Christopher Kloeble - Almost Everything Very Fast

“Cigarette?”

Klondi extended a packet of Gauloises, just as she had five years before.

“I don’t smoke,” he said coolly.

“Fibber. Want one or not?”

Klondi plucked two cigarettes from the pack, lit them both, stuck one between Albert’s lips, and drew deeply on the other, as if it were providing her with air. “God, finally! Were you the one who told Fred about lung cancer and smoker’s leg?”

Silently Albert shook his head; as always, Klondi had an overwhelming effect on him: in her presence he felt so young and inexperienced.

“Anyway, you can’t smoke anywhere near him without him going completely nuts.” Her cigarette bobbed up and down as she spoke. “I always have to find some excuse for the smell.”

“What color was your hair when you were younger?”

“At least sit down first.”

“No thanks.” Albert ground his cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray. “Look, are you my mother, or what?”

From somewhere in the depths of the house came a creak, eerily extended, like the parody of an opening door in a horror movie — though to Albert it also sounded a bit like indigestion — and as silence fell again, Klondi said, “Ah, well.”

Albert wasn’t surprised. Hundreds of times, thousands of times, he’d imagined this moment, fearing he might faint, hoping he’d be able to react without reproach, wondering whether they’d embrace, or smile, or weep, or all three at once, expecting to feel in every fiber of his body, and perhaps even beyond it, relief, confidence, joy.

But there was nothing.

He sat down on one of the chairs and looked at Klondi, who just stood there, tapping ash from her cigarette and letting it fall to the floor like snow.

“I expected the thought would occur to you someday.” She turned one of the chairs back to front and straddled it, shaking her head. “But my hair used to be blond, not dark blond, not platinum blond, and definitely not strawberry blond. Sorry.”

Albert glanced through the four-paned window. Outside, Fred lay stretched flat on his belly, his head resting on the encyclopedia, like somebody who’d been shot from behind.

“What were you looking for in the sewers?” Klondi asked.

“The truth.”

“But let’s be honest here, do you actually want to find it? Or just your own version of it?”

“There’s only ever one truth. That’s what makes it truth.”

“I’ve heard,” said Klondi, without responding to his commentary, “that Dickens and Rowling are both strangely beloved by orphans.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Those kinds of stories can arouse false expectations,” she said, poking around in the ashtray with her fingers. “Who, after all, turns out to be a Harry Potter or an Oliver Twist? Who actually discovers something special about themselves, or develops some magical power? Most orphans aren’t princes or students of magic; they’re just kids who’ve gotten less love than the rest.”

Of course Albert knew that, and yet it hurt to have it said so baldly, right to his face. What was Klondi up to? He asked himself whether it wasn’t time to go.

Klondi ground out her cigarette. “Maybe I can tell you who your mother is.”

Albert coughed.

“I said maybe.” She smiled at him sympathetically. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

“Don’t bother yourself too much about me,” he said as calmly as possible, avoiding her eyes. When somebody asked him not to get his hopes up, he could do nothing but get his hopes up.

A husky laugh. “You’d be a miserable poker player.” She bent forward, so that her chair stood shakily on two legs, grabbed his head with both hands, and pressed a kiss onto the cheek with the cops-and-robbers scar. “But not such a bad son.”

Albert pushed her back onto all four chair legs, and she let rip with her truth. The sunshine falling through the window lacked warmth, and there wasn’t much to spare in Albert, either. His body felt stiff, he shivered, but he was too exhausted to do anything about it. So he listened.

Klondi’s Story

It all began with Klondi bringing a little girl into the world in 1971. She’d been pleased about the prospect, actually — she could hardly wait to hold the child in her arms. Just before the delivery she’d switched hospitals because, as she’d discovered very late, in the clinic where it was supposed to happen, all the babies were washed after birth, before being passed to their parents, and Klondi wanted no part of that, she wanted to hold her daughter in her arms while the baby was slick and bloody — in for a penny, in for a pound — and so she and her husband, Ludwig, hailed another taxi and shouted to the driver, “Next hospital!” And he answered, “But there’s one right here!” And they tossed all the cash they had onto the passenger seat. And the driver put his car into gear.

And so, at that next hospital, Klondi gave birth to a girl, her name was Marina because Ludwig had wanted it that way, Marina, it sounded almost like Mina, which had been Ludwig’s mother’s name. Marina fidgeted and squalled just like Klondi had imagined she would, and Klondi smiled, because she felt like she’d made up for the two abortions she’d had earlier in her life, or at least one of them, and she pressed Marina to her breast and cupped a hand over her head like a helmet, and sniffed her. They say that babies don’t smell, but this baby, Klondi’s baby, did smell — though not good, somehow. That’s what she got for absolutely having to hold her daughter in her arms right away, thought Klondi, nobody had told her about the smell, they all talked about the miracle of having a living being slide out of you, the miracle of creating — with a little masculine help — a brand-new life, but nobody warned you how badly said life could stink. Klondi didn’t want to do any violence to her nose, her body had already been through enough, and she passed Marina to the nurse, so that she could get started with the washing. “Make sure she’s really clean,” Klondi said, and added, because the nurse had shot her a confused look, “Give her a mirror finish!” and when she was alone, she gave her hands a sniff and made a face. Klondi slept for a few hours, waking just when she started to dream she was going into labor. Marina was brought back to her, this time spotlessly clean, wrapped in white blankets, what a sight, and Klondi took her, full of joy, she wanted to hold her daughter, this creature who had never been separated from her for so long, she raised the little bundle to her face, wanting to kiss it, and pursed her lips and pushed her head forward, and just couldn’t do it. That simply didn’t smell good. Maybe it had something to do with hormones, maybe it was an allergic reaction, the doctor couldn’t explain it. Marina smelled fantastic, he assured her, and Ludwig seconded him, and Klondi didn’t like that at all, they were making it sound as if it were her fault, yet her nose was just fine, as later investigations confirmed. Possibly it was the hospital’s fault, the doctor interjected, whereupon Klondi decided to go home immediately.

Half an hour later Ludwig was steering their car toward the house in Königsdorf, and Marina lay in a little basket on the backseat beside Klondi, who wasn’t sad or frightened in the least, only confused, because she couldn’t say where her happiness had gone. For nine months she’d waited, for nine months she’d restrained herself, hadn’t gone out dancing until dawn or gotten drunk, hadn’t gone swimming in the frigid Isar or smoked any grass, had followed through with the whole maternity program, heavy breathing and listening to music and letting them run tests on her and the whole nine yards, everything that was meant to do you good, in order to stay the course at least once in her life, and now she wanted her reward, she wanted the happiness.