Alice

I. Misha

But Misha didn’t die. Not during the night from Monday to Tuesday, nor the night from Tuesday to Wednesday; perhaps he would die Wednesday evening or later that night. Alice thought she had heard it said that most people die at night. The doctors weren’t saying anything any more; they shrugged their shoulders and held out their empty, disinfected hands. There’s nothing more we can do. Sorry.

And so Alice, Maja, and Maja’s child had to look for another place to stay. Another holiday apartment, because Misha couldn’t die. Their present holiday apartment was too small. They really needed at least two bedrooms, one for Maja and the child and the other for Alice, as well as a living room with a TV for the evenings, a halfway decently equipped kitchen to take care of the child’s needs, a bath with a bathtub. A garden? Or a window with a view of something beautiful.

In the hospital, Misha was wearing a hospital gown printed all over with blue diamonds. He was reduced to skin and bones, a skeleton; but his hands were as they had always been — they were also soft and warm. On his bedside table there was nothing now except a bottle of mineral water and a sipper cup. Though by now he’d even stopped drinking water.

Alice packed her overnight bag. A nightgown, three T-shirts, three sweaters, a pair of slacks, underwear, a book. She sat down on the wicker sofa among the cushions and rolled a green plastic ball with a little bell tinkling inside it across the tiled tabletop towards the child. The child was already able to stand at the low living-room table, proudly, holding on to the tabletop with both hands. She didn’t react to the ball, but emphatically repeated the word ‘rabbit’ several times in a row. Very clearly. Maja was on the phone with the owner of a holiday apartment at the other end of town. Cheaper. Three rooms. With a garden. A washing machine too, yes, of course. No further from the hospital than this one-room place with its fake forsythia in a vase on the built-in cupboard, the framed photo above the TV showing the sun setting into an empty lake, the folding bed on which Alice had slept in front of the built-in cupboard, the double bed in the corner, and the wicker sofa pushed to the window. The curtains were drawn aside and the view was of a supermarket car park, vehicles coming and going, and people pushing brimful shopping trolleys.

… in the Catholic hospital, Maja was saying on the phone. My husband is in the Catholic hospital. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her head cradled in her hand, her face turned away. Alice gazed at her back. Now the child had decided to take the plastic ball after all, lifting it up and shaking it hard, listening to the little bell with a rapt expression on her face.

We’re moving, Alice said to the child. We’re moving to another place. It’s going to be really nice there, you’ll see. There’s a bathtub. A garden — we can go outside every morning. Trees. A lawn. Maybe rabbits, we’ll see, maybe we can catch one.

The child didn’t reply. She looked at Alice, a long look full of mysterious significance. A clear drop of spit trembled on her little chin. She was Misha’s child and looked a lot like her father.

The way things had turned out, Misha now lay dying in Zweibrücken — Two Bridges. The name sounded poetic to Alice, but it presented a distorted image, because for the dying man there was only one bridge, if any at all. For whom was the second one? Zweibrücken turned out to be the end of an odyssey that had led from one hospital to another — and then in the end and by coincidence it happened to be a Catholic hospital in a town far from home where Misha now lay dying. He might have joked about it if he’d had the strength. But he no longer did. He had cancer and was on morphine, was nearly gone. Alice wasn’t even sure whether the sound he made when she sat by his bed and put his hand in hers was intended as an expression of pain or acceptance. The doctors, who had withdrawn from the case a week ago, still hovered in the background out of courtesy. Now and then, one of them would come by and pretend to take his temperature or feel his pulse. For days they had predicted his death, but he didn’t die. Kept breathing, in and out. In and out. In and out. That was all.

Maja was putting a fresh nappy on the child. On the double bed. The child was beautiful, her skin soft and white. On her back there was a heart-shaped birthmark, a mark of distinction. Alice sat on the wicker sofa and watched as Maja changed the child’s nappy, holding both little legs in her left hand and gently raising the child by her little feet.

We’ll take a taxi, Maja said. Could you call for one. In ten minutes.

OK, Alice said.

They didn’t talk much. Sometimes more, sometimes less; it wasn’t awkward. The night before they had sat next to each other in silence, watching the child eat pizza. For quite a while. Alice got up and washed the last of the dishes, two coffee mugs, two plates, the small bowl from which the child had eaten a lunch of plain yogurt with banana slices. Please pack up the things from the refrigerator, too, Maja said. She told the child to lie still. Don’t move — just for a moment.

There were eggs, fish, tomatoes and a piece of butter in the refrigerator. And fennel tea, potatoes, apples, and pears. Plus three bottles of beer and a bottle of wine. In the pot on the stove there were sterilised teats and the child’s feeding bottle. Alice unfolded two bright yellow bags, feeling unduly helpless — she wanted to do everything just so.

Then the landlord was standing at the door. He had knocked inaudibly, just wanted to check whether everything was all right. Alice counted some notes into his outstretched hand; she saw no reason to lie to him. No. We’re not leaving town, we’re just moving; this place is really too small for us. But otherwise everything’s fine. Thank you very much. No, it will still take a while. It’s not over yet. The doctors say he’s very strong. The landlord smiled, a crooked, ineffectual smile; he looked quite awkward, but what else could he do.

Where will you be going?

To the outskirts of town, Maja called out from the bed. There’s supposed to be a garden there; that’s better for the child. But thanks for everything. Thank you very much all the same.

