hands. He read the German words over. The message was hardly a surprise. Now it was before him, it was more a matter of recognition for him, of accepting the inevitable. It had always been certain to start like this. If he was honest with himself, he had to concede that he had always known it really, at some level.
He was being pulled to his feet. They turned him around and faced across the ballroom. “Look, she’s over there.” Across the heads, through the dense, rising cigarette smoke backlit by stage lights, he could make out a woman sitting alone. Glass and Russell were pantomiming a fuss over his appearance, dusting down his jacket, straightening his tie, fixing the flowermore securely behind his ear. Then they pushed him away, like a boat from a jetty. “Go on!” they said. “Atta boy!”
He was drifting toward her, and she was watching his approach. She had her elbow on the table, and she was supporting her chin with her hand. The mermaid was singing, “Don’t sit under zuh apple tree viz anyone else but me, anyone else but me.” He thought, correctly as it turned out, that his life was about to change. When he was ten feet away she smiled. He arrived just as the band finished the song. He stood swaying slightly, with his hand on the back of a chair, waiting for the applause to die, and when it did Maria Eckdorf said in perfect but sweetly inflected English, “Are we going to dance?”
Leonard touched his stomach lightly, apologetically, with his fingertips. Three entirely different liquids were sitting in there.
He said, “Actually, would you mind if I sat down?” And so he did, and they immediately held hands, and many minutes passed before he was able to speak another word.
Five
H er name was Maria Louise Eckdorf, she was thirty years old and she lived on Adalbertstrasse in Kreuzberg, a twenty-minute ride from Leonard’s flat. She worked as a typist and translator at a small British Army vehicle workshop in Spandau. There was an ex-husband called Otto who appeared unpredictably two or three times in a year to demand money and sometimes smack her head. Her apartment had two rooms and a tiny curtained-off kitchen and was reached by five flights of a gloomy wooden staircase. On every landing there were voices through doors. There was norunning hot water, and the cold tap was kept at a dribble in winter to stop the pipes freezing up. She had learned her English from her grandmother, who had been the German tutor at a school for English girls in Switzerland before and after the Great War. Maria’s family had moved to Berlin from Düsseldorf in 1937, when she was twelve. Her father had been area representative for a company that made gearboxes for heavy vehicles. Now her parents lived in Pankow, in the Russian sector. Her father was a ticket collector on the railways, and these days her mother had a job too, packing light bulbs in a factory. They still resented their daughter for the marriage she had made at twenty against their wishes, and took no satisfaction in the fulfillment of all their worst predictions.
It was unusual for a childless woman to be living contentedly alone in a one-bedroom apartment. Accommodation was scarce in Berlin. The neighbors on her landing and on the one below kept their distance, but those on the lower floors, the ones who knew less about her, were at least polite. She had good friends among the younger women at the workshop. The night she met Leonard she was with her friend Jenny Schneider, who danced all evening with a French Army sergeant. Maria also belonged to a cycling club, whose fifty-year-old treasurer was forlornly in love with her. The April before someone had stolen her bike from the cellar of the apartment house. Her ambition was to perfect her English and to qualify one day as an interpreter in the diplomatic service.
A few of these facts Leonard came by after he had stirred himself to move his chair to exclude Glass and Russell from his view and order a
He was being pulled to his feet. They turned him around and faced across the ballroom. “Look, she’s over there.” Across the heads, through the dense, rising cigarette smoke backlit by stage lights, he could make out a woman sitting alone. Glass and Russell were pantomiming a fuss over his appearance, dusting down his jacket, straightening his tie, fixing the flowermore securely behind his ear. Then they pushed him away, like a boat from a jetty. “Go on!” they said. “Atta boy!”
He was drifting toward her, and she was watching his approach. She had her elbow on the table, and she was supporting her chin with her hand. The mermaid was singing, “Don’t sit under zuh apple tree viz anyone else but me, anyone else but me.” He thought, correctly as it turned out, that his life was about to change. When he was ten feet away she smiled. He arrived just as the band finished the song. He stood swaying slightly, with his hand on the back of a chair, waiting for the applause to die, and when it did Maria Eckdorf said in perfect but sweetly inflected English, “Are we going to dance?”
Leonard touched his stomach lightly, apologetically, with his fingertips. Three entirely different liquids were sitting in there.
He said, “Actually, would you mind if I sat down?” And so he did, and they immediately held hands, and many minutes passed before he was able to speak another word.
Five
H er name was Maria Louise Eckdorf, she was thirty years old and she lived on Adalbertstrasse in Kreuzberg, a twenty-minute ride from Leonard’s flat. She worked as a typist and translator at a small British Army vehicle workshop in Spandau. There was an ex-husband called Otto who appeared unpredictably two or three times in a year to demand money and sometimes smack her head. Her apartment had two rooms and a tiny curtained-off kitchen and was reached by five flights of a gloomy wooden staircase. On every landing there were voices through doors. There was norunning hot water, and the cold tap was kept at a dribble in winter to stop the pipes freezing up. She had learned her English from her grandmother, who had been the German tutor at a school for English girls in Switzerland before and after the Great War. Maria’s family had moved to Berlin from Düsseldorf in 1937, when she was twelve. Her father had been area representative for a company that made gearboxes for heavy vehicles. Now her parents lived in Pankow, in the Russian sector. Her father was a ticket collector on the railways, and these days her mother had a job too, packing light bulbs in a factory. They still resented their daughter for the marriage she had made at twenty against their wishes, and took no satisfaction in the fulfillment of all their worst predictions.
It was unusual for a childless woman to be living contentedly alone in a one-bedroom apartment. Accommodation was scarce in Berlin. The neighbors on her landing and on the one below kept their distance, but those on the lower floors, the ones who knew less about her, were at least polite. She had good friends among the younger women at the workshop. The night she met Leonard she was with her friend Jenny Schneider, who danced all evening with a French Army sergeant. Maria also belonged to a cycling club, whose fifty-year-old treasurer was forlornly in love with her. The April before someone had stolen her bike from the cellar of the apartment house. Her ambition was to perfect her English and to qualify one day as an interpreter in the diplomatic service.
A few of these facts Leonard came by after he had stirred himself to move his chair to exclude Glass and Russell from his view and order a
Similar Books
