Adam Thirlwell - The Escape

But maybe it was more of a problem that after the war Haffner's sense of humour had been replaced with something no one, really, wanted to know.

In Rome, Haffner had admired the triumphal column on which was carved a panel displaying a German baby being screamingly torn away from the arms of its mother by a stern Roman soldier. But most of all, he admired the Roman talent for the comic. Because — wrote a scholar in a booklet which Cesare bought and then translated out loud for Haffner, over a coffee in Piazza Navona — although a modern viewer might see this panel as deeply affecting, for the Romans it would have been amusing. It would have been sitcom.

And maybe Haffner and his Romans had it right. A war as a farce: this doesn't seem to me to be so implausible — with its mismatched exits and entrances, and its grandly outflanked speeches.

No, he hadn't told Livia about certain things. So he was hardly going to be able to do it here, thought Haffner, with a girl he hardly knew.

His anecdotes faded away.

But then Zinka said that her friend, she too had been in a war: the recent war. Haffner nodded. She once told Zinka that she had seen such a horrible thing: she had seen one of her neighbours with his mouth propped open with a piece of wood. Then they made him swallow sewage water. This was the woman who loved her.

— She committed suicide, said Zinka, thoughtfully.

— Who? said Haffner.

— That woman, said Zinka.

— The lesbian? asked Haffner.

— Yes, said Zinka.

— In what way? said Haffner.

— Drinking pills, said Zinka.

— It's easier, said Haffner.

The conversation paused.

This wasn't something that she told people, said Zinka. But she would tell Haffner.

This struck Haffner as strange, but he was feeling so unsure of what was happening that he decided to let this thought go. So intent was he on constructing his own escape, his desertion from his duty, he didn't consider that, for Zinka, Haffner could represent an escape too.

There was one time, said Zinka, when she was walking down the street in Zagreb. And some soldiers were outside an embassy. And she was with her friend. As they approached, the soldiers began to raise their rifles. This was true.

He didn't doubt it, said Haffner.

And this was what she had never forgotten, said Zinka. They were shouting that they were nothing: they were only walking home. And eventually, of course, as he could see, nothing happened. But at the moment when it seemed possible the soldiers would shoot, said Zinka, she stepped behind her friend. And although immediately she stepped back out, level with her, she could never forget this moment of self-betrayal.

There was a pause.

And at this moment, Haffner — timeless — felt everything returning to him.

The beach at Anzio strewn with bodies, as if everyone were sunbathing.

But most of all, in the series of women who had graced the life of Haffner, here, at its zenith, there was Zinka — for whom he felt such absolute adoration. Yes, at this moment, thought Haffner, extravagant through nostalgia, ignorant of Zinka, he could have endured anything, if only she would love him. Even if there was, I feel, little left for Haffner to endure. Yes, this was Haffner's ideology now. Maybe it could even borrow a slogan. Love me as little as you like — this was Haffner: but just love me as long as you can .

For Haffner believed in coincidence — he saw his life as a system of signs. He scanned each new acquaintance for the meaning they were trying to figure in the everlasting life of Haffner. So here, in his finale, he could only see in Zinka a kindred spirit, the twin for whom he had been searching all his life. The twin whom Haffner tried to align as closely as possible to himself.

— Oh but that was nothing, said Haffner.

There were so many ways, he said, that you could feel ashamed. Not just the obvious betrayal. In Anzio, he said, at night, they had to leave the bodies on the beach: it was too dangerous to go back for anyone. So Haffner had to lie there. And a boy was calling, quietly: Mama Mama Mama.

— Mama Mama Mama, said Haffner.

All he wanted, said Haffner, was for this boy to bloody shut up.

It was only some years later that he realised how much he was like his father — when Esther reminded him of the story her grandfather had once told her. He described to her the wailing you could hear from no-man's-land, at night. At this point, he recalled, Papa would begin to shout. Because Papa was still angry at the disparity between this wailing and the official British telegrams, informing the anguished families that their heroes had died instantly, from a bullet in the heart.

— Sometimes, Haffner said to Zinka, one has conversations which are impossible with one's wife.

— But you're not married, said Zinka. Your wife, she is dead.

— It's the principle, he said.

And Haffner smiled.

— She's still alive in spirit, said Haffner.

And Zinka smiled too.

And in the sudden pause of their understanding, Haffner could still not prevent himself remembering the first time he had used this line about impossible conversations. It was one of his ordinary lines: in the Travelodge, at the business convention. Each time he used it, even now, even though he could remember all the times he had used it insincerely, he believed in it as true.

As if to celebrate this moment of Haffner's glory, the small jazz band serenading the hotel's residents began a melody from the oeuvre of Haffner's hero, Artie Shaw; and, cushioned by this melody, Frau Tummel descended on him, as if from the highest clouds.

Haffner looked to Zinka. Zinka looked away, staring at the indifferent mountains, as if finding in their indifference some kind of solace.

Frau Tummel was simply here, she said, to have the smallest word with Haffner. She beamed at Zinka. She did not want to interrupt.

He was all ears, said Haffner. She was sorry? said Frau Tummel. He was listening, said Haffner.

But this was not entirely true. The melody began to bother Haffner. He couldn't remember the title. Even as Frau Tummel stood in front of him. It suddenly seemed important. And maybe this wasn't just a ruse of Haffner's. For his only dates left were the songs. The songs in which dead people sang about their immortal love. As soon as he heard a song, then everything came back to him. With the songs, he could happily wallow in the wreckage of Haffner.

She just wanted to check that they still had their arrangement for the next day, said Frau Tummel. And Haffner nodded: a toy dog.

That was wonderful, exclaimed Frau Tummel. Because if he didn't want to, then he only needed to say.

It was a conversation Haffner was practised in. Of course he wanted to see her, he said, fluent and abstract with flattery.

In that case, said Frau Tummel, she would leave them be. Or perhaps, she added, she could take a glass of aquavit with them — glancing over at her husband making pencilled notes in his guidebook.

Zinka sighed. Haffner was silent. Encouraged, Frau Tummel motioned to the distant waiter. She pointed to Haffner's glass of aquavit. She mimed her desire for another. Then no, she reconsidered: she called the waiter over and ordered a glass of dry white wine.

— The aquavit, she explained to Haffner and Zinka, it is not for me.

She smiled, at Zinka, who did not smile back.

Frau Tummel, thought Haffner, was the absolute bourgeois. She embodied strength: the statuesque matronly repression. There was nothing, thought Haffner, which Frau Tummel could not sublimate. And perhaps this, if he were honest with himself, was also why Frau Tummel so appealed to him. He liked the effort of her strength. Her strength enchanted him. Yes, he realised, for Frau Tummel he felt a spreading tenderness, welling under Haffner's soul, like a bruise.