Maja and the child had been in Zweibrücken for ten days. They had come by plane; it was the child’s first time flying, and she didn’t cry at take-off or landing. Maja had booked the holiday apartment from Berlin, had told the landlord that she wasn’t coming to Zweibrücken on holiday. Did anyone ever go to Zweibrücken on holiday? The landlord didn’t have an answer. Forty euros a night for the room, the forsythia, and a bath with a shower. On their fourth day there the child had started crying inconsolably as soon as they were on the street leading to the hospital, and that’s when Maja had phoned Alice.

Can you come? Misha is dying. Don’t you want to see him once more? I need someone to look after the child; she no longer wants to go to the hospital with me.

Alice was tempted to ask, Do you think Misha wants to see me? Don’t you think it might be too much for him? But how could Maja know whether Misha wanted to see Alice or not.

Instead she had asked, What’s the matter with the child?

Maja had thought for a moment and then she said, The child no longer reacts to Misha as if he were a person. I can’t take her into his hospital room any more. But I want to be with him. You understand that, don’t you?

Alice left Berlin the next day. She barely knew Maja. She knew Misha. Of course she wanted to see him one more time; what kind of a question was that. There had been times when she thought she couldn’t live if she couldn’t see Misha’s face any more. She had often told him that, and each time he had laughed good-naturedly. But she also thought he would die while the train in which she sat was rolling through the desolate and ugly landscape; she considered herself so important that she assumed Misha would die because she was coming and before she could be at his side.

In spite of that, she had left for Zweibrücken. Misha did not die. Not while she was sitting on the train, reading a newspaper, falling asleep and waking up again, drinking coffee, eating a tart apple, looking through the window, crying, going to the toilet, and twice changing her seat. Seeing signs in everything and misinterpreting them. Misha didn’t die, not when she arrived in the town and Maja and the child picked her up at the station, not when they embraced and Maja said, We can cry later. Misha didn’t die the first night that Alice took care of the child while Maja went to the hospital, nor the second, and before the third night they had decided to move.

They were standing on the pavement, waiting for the taxi. The pushchair was collapsed. The bags of food from the refrigerator sat next to Alice’s overnight bag and Maja’s suitcase. Earthly goods. Every word suddenly had a second meaning. The pavement was narrow, cars rushed by, raising fountains of rainwater behind them. Nobody was out walking. The taxi didn’t come. Maja, holding the child in her arms, rocked her a while, then she passed her to Alice. Alice took the child, afraid she might put up a fight, but the child didn’t resist her, just looked so very serious. Alice held the child in one arm, supporting part of the weight on her hip, the way you hold children. The closeness of the little face, framed by a fluffy pink pompom hat, embarrassed her. The child smelled of baby, of milk, and mashed carrots; her blue eyes were huge and shiny. Alice had to look away; she gazed up and down the street. What a place. The street crossed over the motorway, ran through a park where dishevelled ducks swam in a stagnant pond, then on to the desolate centre of town and up to the hospital — a walk of twenty minutes with the pushchair and the child who, just learning to walk, wanted to walk all the time, but never straight ahead, rather this way and that way. She was learning to walk in spite of everything and precisely because of it all. Maja had been taking this route for a week now. There. And back. The child had thrown soggy biscuits to the ducks. The ducks barely noticed. It was cold, the middle of October, not golden. The child on Alice’s arm turned her head and saw what Alice saw. Rain and grey houses. Nothing that they might have pointed out to each other.

Maybe I ought to call the taxi again, Alice said, but Maja didn’t react, which probably meant that there was no need to call again. Alice found that Maja often spoke by saying nothing, expressing herself clearly with silence. In different circumstances Alice might have objected to this silence. But Maja was Misha’s wife. They had a child together, and once Misha was dead, Maja would be his widow. The affair between Misha and Alice had happened too long ago for her to claim any rights whatsoever. Just an anecdote but, Alice thought, if it weren’t for that anecdote, I wouldn’t be in Zweibrücken now. And yet, my being here doesn’t change the fact that Misha is dying.

The taxi pulled up at the kerb. The driver made a face; he didn’t feel like climbing out, getting his feet wet, packing all their stuff into the boot — the pushchair, the suitcase, the overnight bag, the bags of food. He got out. Maja took the child from Alice and smiled at the driver. Alice got into the front seat. In the back the driver fiddled nervously with the child’s seat. Maja was holding the child in her lap, still smiling. Then they drove off. Nice windscreen wipers, music on the radio, the regional station, idle chatter, a gong, and then pop songs. Looking out of the window. Driving down the street, crossing the motorway — the signposts, upcoming exits were all clearly visible, drawing one to distant places, the possibility of getting away from Zweibrücken again. Let’s beat it, disappear, clear out, skedaddle — it was a language that was suddenly no longer appropriate here. They drove past the park; the hospital whisked by, seven storeys with twenty windows each — the third from the left on the seventh floor was the window of the room where Misha lay in bed, breathing in and breathing out. The door to his room always ajar, and his breathing so loud you could already hear it as you walked out of the lift.

You’ll be shocked when you see him, Maja had said the first time Alice went to the hospital. And she had been.

