.

  The comic-strip story of Berlin was another good find. Effortless German but a bit too childish. The last days of the war and the first Spring of liberation. But she was too restless to read about goodie-two-shoes with blond plaits for long. Still, it would be good for her German and gave her ideas for writing her own comic strips. If she really had to wait three weeks, there would be enough time to go home and come back again. If she didn’t she’d have to find ways to fend off boredom. She retrieved the sheaf of old paper. What was so important that it should go in the coffin? Maybe it was the aunt’s will or something. Why not tear it up or burn it? She took the bits carefully out of the envelope. The pages were pinned together with an ordinary pin i
n the top corner that had rusted into place. On top there was what looked like a letter in neat writing.

  Berlin

  18th August 1939

  Dear Mammy,

  I can’t come home yet. I’m writing to tell you that you mustn’t worry. I’m fine here with Delia and Dieter. I’ll be home soon DV. I hope everyone is well.

  Yours,

  Biddy

  Aisling ignored the twinge of guilt. It wasn’t really like reading someone’s letters. It was never sent anyway. Biddy must be what her family called her. Dad called her Aunt Bridget but now she called herself Brigitte – of course that was the German for Bridget. No wonder she changed it. Who’d want to invite ‘oul Biddy’ as a name? It was more like a diary than a letter after the first page.

  Berlin 20th August 1939

  Dear Mary,

  I decided not to post my last letter to Mammy but to send a telegram instead. Now I’m worried that she will take fright when she sees the telegram. I just hope that Mickie brings it to the house as if he was bringing the usual letter. He’ll know what it says anyway so there is no need to rush up with it as if there was something wrong. I don’t want to tell her the reason I don’t want to leave is because I’m afraid that they might never let me back again. It would break my heart to leave. I love the life here. I want to stay here forever. To live in an apartment like this one – big high ceilings and strong wooden doors – a tiled bathroom with hot and cold running water in the bathtub. A dining room to eat in. My own room to sleep in. But it’s more than that. It’s the feel of the place – the sunshine through the open window and the sound of the pump station and sometimes the voices of the children in the schoolyard.

  When I go out in the streets I love the smells of different food, the sound of trucks and trams, the wide streets and high buildings and trees too. Even the horses and wagons are smarter than the country horse and cart and there are more motorcars too. In our street it’s so neat the way that the apartments all face the street in front and behind there is the big open space with the school at the back. And people, so many different people all going somewhere doing something. People that I don’t know and who don’t know me.