Flashback

Chapter Three

Berlin, two weeks before

Saskia Brandt lived in an apartment in a north-western borough of Berlin called Wedding, which had formed half of the French sector, along with Reinickendorf, prior to reunification. The area struck Jem as a dead space that had been overlooked by the booming 1990s. Shops signs were as often Turkish as German. There was a Londonish coolness in the expressions of strangers. The houses and apartment blocks were grey cut-outs. It was, however, tidy. Nobody hung wet clothes from windows. The dooryards, driveways and pavements were scrubbed. Recycling bins were orderly and padlocked. This was Germany. But, equally, the fading aroma of dog shit rose from the roadside trees and the air was dusty, even this deep into autumn. Berlin was a flat city but the area around Saskia’s apartment felt too sheltered; it suffered from the lee of greater boroughs, missed opportunities and the doldrums of the everyday.

After shopping for clothes in Charlottenberg, they had returned to Wedding via the U-Bahn and begun the long walk up Dubliner Strasse towards the apartment. Jem listened to Saskia tell her about the borough and its problems while a second voice inside Jem, equally serious, told her that there was something doubly foreign about Saskia. It went beyond the German habit of treating life as a job, which Jem found both sensible and infuriating. It was a feeling that Saskia operated on many levels and Jem could sense only one.

The monologue had ended by the time they reached the apartment because Jem had been too tired to feign interest in tunnels dug beneath a wall that had fallen before her milk teeth. Saskia had not taken this personally. Indeed, she seemed to take nothing personally in recent days. A smile; then Saskia moved on.

The apartment block was six storeys of concrete surrounded by a car park. There was a school opposite. It was closed. Children went home for lunch in Germany. Jem watched Saskia climb the steps to the front door and open it.

‘Could you collect my post from the box?’ she asked. ‘It’ll lock itself when you close it.’

Jem, carrying one bag of shopping to Saskia’s two, said, ‘Sure.’

After a simple dinner, Jem helped Saskia load the dishwasher and tried to convince her that she should style her hair. Saskia agreed and Jem took a pair of scissors from the kitchen and followed her to the balcony.

Until now, there had been no question of a sexual relationship between them. They were friends. The question formed as Saskia’s hair fell on the spread towel like cinders and Jem leaned close. They spoke little. Opposite, across the balcony rail, the school’s windows flickered with the last of the sun.

‘You are not giving me a fringe, correct?’ said Saskia, tilting her head.

‘I could just dye it.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘How about platinum?’

‘No, thank you. And not too short.’

Jem gathered the stiff bristles between her knuckles and snipped. She was thinking about the last person whose hair she had cut. Wolfgang, her boyfriend, who was waiting for her back at their own apartment.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Jem. ‘It’ll be short as.’

‘As what?’

‘As possible. It’s an expression. Like when you say, ‘I’ll be there as soon as’.’

In a blank tone that suggested her true thoughts were elsewhere, Saskia said, ‘English has some nice expressions. I like ‘kick the bucket’. And ‘up the swanny’.’

‘‘Pissed as a rat’.’

‘‘This beer belly is a fuel tank for a love machine’.’

Jem gave a forced laugh, partly to cover the tremor in her voice. This was too much. Saskia didn’t deserve what was in store for her. Not the amateur, first-time sex, which was only the start. There was also Wolfgang’s plan.

Saskia said, ‘A Scottish police officer told me that one. He knew a lot about beer bellies.’

‘It’s more like a chat-up line, anyway. Like, ‘If I said you had a sexy body, would you hold it against me?’’

‘‘Get your coat, petal’,’ said Saskia. ‘‘You’ve pulled’.’

Jem put the scissors and comb on the flower-box and tipped Saskia’s head forward, shooing the hairs. Then she moved in front of her to inspect the arrangement. It was shorter. Well balanced. At the same time, for want of a mirror, Saskia evaluated her expression.

‘And?’

‘Pretty,’ said Jem.

‘‘Pretty as’?’

‘Just pretty.’

Saskia smiled with one side of her mouth.

Question, thought Jem. What’s the answer?

‘I hope you didn’t dye it blue.’

‘As if I would.’

‘Yeah,’ Saskia said, ‘like as if.’

‘You’re beautiful.’

Saskia did not reply. She looked at Jem as though the remark was a bad joke. A real groaner. When she rose and went inside, having still said nothing, Jem did not follow. She looked at the sensible German flower-box and the chair that would fold as neatly as a Japanese fan. An early memory returned: telling her brother Danny that if you folded a piece of paper enough times it would get smaller and smaller until it disappeared and, shit yeah, she was prepared to demonstrate the fact if he found it so funny. Jem put her hands on the rail and leaned into the dusk. She thought of the school children. Her ties to the past had been hopelessly snared—caught in aircraft doors, threaded through trains, tangled in those of strangers. The recovery of her former life? Fucking futile as.

She fastened her wristwatch and wiggled her jade ring into place.

Loneliness followed her inside.

In the living room, Jem fell into a chair and fixed her expression on a book spine whose silver letters were still sparkling in the dusk. Kinder- und Hausmärchen. There was a lamp at hand. If she wanted, she could turn it on and thumb through the Grimm’s fairy tales. But she sat there. The plan was not working. What was she going to do about Wolfgang? The noise of the shower filled the apartment. The seduction had not worked. Jem held her temples and said, ‘Shit.’

Jem remained in this position until, a minute later, the shower stopped. She dried her tearful eyes on her sleeve and listened to the soft sounds of Saskia’s footsteps. Jem turned her head a fraction and looked in the mirror to the left of the bookcase. At first, the shadows were difficult to interpret. Something grew from the deep blackness. It had hints of human movement. Suddenly, Jem saw that it was Saskia. She was naked. She seemed unaware of the mirror—though Jem did not believe this—and her steps were longer, slower than usual.

A moment later, Saskia’s breath warmed her earlobe.

‘Me again.’

‘I like your perfume, Saskia.’

‘Do you? It was made for me in the south of France.’

Jem did not move.

‘I’m not,’ continued Saskia, ‘a…whatever the word is.’

‘I’m not sure I am either.’

‘But we can try.’

‘Have I chatted you up, then?’

‘Yes. I thought it over.’

‘Well, you had me at ‘Guten Tag.’’

‘Take my hand.’

Saskia’s fingers closed over Jem’s.