Alice didn’t look up at the hospital window. They drove uphill briefly, leaving the centre of town, then through a wooded area and into a housing development. The cab driver had a terrible cough. Number twelve, Maja said from the back seat. Alice paid, didn’t ask for a receipt. The driver took their things out of the boot, mumbling to himself as he did. Then he drove off. Alice, Maja and the child stood in the street looking at the house — a small, new, white house with a conservatory in which huge azaleas were pressing against the fogged-up panes. A rustic witch sitting on a straw broom hung outside the stained-glass panel set into the front door, swinging and rustling in the wind. Alice thought she knew what the doorbell would sound like. The air was brisk. Suddenly they could smell the rain, the wet soil, the damp leaves.

Alice had been at the hospital that morning. After breakfast. One of the doctors had said, There are people who find it easier to die alone; let him be by himself for a little while, don’t worry. Misha had been alone from one o’clock at night till ten o’clock in the morning, nine hours during which he had been breathing and did not die.

That morning Alice sat at Misha’s bedside until noon. First on one side of the bed, then on the other. The room was utilitarian, fitted cupboards, a sink, the door to the toilet, a bare area of painted linoleum where a second bed had stood in which another patient had been lying. Some days ago the nurses had pushed him elsewhere, without giving any reasons. To some other place.

Sitting on the right side of the bed, Alice had her back to the window that looked out on the city and a distant range of hills. Sitting on the left-hand side of the bed, she’d be next to the IV drip stand for the morphine, but leaning back against the wall unit, she could look out of the window and see the hills when she could no longer bear to look at Misha. To look at his face. Misha slept with his eyes open. The entire time. Like a plant, he had turned to the light, towards the grey but bright day — his body, his head, his arms and hands turned towards the window. In spite of the open eyes he looked as though he were sleeping, but perhaps it was something quite different, this state he was in, anaesthetised by morphine, flooded by images, or by nothing at all any more. He had sighed, often and deeply. Sometimes Alice would take his hand, which was warm and so very familiar. The door to the room was slightly ajar, the squeaking of the nurses’ shoes was comforting — the ringing of the telephone at the nurses’ station, the rumbling of the lift, the whispering and laughter, a constant bustle, the food trolley rolling past the room. Now and then one of the nuns would come in. An old, wrinkled nun came by often; Alice thought she came on her account rather than because of Misha.

Everything all right?

Yes, so far.

The nun had stopped at the foot of the bed and, holding on to the metal bar, had gazed at Misha with her head cocked. Interested. His mouth was open, the gums black, his unseeing eyes turned towards the window. The nun had looked at Alice and asked what sort of man he had been.

How do you mean? Alice had asked, sitting up; she had been slumped down in the chair leaning against the wall unit.

Do you mean what was his profession?

The nun had lifted her hands casually and dropped them again, giving the bed a jolt. She said, Well, how did he spend his life? What did he do?

They had both looked at Misha, and Alice thought the nun would never know what Misha had been like, how he had looked, how he talked, cursed, and smiled — how he had lived his life. She saw only the dying man. Was she missing something?

Hesitantly Alice said, Well, I’d say he was a magician. A conjurer — do you know what I mean? He could do all sorts of tricks, pull rabbits out of a hat, juggling. Mind reading. But he always let you look at his cards. He always wanted to show you his cards. I can’t explain it.

The nun said, I thought it was something like that. Her tone of voice was neutral; it could have been agreement or scorn, hard to tell. She said, Well, it won’t be much longer. Once their features get so sharp, it doesn’t take much longer. Then she left the room.

The door to the small, white house opened by itself, they didn’t have to ring. Probably everybody here had seen everything, standing behind the curtains of their terrace doors, in the shaded corners of their living rooms on this quiet, peaceful street. They had all seen the taxi stop, had seen them get out. A blonde and a dark-haired woman and a small child wearing a little pink hat. And all three with dark rings under their eyes. A suitcase, bags, and a push-chair. The door opened by itself, the owners came out of the house. Welcome, they extended their arms. A fat woman and a fat man, older people, the age of Maja’s parents, Alice’s parents. Alice was older than Maja, and Misha wasn’t that young any more either. Alice had always thought he would outlive her. Would outlive them all. Misha would always be there. That’s what she had thought. She wouldn’t have been able to say why she thought so. Perhaps it was an expression of her love, something timeless. Standing in front of the house, the food bags in one hand and the overnight bag in the other, and Maja next to her with the child on her arm and all those little things at the edges of the picture — ornamental spheres in flower beds, the earth already dug up, green grass, a white clay turtle — Alice felt a trembling in her knees that threatened to get out of control but then went away again. The woman had a big bosom, was wearing violet-tinted glasses; she was incredibly cordial, not quite natural. The man, always hovering a little distance behind her, his hands rough and worn, his handshake firm; his tracksuit bottoms were filthy and there were extensive scars on both sides of his broad, shaven skull, as if his head had once been held in a clamp. It looked peculiar, but then everything seemed peculiar, had to be accepted for what it was. Alice carried her bag into the front garden and up the broken paving stones of the front path while the child on Maja’s arm kept saying, Rabbit. Rabbit. Rabbit. As if to calm everyone.

The holiday apartment was in the basement. The woman explained that it had been their own apartment; they had finished it with their own hands. The man said nothing, just smiled. Their daughter used to live upstairs with the grandchildren and they themselves, downstairs. Then the daughter and the grandchildren had moved out, had gone away to another city. Now they were living upstairs again, so they wanted to rent out the basement flat; it would be a shame not to. The woman gave this verbose explanation as if to apologise; she spoke in a heavy dialect, and Alice understood only half of what she was saying, but when all was said and done, it didn’t matter who had lived in the apartment or when or why. Alice walked behind Maja who was following the woman who had immediately taken the child into her arms, had taken off the little pink hat, and was now carrying the child as though it were her own. They all trooped down the stairs. First, the woman with the now silent, serious child, then Maja, then Alice, then the man, who was carrying the suitcase, overnight bag and bags of food. Very helpful. He was right behind Alice, breathing heavily.

