Джон Бойн - A Ladder to the Sky

‘My son had asthma,’ I said. ‘He suffered from it quite badly.’

He nodded and inhaled again, before returning the familiar blue device to his satchel. ‘Some people get it worse than others. Mine has always been manageable.’

‘It’s how he died.’

Theo sat back in the chair and stared at me. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.’

‘There’s no reason why you should have.’

‘Do you mind if I ask what happened?’

I looked away. There was no harm in telling him the truth. Up to a point, at least.

‘It was hay-fever season,’ I told him. ‘And, of course, his asthma was always much worse at that time of year. He was in our apartment, doing some homework on my computer.’ And now time to massage the details. ‘I wasn’t there. I’d gone out to pick up some take-away. It seems that he had a particularly bad bronchospasm attack and couldn’t reach his inhaler in time. He collapsed on the floor. By the time I got back, he was gone.’

‘That’s awful,’ said Theo. ‘How old was he?’

‘Thirteen.’

I looked down at the table, scratching my nails into the woodwork. I could sense him again, a small hand gripping my shoulder, an arm wrapped around my throat. He pressed against my wind-pipe and I tried to push back but he was too strong for me and when I looked up, he was sitting opposite me in Theo’s place, watching me, an expression on his face that broke through my chest and clutched at my heart, squeezing it, cutting off the blood from pumping around my body.

‘It was your own fault,’ I whispered.

‘What?’

I blinked a few times, felt an immediate release from my delusion and shook my head. Daniel was gone; Theo had returned.

‘Nothing,’ I replied. I noticed the cigarette packet on the table and frowned. ‘You know, if you have asthma, you really shouldn’t be smoking.’

‘I’m trying to give up.’

‘Well, try harder,’ I said forcefully.

‘And did Daniel—’

‘That’s enough about him,’ I snapped, more heatedly than I had intended. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

‘All right, sorry,’ he said. A long pause ensued. The tension that descended on us was almost unbearable but, finally, he spoke again.

‘Actually, before I forget,’ he said. ‘I was talking to a friend of mine the other day – she runs the literary society at UCL – and I told her that you were giving me some help on my thesis. She wondered whether you might come in some day to talk to the writing students?’

I sat back in my chair, lifted my pint and took a long draught from it. It had been a long time since I’d spoken to any students about writing or, for that matter, spoken to anyone about writing. I wasn’t sure if it was something I would feel comfortable doing any more.

‘No pressure, of course,’ he said quickly, when I didn’t answer immediately. ‘I’m sure you’re busy with your work and—’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I prefer only to do such things when there’s a new book out.’

‘Of course, I understand.’

‘Maybe when the next novel is published.’

‘Whenever works. It’s entirely up to you.’

I nodded and drank some more. A roomful of students intimidated me more now than it would have in the past. And, of course, they would probably want me to speak in the middle of the day, which would be a problem, as it was important that I was in one of my pubs every day by eight minutes past two.

‘I’ll let you know,’ I said.

‘Thanks,’ he replied, and he looked down at his pint, staring at it for a few moments before lifting it to his lips.

‘How’s the thesis coming along, anyway?’ I asked eventually. ‘I hope our meetings are proving helpful to you.’

‘They are,’ he said. ‘But it’s important to me that I create a work of scholarship and not just a lazy trawl through your catalogue.’

‘Of course.’

‘Which means that I might have to be critical as well as complimentary. I hope you can understand that. I just don’t want you to read it one day and feel that I’ve been duplicitous.’

‘I wouldn’t expect anything less,’ I said. ‘I daresay not every word I’ve written over the years has been perfect, after all.’

‘I’ve been doing some work on Two Germans , you see,’ he continued. ‘Reading back over old reviews and some of the subsequent commentary. I suppose you’re aware of the criticisms of the book.’

‘Vaguely,’ I said. ‘Which, in particular?’

‘Well, there are those who feel that you took advantage of Erich Ackermann. Seduced his story from him as a way to build your own career.’

I nodded. I’d heard that one before, of course, many times, and had a stock answer. ‘Erich’s actions were his own to account for,’ I said. ‘For whatever reason, he chose me as his confidant and never once suggested that our conversations were supposed to remain private. I was free to use them in any way I chose. You must remember that when Erich and I originally met I knew nothing about what had happened during the war. I had never even heard the name of Oskar Gött. I simply made the man’s acquaintance and one thing, as they say, led to another. It wasn’t a set-up. I can hardly be blamed if he revealed things to me that, later on, he came to regret saying.’

His trusty notebook was out again and he was scribbling away.

‘So you felt no guilt about what happened to him?’ he asked.

‘Not particularly, no,’ I said, frowning. ‘Why, do you think I should have?’

‘There are those who say that you deliberately targeted Ackermann. And that if it hadn’t been that story, then it would have been another. That he was doomed from the moment he met you. Is that unfair?’

‘Totally unfair,’ I said, feeling a little unsettled by the accusatory tone he was taking. ‘He was a grown man, after all. He could have walked away from me at any time but he chose not to. The fact was, Erich Ackermann was in love with me.’

He stopped writing for a moment and looked up.

‘He told you this?’ he asked.

‘Not in so many words, no,’ I admitted. ‘But it was obvious. He wasn’t very good at hiding it. The poor man had tied himself up in emotional knots over so many decades, cutting off any potential romantic attachments, that when the dam broke, so to speak, he was absolutely incapable of dealing with the subsequent psychological trauma. But I never led him on, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’

‘All right,’ he said.

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘Sorry, Maurice,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to get to the heart of the story, that’s all.’

He took off his jacket now, revealing a T-shirt featuring a band that my son Daniel had loved. I stared at the familiar faces that had once adorned a poster in my son’s room.

‘You like them?’ I asked, pointing down at the image.

He glanced down and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why, do you?’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I’m a little too old for bands like that. But my son did.’

He said nothing for a few moments. ‘How intimate can I be with my questions?’ he asked at last.

‘You can ask me anything you like. I don’t mind.’

‘All right. Do you have a girlfriend?’

‘No,’ I said, surprised that he should be interested in my personal instead of my professional life.

‘Are you gay?’

‘No. Why, have I done something to give you the impression that I am?’

‘It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other, you understand,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to understand you better as a person so I can more clearly contextualize your work.’