Audrey Magee - The Undertaking

Her mother’s room was in darkness, the shutters and curtains still closed; a tiny intermittent glow of orange came from the bed where she lay, her head and shoulders propped up against pillows, just high enough for her to draw on her cigarette. It was already after noon.

‘Are you coming to the party?’

‘I don’t know. Am I?’

‘It would be nice if you did.’

Katharina turned and pulled the door behind her, holding it firmly until she was sure it was tightly shut.

Her room was hot despite the breeze through the open window, but calm and clean, restful without the child in his cot. She closed her eyes, but the bright summer light filtered through her bronze-powdered lids, failing to shut her into the darkness she craved. She hovered in refracted light, in a space where everything was broken – fragments of white, yellow, of her brother’s face and her husband’s smile floating and drifting in front of her. Tears fell down her face. She knew that she was no longer a sister, but needed somebody to tell her whether she was a widow or a wife, somebody to end the uncertainty of floating through a fragmented world. She got up and started to dress. She put on a belted navy dress, its sobriety quietly undermined by flashes of white material hidden under the skirt’s pleats. She had navy and white shoes to match, and a navy outfit for her son: shoes, shorts and a jacket laid out on the dining table, ready for him to wear just before the guests arrived.

But he was already dressed. And Natasha had brushed his hair, sweeping back his blond curls.

‘I was going to do that.’

She took the child and began to tickle him. He giggled, but went back to Natasha, wanting her to brush his hair again. She did so.

‘He’s fine, Natasha. I’ll take him.’

Katharina walked around the room with the boy, holding his hands, spending the last few minutes seeing whether he might walk by himself. She let go of his hands, but he fell and cried. She comforted him, then surrounded him with the toys she had bought him for his birthday.

‘You take him, Natasha. I’ll make coffee.’

All but one of Mrs Weinart’s children had walked by their first birthday.

At three, the doorbell rang. Katharina straightened her skirt and opened the door. Mrs Weinart and her five children, dressed in pale pinks and blues, hair pinned off their faces by slides and wax, entered with a large box.

‘You are very kind to have us all,’ said Mrs Weinart. ‘The children are very excited.’

They presented their gift to Johannes, but he buried his head in Natasha’s chest, his right ear turned to her mouth, to her whisperings, her Russian words a balm for his nerves. Instead Katharina took the gift and showed Mrs Weinart to the sofa. She sat down in the middle, in front of the coffee and cake. Elizabeth and the other mothers arrived and happily lingered for the afternoon, smiling as the children laughed at the funny man in bright colours, grateful for the distraction.

‘We need to find you a new husband, Katharina,’ said Mrs Weinart. ‘A handsome one this time.’

Katharina looked down at her cup, at its matching saucer. She said nothing, but the other women agreed.

‘An officer,’ said Elizabeth. ‘One who works in Berlin, away from all that frontline business.’

She watched, without listening, as their mouths moved, coming up with a long list of potential suitors so quickly that they had obviously discussed the possibilities many times before. She knew some of the men, all low-ranking but officers nonetheless, and listened, leaning back into her chair to await their conclusion on whom she should marry next, her period of mourning evidently over, shorter than it would have been if her husband had been an officer or hero, or if she had been a widow with small breasts and narrow hips.

She nodded at their suggestions, and the conversation returned to its usual topics, their Russian domestics, the discomfort of war, the long hours worked by their husbands. She mentioned her father instead of her husband, and they liked that, liked her acceptance that she was a daughter again, no longer a wife, all of them pleased that she no longer hankered after one of the Stalingrad soldiers, the men best forgotten.

They sang to her son and went home, seemingly content. She took Johannes to the park and let Natasha clean the apartment. She sat again on the bench she had shared with her husband, while their son slept, worn out by celebrations he did not understand.

She remained there until dusk, staring at the children using long sticks to poke at a duck dead at the edge of the water. She was about to be married again, paired up with another unknown, a second husband, when she was not even sure that she had lost the first. Nor was she sure that she wanted the first any more, because even if he came back he was a coward, a failed soldier. They would not give him work in Berlin, or a promotion in Darmstadt. She would live as a schoolteacher’s wife, as his mother lived, frugally, the wedding presents still in careful use, the furniture protected by thirty years of darkened rooms.

Her father was in the apartment when she returned, eating the chocolate cake.

‘It’s good cake,’ he said.

‘The Führer’s baker. Is there any left?’

‘No.’

‘I’ve probably had enough, anyway.’

He moved the empty plate to one side.

‘They have landed in Sicily,’ he said.

‘Who have?’

‘The Americans, Katharina. The British.’

‘Is it serious?’

‘No. We just need to get our troops there as fast as we can.’

‘From where?’

‘Russia. France. Northern Italy. All over. We have enough.’

‘That’s good. Mrs Weinart thinks I should get married again.’

‘That’s a fine plan.’

‘An officer this time.’

‘You’re moving up in the world, Katharina Spinell.’

The restaurant was almost empty, each table set nonetheless, cloths and napkins ironed and starched. She was early. She left again and walked the streets, fingering her hair, dampening down her eyebrows, her nerves.

She had seen him once at the Weinarts, but had never spoken to him. He had spent most of his time smoking and talking earnestly with the men. He had paid her no attention. Nor any other woman.

She returned a couple of minutes after eight and he was there, waiting, smoking, looking at the door, at her as she came in. He smiled, stood up, saluted, held back her chair and offered her a drink.

‘A martini. Thank you. But no olive. I don’t like olives.’

‘That’s funny. Nor do I. Overrated, I think.’

He smiled again, and she liked his smile, the way it consumed his face.

‘I ordered dinner, already. I hope you like lamb.’

‘I do. Thank you.’

‘Actually, there was no choice. Supplies seem a little restricted.’

‘Even for you?’

He smiled.

‘Even for me, Mrs Faber.’

She looked around the room.

‘It’s very quiet.’

‘I think people prefer to be at home with their families these nights.’

‘But not you?’

‘I don’t have a family, Mrs Faber. But I believe you have a son. Mrs Weinart enjoyed his first birthday party. She told me the clown was particularly entertaining.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘You should be. She’s a hard woman to please.’

‘She thinks highly of you, Mr Meyer.’

‘And she thinks highly of you, Mrs Faber.’

‘Then we travel in the same compartment, Mr Meyer.’

She drank from her glass as he lit a cigarette, smoking through the opposite side of his mouth from her husband. Her former husband. Her more than likely dead husband. His eyes were very blue and his hair still as blond as a child’s.