The house was built on a slope. Only half the apartment was below street level, and at the back it led out to the garden. At first glance everything seemed fine. It had a certain cosiness — a large room with a wall of fitted kitchen cabinets and built-in appliances and in the middle a table of light-coloured wood; there were shelves filled with cookbooks and bric-a-brac, a television set, and a corner sofa; leading off from this room there was first one bedroom and then another, both with beds in them, and the bathroom with a tub and a washing machine.

But on second glance it wasn’t quite all right — small details, here and there. Maybe these people had moved upstairs only yesterday, hadn’t taken everything up with them, had left behind their personal stuff: framed photos, a collection of liquor bottles, crumpled magazines, and half-finished knitting. In the bathroom, a row of cheap shampoo and shower-gel bottles on the rim of the bathtub. And children’s toys — immediately discovered by Maja’s child. Clothes in the wardrobe, slippers under the coat rack. There really was nothing to object to, everything was comfortable otherwise, but it was also very intimate and personal, an additional burden. Alice felt a twinge of nausea, but then she remembered the depressing décor of the other holiday apartment, where everything had been practical but nothing more. The child was very happy here. She immediately swept all the bric-a-brac off the shelves and pulled down the tablecloth, emptied a washing-powder box full of building blocks, and rattled the refrigerator door. The woman cooed and laughed, trying to reassure Maja, who kept apologising for the child’s behaviour. The woman ran hither and thither showing off everything: the electric kettle, the coffee maker, the electric blinds, the television set, video recorder, bed sheets, keys. On the key ring, a tiny witch on a wire broom.

Alice stood at the window in the kitchen, gazing out at the garden. A porch swing on the terrace was covered with a tarpaulin. Four white chairs surrounded a plastic table and in the middle, a furled patio umbrella. The trees were already nearly bare. Wilted dahlias, asters, sunflowers, a pergola, and red grapes. A nice view of other gardens up and down the hillside, then the first city houses, and far to the left, there was the hospital — a long rectangle with many windows. Too far away for her to identify the window of Misha’s room, but close enough to know: Misha’s there. And we’re here.

Alice saw it and felt that if she didn’t immediately show Maja she would be guilty of a betrayal. But she kept it to herself a moment longer. Maja was busy with the woman and the child in one of the bedrooms. It sounded as if the child was jumping up and down on the bed, squealing with delight. Alice turned away from the window to look at the stainless-steel sink, at the shelf above it. Plastic containers of herbs and spices, half full, marjoram, rosemary, multi-coloured pepper, all of it a little messy, a sticky film on the jar tops; the sink wasn’t entirely clean either. She turned on the tap to test it and shut it off again. Then the man was standing behind her. He put his arms around her, his hands on her hips, pulling her towards him, holding her like that; then he pushed her to one side and let go. He said, The tablets for the dishwasher are under the sink, and he gestured vaguely downwards.

Alice said, Oh, thanks, I’m sure we’ll be using them. She raised her hand to touch the back of her neck, astonished, and slowly turned to face him. As though it were possible to obliterate what had happened. To obliterate that embrace.

He shook his head. He smiled out of the window and said, There’s no need for thanks. You’re having a hard time. You’re having a really hard time.

Then he stepped aside as though he were already standing at the newly dug grave. He retreated with feigned modesty, his eyes cast down, still shaking his head. His wife came hurrying out of the bedroom carrying a pile of lilac-coloured sheets and pillowcases in her arms, red patches on her face.

We’ll make the beds ourselves, Maja called out from the bedroom. Please don’t go to any trouble; we can manage by ourselves, really. The woman looked at her husband, then at Alice, but not back again. Alice went over to her and took the sheets. Are you sure? the woman asked. Yes, Alice said without knowing what she was supposed to be sure of.

Maja came into the kitchen-living room; she leaned against the bedroom doorway. The door frame was cobbled together from old beams, an imitation of permanence. The child crawling behind her on all fours now pulled herself up on Maja’s hand and twined her little arms around Maja’s knee. Wearing only a shirt and tights, and hiccupping softly, she looked heartbreakingly tired.

Alice said, we’re really glad to be here. It’s lovely; the garden alone — she searched for a gesture and found none — but it didn’t matter at all. The man and the woman finally left, finally dragged themselves upstairs. Heavy animals, shy and curious; they went up the stairs backwards, kept calling out reassurances, consolations, directions — until they disappeared from view, the man first. Maja pushed the door shut with the palm of her hand; then leaned her head against the glass pane.

That afternoon Alice went to see Misha once more. For an hour, while Maja and the child slept. She left the development, then walked along the street into town, downhill through the woods. It was no longer raining, just misty and cold. She had her hands in her jacket pockets and a scarf around her neck. It was peaceful in the hospital. A mosaic in the entrance hall showed a monk with his arms spread in a blessing under a sky of thousands of tiny blue tiles. Next to it a coffee machine was humming. Alice walked past a bulletin board full of passport photos of the hospital’s doctors, nurses, and nuns. She could have looked for the face of the little wrinkled nun who had asked what sort of man Misha had been. Could have looked for her name, but something kept her from doing it.

