Hugo Hamilton - The Last Shot

Bertha was barefoot. She began to brush off the dried bits of forest debris which had attached themselves to the soles of her feet. She found bits in between her toes. She thought they must have got there in the water.

‘You have beautiful feet,’ Franz said. It was an honest comment. And it was true. She knew it.

‘You think so?’ she probed.

‘Oh yes. So many women have ugly feet. Real size thirteens. But your feet are so small and pretty.’

She paused. Allowing the compliment to settle.

‘How do you know so much about women’s feet?’ she demanded, smiling.

‘No. I didn’t mean it that way,’ Franz answered. He felt caught out and embarrassed. He didn’t want to talk about his wife in Nuremberg. ‘I meant, it must be obvious that some people have nice feet. I don’t know. All I know is that yours are very pretty.’

Bertha placed her feet on a grass patch where they would stay clean. She bent her knees up and gathered her dress around her legs. With her eyes closed, she placed her chin on the top of her knees, like a child on a window ledge, facing into a wall of bright sunlight. She could feel her hair and her scalp begin to dry in the sun.

‘They’re not really made for cycling though,’ Franz added.

Without opening her eyes to take aim, or taking her chin away from her knees, she smiled and swung out her arm in an attempt to slap him. She missed. Franz pulled back. He caught the arm she had flung out and pulled her down.

Her face was cast into a shadow when he leaned over and kissed her. There was no hurry. The urgency of the past weeks had disappeared too. She lay back on the bank.

He let her go and she straightened herself out again.

‘Be careful…my hairdo,’ she said, joking. Trying to puff up her hair. In moments like that, she reminded herself of her own father’s attitude to life. He loved life. He should have had more of it.

Leaning on her elbow, Bertha began to think about a crucial question.

‘Franz, what about your wife?’ she asked. ‘What will you do?’

‘I’ve thought about that,’ he said. ‘There is no point in pretending. We never suited each other. I don’t know if she even wants me to come back now.’

‘What will you say to her? You have to let her know.’

‘I haven’t had a letter from her since Christmas. Maybe…Sometimes I think she hasn’t survived. Maybe she has fallen victim to the air-raids in Nuremberg.’

‘But we have to find out. We can’t just leave her waiting for you.’

‘No…’ Franz said. Then he paused to think for a long time.

‘What will you say?’

‘I don’t know, Bertha. I just don’t know. I suppose the only thing to do is to tell the truth. I’ll just have to try and find her first.’

‘But shouldn’t you go back to her, Franz? She’s your wife, she must be worried about you, waiting for you?’

‘No,’ he said emphatically. ‘I couldn’t go back to her. I have felt like this about you for too long. It’s too late now, I want to go to America with you…

‘Maybe I’ll send an officer of the Wehrmacht around to tell her that I fell in combat…’

It was time they left. Bertha shook her coat out; she was ruining the shape of it, using it as a blanket and as a rug. She packed her things slowly. She was humming again. Then she sang what she had been humming:

She hummed again as she combed her hair. Everything could be done at such a leisurely pace from now on. The urgency of their lives had gone. The whole panic of their flight out of Czechoslovakia had dissipated.

It took longer than ever to uncover the bikes from their hiding place. And it seemed to take longer to push them back through the forest until they met the road again. When they reached the firm ground of the road, they felt a sadness between them, as though they would never see the lake again.

But you can’t go back. Besides, Bertha wanted to keep going, now that she had started this new journey.

They cycled for a while along a flat road which seemed to veer right around the small lake, until they reached the bottom of a steep incline. Though they could no longer see the lake, they were certain they had circled right around it by now. Franz rode ahead. The sun stung their backs. Damp ringlets of hair still bounced around Bertha’s neck. At the bottom of the hill, they stopped.

They passed a little farm-house set in off the road and decided to go in and ask for something to drink. They were both so thirsty. Some tea or fresh water, maybe. But as soon as they began to walk in towards the house, they heard a large dog barking at them. There was nobody around. They waited a while at the gate, then decided to leave it. Perhaps the occupants were out.

They moved on, facing into the steep hill. Somehow, it made the speed at which they had travelled up until then seem ridiculous. Bertha felt stronger than ever, but she was actually going slower, lagging behind. She put her head down as she pushed the bike, as though she was examining the patterns on the road moving back beneath her. She heard the dog in the distance behind her, barking furiously, then stopping, then barking a last few times to make sure they were gone.

The incline of the road was so steep that it seemed to go on for ever. Franz said he could see the top and encouraged her. She wanted to stop for a rest, but any time she did so, the bike would start rolling back before she could engage the brakes. Then she discovered that by placing her foot like a wedge under the front wheel, she could stop the bike very well. She would have sat down but didn’t want to ask Franz. He was still walking ahead of her, faster than ever, she thought.

She heard the dog begin to bark again behind her, beneath her in the valley. When they had reached a great height, she looked around and found that the lake had come back into sight again. Then she stopped for a good reason; she discovered she had a puncture in the front wheel and called out to Franz.

‘What’s wrong, Bertha?’ he asked. His voice sounded different. A different place on the road, a different echo in the trees.

‘It’s a flat tyre,’ she shouted back. When the echo came back to her, she felt as though the whole world was listening to her.

‘Ach, yes.’ He laughed. ‘That was waiting to happen.’

Franz put his bike down and came back to her with the pump. She smiled and shrugged. He knelt down and began to pump the wheel, but the air seemed to escape almost as fast as he pumped. He checked the tyre for a nail and found nothing.

‘You can’t cycle on that. We’ll have to stop at the next house and repair it. I might need some water.’

He checked to see that he still had the repair kit.

They walked on. At the summit of the hill where the road veered off to the left and down the other side of the hill again, they found a lane leading to another house. From here they could look right back over the lake, and the place on the opposite side where they had spent the night. They could also see the other farm-house in the valley.

‘I’ll sit down here and look at the lake,’ Bertha said. She was exhausted.

Franz began to take off the tyre. He worked quietly, perhaps with a slight rush of vanity, knowing that Bertha was admiring his skill. Bertha sat looking over the lake, knowing that Franz was proud to be repairing her bike. He first tried to find the puncture by feeling for an escape of air. Then he spat over a spot where he suspected the puncture to be. It didn’t work. He had to look for water.

‘I won’t be long,’ he said as he began to walk towards the house, hidden in the trees. The small rucksack was still on his back. He came back and kissed her and said he would be back soon.