Audrey Magee - The Undertaking

‘I did,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to go anywhere else these days.’

Elizabeth looked at her husband. He looked at his watch.

The soup came and went; the applause for the goose was muted, as though they were afraid of drawing the bombers’ attention. Katharina chewed the meat, sitting on the edge of the chair, her feet flat on the floor, puzzling over the best way to reach her son, the fastest way to lift him from his cot and run with him for shelter. The Weinarts had a bunker in their basement but she preferred the strength of the concrete shelters on the street. Cellars collapsed, with people still inside. She preferred to be above ground.

She started the chocolate mousse and raspberry dessert, and turned to Meyer.

‘I’m ready to go now, Joachim,’ she said. ‘To collect Johannes and go home.’

‘It’s too early, Katharina. Too rude.’

‘I can’t concentrate. I’m too nervous.’

‘One hour more and it’ll be too late for them. Have some more champagne.’

She did and the hour passed. They partied until dawn, drinking, dancing, and she had sex with Meyer at the top of a staircase, her dress rucked up around her hips. She went home, slept, and collected Johannes before the Weinarts sat down to lunch with their children.

‘It was a marvellous night, Mrs Weinart. Even better than last year.’

‘You seemed to enjoy it, Katharina.’

‘It was kind of you to have Johannes.’

‘He’s a darling. Like one of my own.’

It was bitterly cold the night they lost the apartment. The wind cut through their coats as they walked back east towards their previous home, outside the reach of the English bombers. Her father still had the key and the lock turned as it used to. She switched on the light in the hall and walked down the windowless corridor into the kitchen. Everything was as it had been, as though they had never left. She put Johannes to sleep in the bed she had shared with Peter, settled her mother into Johannes’ bedroom and her father into hers, then sat at the kitchen table until dawn, until her son woke looking for food, for comfort, for an end to the chaos.

She fed him from the food she kept in the suitcase, tucked between the sheets: crackers, tinned meat and dried milk. She changed and washed his nappy. She now had only three. The rest had been in the old apartment, and new ones were hard to come by. Pins impossible. She boiled some water and drank it hot, waiting for her father to wake.

‘We’ll go the Weinarts and see if they can help us,’ he said.

‘I need some clothes. So does Johannes.’

She opened and closed each cupboard.

‘We have no food, Father. We have nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

‘We’ll sort something out.’

She went to the bathroom. The water was surprisingly hot.

‘Could you look after Johannes?’

He nodded and took the child on his lap. She closed the door, filled the bath and began to undress, the city’s dust falling to the floor. She stepped into the hot water and submerged her head, relieved to be away from the noise, the chaos, the explosions. Their whole side of the street had gone. Vanished. Their lives lost in a mound of rubble, curtains, bedposts, wardrobe doors and books. Everything was gone. Their piano, bed linen and silks, the bust of Wagner, all pounded to nothing. She sat up. Everything had only to be tolerated. But it was all intolerable. Meyer’s fleshy hands and the voices of the women making plans for the rest of her life. She had a husband. She didn’t need another one. She got out of the bath, dried herself quickly with a towel she did not recognize and dressed again in the same clothes.

Her son whimpered. She took him from her father.

‘He’s hungry.’

‘It’s a bit early for the Weinarts’.’

‘Maybe Mrs Sachs has something.’

‘You can’t go to her, Katharina.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not a good idea. To become dependent on her.’

‘But we are dependents, Father.’

‘Not on her.’

‘Why not on her?’

‘She’d enjoy it too much. Our being back here.’

‘Back where we started.’

‘Something like that.’

‘So tell me now, Father, that it was all worth it.’

‘One step forward, two steps back. That’s how it goes sometimes, Katharina.’

‘My husband’s child is hungry. I’m going to Mrs Sachs.’

She knocked on the door, lightly, Johannes in her arms. Mrs Sachs was in her dressing gown.

‘I thought I heard noise last night,’ she said.

‘Our apartment was hit.’

‘And your old one happened to be empty.’

‘Yes.’

‘And your father knew about it.’

‘I suppose he did. Johannes is hungry and we have no food.’

‘I’ll see what I can find. But only for him.’

‘I understand. Thank you.’

She disappeared down the corridor, windowless too, and returned with some porridge flakes and milk.

‘That should be enough for him.’

‘Thank you.’

‘None of this is his fault. I won’t take it out on him.’

‘Thank you.’

She went back upstairs, warmed the milk and dropped in the porridge flakes. Her father was smoking and staring out the window.

‘How did you know this place was empty, Father?’

‘I just did.’

‘But how? And where did the people go?’

‘They were scum, Katharina. They should never have been given a place as fine as this to begin with.’

‘This place is not fine. It’s a dump. That’s why we left, remember?’

‘It’s the best we have for the moment. We’ll go the Weinarts’ after Johannes has eaten.’

The Weinarts’ house remained undamaged. Not a crack in a window or a sill knocked out of place. Her father pressed the white ceramic doorbell and a maid asked them to wait in the hall. Mrs Weinart arrived, running down the stairs towards them, her arms, eyes and mouth open wide. Katharina began to cry, burying her head in Johannes’ hair as her father explained. Mrs Weinart took them downstairs to the kitchen.

‘We’ll give you everything you need, Katharina. Everything to start again.’

They drank hot coffee, ate bread, cheese, salami and packed up a picnic for her mother. Mrs Weinart put her arm around Katharina’s shoulders.

‘We’ll come through this, Katharina,’ she said. ‘Wait and see. They can’t defeat us.’

The nanny took Johannes to find clothes that the Weinart children had grown out of, while the butler went in search of suits for Mr Spinell.

‘We’ll find you another couple of uniforms too, Günther.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Weinart.’

‘Katharina, you and I will sort out something for you and your mother.’

Katharina followed her up the stairs, to a part of the house she hadn’t seen before, where the carpets were softer, thicker, paler in colour.

‘You have been very kind to us, Mrs Weinart.’

‘Your father has worked hard for my husband, Katharina. We admire that.’

Mrs Weinart opened several wardrobe doors.

‘I can only assume that you have nothing, Katharina.’

‘Nothing.’

‘You had collected some beautiful pieces recently. Things that fitted you perfectly. High quality, too.’

‘It has been a good time to find quality, Mrs Weinart.’

‘You did well. I admire that too.’

She trawled through the rails, holding things up, putting them back, muttering until she had assembled a pile.

‘Take these to my bathroom. Try them on. They might fit.’

Katharina carried them into the room with two sinks, a bidet, bath and shower and placed the clothes on the floor of clean, bright white tiles. As she closed the door, she saw a silk robe hanging from a hook, identical to her own. She went back into the bedroom.