She took the lift up to the seventh floor and could hear Misha’s breathing as the doors slid open. The door to his room was slightly ajar. Misha lay there as though he hadn’t moved in all the hours she’d been gone. On his back, arms extended to the left and right, face turned to the fading light, mouth open, eyes open. Alice placed the chair she had pushed against the table that morning next to his bed again. She sat down and cautiously said his name. He didn’t react. Still, Alice had the feeling that he knew she was there. Whether it mattered to him that she was there, whether it was a strain for him — that she didn’t know. There was no longer anything to which he could have reacted. Whatever there had once been was gone. All the things that had once existed between him and her were gone too. Nothing left. It was all over; she could say goodbye now. Nothing but the pure, shining present. Alice kissed Misha, as she hadn’t kissed him during his lifetime. She knew that he would never have put up with that kind of kiss were he still conscious.

They ate together that evening, Alice, Maja, and the child. At the table of light-coloured wood, Maja and the child sitting on one side, Alice on the other. Fish and potatoes. The plates with pictures of yellow baby chicks, the glasses with flowers on them. Maja had done the cooking; she cooked with little salt, nothing fancy, a sort of biblical meal; you could call it bland or plain; the child seemed to like it.

Did you eat together often? Alice asked.

Now and then it was possible to ask a question, and Maja would answer, or vice versa, if Maja asked, Alice would answer. But it didn’t go beyond that. Questions and answers don’t make a conversation. And that’s how things stood, Alice thought. A focused emptiness.

Yes, Maja said. Not in the beginning, but later on, we did. When we were living together. Misha liked rice.

Oh, Alice said.

She had seen Misha only rarely this past year, had never visited him in the apartment where he lived with Maja. Actually she hadn’t known anything about the child, and wouldn’t have wanted to. A different Misha? Maybe not.

With the palm of her hand the child batted once resolutely at the plate with the mashed potatoes and fish. Maja took the tiny hand and wiped it gently with a towel, each of the five little fingers individually. The child watched, nodding. After the fish, there was plain yogurt without honey. And lukewarm fennel tea. The child drank the tea from her bottle, which she could already hold by herself. She was sitting in Maja’s lap, looking intently at Alice while she drank.

Well, Maja said, time to go to bed. She carefully set the child on her feet, waiting till she had found her balance. Then she began to clear the table and said, If Misha gets better, if his temperature doesn’t go up again or something, we could order an ambulance next week. Go home, to Berlin. I want him back home. Misha wants that too. He wants to go home.

She rinsed the plates in the sink and put them into the dishwasher, having found the detergent tablets on her own. She moved around the kitchen matter-of-factly and confidently. No hesitation. Maja didn’t shy away from anything; nor did anything seem to disgust her. She wiped the table and switched on the kettle.

She said, Was his temperature up today?

Then, squatting in front of the dishwasher, she briefly studied the buttons and symbols, pushed the door of the machine shut, and turned one of the knobs firmly to the right. Soft gushing sounds. Did he have a fever today?

No, Alice said. She returned the child’s dreamy gaze, grateful for her neutral quiet. That morning, a pale young nurse had anxiously and awkwardly felt for Misha’s pulse and had taken his temperature with a digital thermometer, flinching as if someone had yelled something into her ear at the soft sound — like the chirp of a cricket — that the thermometer made. She then entered some made-up, shaky numbers on a chart and hurried out of the room. The nurse seemed afraid Misha might die while she was taking his temperature. A sudden drop in temperature. Tumbling digital numbers. Plunging towards zero. Alice had the feeling that the nurse’s touch, her fingers searching for a pulse on his wrist and then on his neck, had caused Misha pain; after that Alice no longer held his hand in hers.

She said, No, he didn’t have a fever. Then she got up and said, Let me clear away the rest. I can do it.

You always use so much water, Maja said. You just let the water run when you’re doing dishes, I’ve noticed that before. Misha used to do that, too. But I cured him of it.

Maja put the child to bed. In the room with the big matrimonial bed in front of the mirrored wardrobe. Lots of blankets and pillows. Alice sat at the table in the kitchen, listening.

Where’s the rabbit?

Where’s the rabbit?

Here’s the rabbit. Here it is.

The child’s laughter turned to exhausted crying. Maja hummed, snatches of lullabies, Morgen früh, wenn Gott will, wirst du wieder geweckt — If God will thou shalt wake, when the morning doth break … Now go to sleep. Sleep. Then it was quiet. Alice drank some fennel tea, soundlessly setting her cup down on the tabletop, a kind of meditation. After a while Maja came out of the bedroom, gently pulling the door not quite shut behind her. She sat down on the other side of the table, took a sip of tea, and, like Alice, gazed through the patio door into the dark garden. The glass pane was like a mirror.

Did he say anything to you? Maja asked.

No, Alice said. He was sleeping, the entire time. He scarcely moved. Sighed sometimes, heavily. Nothing else.

Maja nodded. She said, Well, then, I’ll be off now. I think I’d better comb my hair.

Alice said nothing. Maja washed her face in the bathroom, combed her hair; she put on a different sweater, grey with green stripes, fluffy, soft wool; it was like going out in reverse, Alice thought.

You look beautiful, she said.

Maja did look beautiful. With those distinct dark rings under the eyes, slender, pale, and tired; her hair firmly combed back off her face and pinned up. A pulsating, dark glow all around her. They went back into the bedroom and together looked at the child. She was sleeping soundly in a sleeping bag patterned with baby lambs. Lying on her back, her little arms extended in complete surrender, clutching the ear of a soft-toy rabbit in her left fist.

Call me if she wakes up and won’t stop crying, Maja said. Otherwise I’ll be back around midnight, we’ll see.

Yes, Alice said. I’ll wait for you; I’ll wait up till you come.

Alice escorted Maja to the door. They didn’t turn on the light, tiptoed up the stairs. The door to the couple’s apartment was slightly ajar; through the gap came the noises of the TV — loud applause and the glib, cynical voice of a game-show host. The hallway was cold. It smelled of supper, washing powder, and unfamiliar habits. Alice touched the handle of the front door and for a moment felt sure it would be locked. But the door opened. The evening air as overwhelming as if they hadn’t been outside for months. The light in the hallway went on, the woman was standing behind Maja; she wore a tracksuit but no shoes.

Going out so late?

Yes, Maja said. I’m going to the hospital. I want to visit my husband. I haven’t been to see him all day.

The woman grimaced as if she’d been stung, as if something had suddenly caused her pain. She had completely forgotten Maja’s husband.

Oh, I’ll drive you there.

No, thank you, not necessary, Maja said, smiling politely.

Yes, yes, the woman said. Come on, I’ll drive you there; this is no place to be walking around in the dark.

She wouldn’t take no for an answer, disappeared into her apartment as though sucked in by the blue light of the TV, said something to her husband; he said something to her, all of it drowned out by the noise of the game show. Maja rolled her eyes. Alice didn’t know what to say. The woman came back; now she was wearing shoes and a heavy cardigan. She pulled the cardigan down over her broad hips and held up the car key.

Come on. Let’s go.

All right, Maja said, see you soon. She briefly touched Alice’s arm, then disappeared behind the woman into the front yard.

Alice closed the front door. She felt dizzy. From the couple’s apartment came the same blue-cave illumination, the TV spitting out hellish laughter. She went back downstairs, into the basement apartment, locking the door behind her. The door had a frosted glass pane set into a wooden frame. Alice went into the bathroom, opened the window above the tub, a window facing the street. She could hear the car engine start, the car driving out of the driveway, turning, setting off down the street, getting fainter; then it was quiet.

Twenty minutes to walk to the hospital, twenty minutes back again. By car, five minutes. Traffic lights. Traffic at the intersection. A few scraps of conversation. Possibly the woman would decide to go in, too, for whatever reason, she just might. Then five minutes to drive back. Fifteen minutes, all in all, one long, eternal quarter hour. Alice stood in the bathroom and listened. She counted the seconds, starting at one hundred, counting down, was almost sure and yet was still surprised when she heard him. The seventy-fifth second. He came out of the apartment upstairs, did something or other at the front door. Then came down the stairs, clop, clop, clop, his feet in slippers. He turned the corner in the hall, knowing his way, no need for the light. Alice quietly left the bathroom and saw him on the other side of the frosted glass, his lumpy, heavy body. He was listening, listening just as she was. Then he knocked on the wooden door frame.

Alice pulled her plaited hair tight with both hands. Tugged the sleeves of her sweater down over her wrists. Should she open the door or not? Should she open the door or talk to him through the locked door? Show her fear or hide it? Fear of what, exactly? She cut short the stream of crazy thoughts, turned the key, and opened the door.

Yes?

He stood there with that scarred skull and his grey sweater over his fat stomach and those incredibly dirty tracksuit bottoms. He gave off a distinct, sour smell. You don’t have to lock the door here, he said.

Oh, Alice said. Her heart was beating fast. She could hardly understand him. She said, What’s the matter?

He was smiling now, in a knowing, explicit way. Just wanted to see if you’ve got everything you need. That’s what he said, if Alice understood him right.

Do you have everything you need?

He looked at Alice, her body, from the toes up, still smiling, deliberately and calmly. Alice knew what he meant, and he knew that she knew. Maybe in a figurative sense both of them might not mean the same thing, but in a direct sense they did.

Actually, I don’t have any of the things I need, Alice thought. None of them. She said, Thanks, I have everything I need. We have everything, really. Thank you very much.

He thrust himself one heavy step forward and looked past her into his old apartment. Heard the familiar whispering of the dishwasher. Maybe it all seemed different to him now, what with all of Alice’s, Maja’s, and the child’s things in it. Alice’s jacket hanging on the coat rack. And the child’s soft, tiny shoe on the floor under the table and next to it the green plastic ball — all of it dipped in sadness; he could see how different it was.

Alice let him look. She looked too. She waited, knowing that it didn’t matter what her answer had been. He had ten minutes, fifteen at most — in that time anything was possible. But she didn’t come towards him, that made him hesitate, and the sadness repelled him, like an illness.

Alice said, Well, then, good night.

He still hesitated.

She said, Good night, again.

He retreated. Clop, clop, back up the stairs. Stopping before the last step — maybe she’d call him back. Alice wondered what Misha would have expected her to do. She didn’t have a clue. Holding her hand to her mouth, she listened as the man got to the top. Then at last the TV chatter stopped as his apartment door closed.

Maja came back around midnight. Alice had made another pot of fennel tea, with honey, drinking it all, along with three of the child’s biscuits. She had pulled open several kitchen drawers, had gazed at the contents and closed them again. In the cutlery drawer, countless little spoons rattling around, spoons from cough-medicine packages, tiny ice-cream spoons, plastic spoons. Messy, she said under her breath. Below the video recorder there were cassettes with handwritten labels, dubious content. On the recessed shelves, art paper, scissors, and used-up glue sticks. It was getting more and more depressing. She forced herself to stop looking.

She’d emptied the dishwasher, putting the plates and cups into the cupboard above the stove, an involuntary imitation of a different life. Had tried to resist watching TV, then capitulated. She had fallen asleep at the table, head on her arms, safe in the random order of the objects around her: teats, Maja’s barrette, tea bags, crayons, and a children’s cardboard book with soft corners. Suddenly she started up, her hands were numb. But the child was still sound asleep, her left hand tightly clamped around the rabbit’s ear, and no heavy shadow in the hall outside the door. Alice went into the room where she would be sleeping, had opened the couch and made up her bed. A blue sheet. Her nightgown next to the pillow. Shades down, patio door open. A gentle breeze outside, the brave constancy of things, their unambiguous names, the child would learn them all: tree, chair, garden, sky, moon, and hospital. Lit-up windows, dark windows. Small figures behind them, a Maja, a Misha, a nun.

11:45 PM.

Night watch.

Maja came back silently, without making a sound on the stairs or in the hallway; there was only her knock on the frosted glass pane. She was surprised to find that Alice had locked the door, Was everything all right? Yes, Alice said, everything’s all right, but it made me feel better this way.

Maja went to check on the child, briefly and conscientiously; she always seemed to have just enough strength for the things that had to be considered or done, no more and no less, precise and appropriate. Alice, sitting at the table, waited, her back erect, hands folded in her lap.

Want a beer? Maja asked.

Sure.

For a long time Alice rummaged among the plastic spoons for an opener, finally found one with the name of a service area near Bad Zwischenahn on it, took two bottles of beer out of the refrigerator, ice-cold. They clinked bottles, without saying a word. The beer tingled, tasting sweet; slowly it toned down something inside Alice’s head and made it go away. Expanding, stretching inwardly with alcohol? She’d read that somewhere; it seemed to be true.

It was nice at the hospital, Maja said. Very peaceful. They let me lie down next to Misha. We lay together like that for the first time in a long time. He was breathing quietly. I don’t think he was in pain. Tomorrow, around noon, I can talk with the doctor after he’s been to see Misha. Could be I even fell asleep for a little while. We slept together.

When did you first meet actually? Alice asked casually.

Don’t you know? Maja said. Pleasantly. Amazed.

No, Alice said. She really didn’t know. Misha had never mentioned it, but then she had never asked him.

The day you came back from the trip you took together.

Oh. Really? Alice said, astonished. That trip had been years ago; it was the only trip she’d ever taken with Misha, and at the end of it they had agreed to separate. I’m breaking it off now, Misha had said, once and for all. And Alice had answered, confidently, Yes, me too. They’d been content together, didn’t argue, maybe that’s why they were able to break it off. Misha had left first. Alice had stayed on a few more days. She suddenly remembered how she had started to cry after she’d taken him to the station and was driving back to the house by herself. As if he had died — she thought, Well, I’ve gone through that. I have it behind me.

Maja said, Misha was happy when he came back. When I first met him. He was doing well, he was fairly well rested.

It was the sea air, Alice said. The change in climate.

They said nothing for a while. Alice hesitated, then she said, The last evening of our trip we were sitting together — just like you and me now. Together at a table, with two bottles of beer, only it was in a garden, and it was June — but you know that already. The millennium-summer June. Still very hot, even in the middle of the night.

She thought about it, how suggestive that sounded — hot, middle of the night, millennium-summer June. Together, you and me. How vivid, the words behind the words. But that’s how it had been, one evening before Misha met Maja; who would have thought.

And then? Maja asked.

And then a spider began to spin a web between our two beer bottles, Alice said. The first threads between the bottlenecks. She indicated the size of the spider with her thumb and index finger, a grain of rice. The fine, thin strand strung between the two bottles as if over an abyss. They had been sitting next to each other, shoulder to shoulder. Watching the little spider for a while, weaving so serenely, so self-absorbed.

He was sorry, Alice said. He was sorry that he’d have to destroy her work.

And did he destroy it? Maja asked.

Well, take a guess, Alice said. They both laughed, each one softly to herself.

C’mon, let’s go to bed, Maja said. It’s already half past one. We have to get up early tomorrow. Do you want to go and see him in the morning?

And Alice said, Yes, I’d like to see him again in the morning.

They brushed their teeth. Standing next to each other at the sink on a blue towelling mat, in front of a mirror that had gold and silver shells glued to its frame. They saw each other in the mirror, their different faces.

Misha would like this, Alice thought, to see us like this. He’d be very happy, he’d say, Well, you see? — He knows. He’s got to know.

Good night, Alice said. Sleep well, Maja.

Yes, Maja said, good night. You sleep well, too, Alice.

Alice woke up when Maja knocked on her bedroom door, calling her name. Maybe she’d been knocking for quite a while already. Alice was having a hard time emerging from a deep, exhausted sleep. Later she wondered why Maja hadn’t simply come into the room. Then she was awake. A momentary memory of her childhood and what it was like to be roused in the middle of the night to go on summer holiday. Terror and excitement. She threw back the covers and called out, I’m awake. Maja opened the door and stood there with the child on her arm, a cut-out, silhouetted against the bright living room where the lamp above the table was on again, and she said, Misha is dead.

How late is it? Alice asked.

Four o’clock, Maja said. The hospital called. He died two hours ago; they just wanted to let us sleep a little longer.

Wait. I’ll get up, Alice said. She put a sweater over her nightgown, then walked barefoot into the kitchen. The child was sitting at the table, thumb in mouth, without her sleeping bag, wearing a little blue shirt with snap fasteners on the shoulder. Petit Bateau. Alice rubbed her eyes. Maja was just standing there in the middle of the room. Astronauts, Alice thought, we’re like astronauts, there’s no place to hold on to.

They wanted to know whether we’d like to see him once more, Maja said. If so, they’d wait for us. She looked utterly frightened by that.

I have to think about it, Alice said; it sounded like a question. She sat down next to the child, propped her elbows on the table. Just a moment. I have to think.

Have you ever seen a dead person?

No. I haven’t.

Maja called the hospital and said, We’re coming. Could they please wait, we need a little time because of the child and the time it takes to get there, maybe half an hour, would that be possible.

Who was on the phone? Alice asked.

Don’t know, one of the nuns, Maja said. Not the old, severe one; a young nun.

All right then, Alice said. Let’s go.

That afternoon she left for Berlin.

Maja might have stayed, but Alice felt she’d go crazy if she had to spend one more night in that apartment with the view of the hospital in which no one was lying any more. The hospital was hollow, empty. A silent shell.

If we’re not careful, Alice thought, we’ll disappear too, Maja, the child, and I; we’ll vanish without a trace in Zweibrücken.

She phoned the railway station and they gave her an exhausting train connection; she wrote the times down in her diary, a magic formula, something to hold on to. Maja and the child would fly back that evening. Together they tidied the apartment, stripped the beds, rinsed the cups, and packed their things, while the child played on the floor in front of the TV, building towers with the plastic blocks and destroying them again, building and destroying, until she lost control.

Come, let’s go back to sleep, Maja said to the child, lying down on the bed with her and breaking into tears. Alice carefully closed the door. She sat down at the table and drank three large mugs of cold, bitter, black coffee, one right after the other. In the garden on the hillside that sloped down to the valley the man was sawing some cheap wood; he didn’t look up to the terrace. He hadn’t given Alice another glance, hadn’t said a single word to her, everything had already been said. But he embraced Maja when she paid for the night and had to tell him and his wife what had happened. Maja took no notice of the embrace. No damage done. Alice had watched in amazement; Maja was a widow, vulnerable and sacred, she didn’t have to be asked whether she had everything she needed, and her answer would surely have been different from Alice’s. The wife had stuffed the rental money into the pocket of her cardigan, pretending she wasn’t going to count it, and then as if on cue, had begun to lament, raising her hands to heaven. Alice had gone into the bathroom and waited there till it was over.

I’ll drive you to the airport, the woman said to Maja. Of course I will. I’ll drive you to the airport this evening; and Alice had said she’d take a taxi to the train station even though no one had asked her.

Maja and the child slept for two more hours. Then they got up, each in her own way sleepy and confused. The child’s bare feet on the kitchen floor made a sound that Alice couldn’t stand. She said, I have to go now. She had to restrain herself to keep from putting on her jacket then and there.

I know, Maja said. It’s all right; I still have some things to do here, and then in a little while we’ll be driving to the airport. Would you take Misha’s suitcase with you? I’ll pick it up later at your place in Berlin.

It was a small suitcase. With wheels, not heavy. At the hospital that afternoon when the room had to be cleared, Maja had sorted Misha’s things. Sunlight was falling on the shiny linoleum and on the plastic sheet covering the freshly made bed. The nurses had given them a bin bag. Alice held the bag open and Maja lifted up each item in turn: pills, information about alternative cancer treatments, new socks, new pyjamas, slippers — all went into the bin bag. The things Misha had worn when he was flown to Zweibrücken went into the suitcase; the photo of Maja and the child, into the suitcase; the notebook with the blank pages, into the suitcase. They took the bag back to the nurses’ station. The child was sitting in the lap of one of the nuns and was saying newly learned words to herself, repeating them over and over, proudly, but hard to understand. Actually it sounded like: Abra. Ca. Dabra:

Abracadabra. It really did.

I don’t mind taking the suitcase, Alice said. I’m grateful to you. I don’t mind at all. She had no words for what she really wanted to say.

The cab driver was walking up the garden path. On the broken paving stones, past the flower beds and the clay turtle. The taxi was black, a limousine with tinted windows, no name of a cab company visible.

But this is a taxi, isn’t it? Alice said, not at all sure; everything was out of sync, anything was possible. The cab driver didn’t deign to answer the question. He took the suitcase from Alice, her overnight bag, retraced his steps, and loaded everything into the boot; then he got in, waiting.

We’ll see each other in Berlin, Alice said.

Yes, Maja said. She was standing in the open doorway with the child on her arm. The straw witch rustled in the draft. The azaleas in the conservatory. Afternoon light. Have a good trip.

Alice turned and walked through the garden, out to the street, and to the cab. She got into the back, rolled down the window and waved. Maja waved back. She said something to the child, the child waved too. The cab started up. Maja stepped inside the front hall with the child, closing the door behind her.