21

Malik was awake and in a teasing mood. ‘How’s your love life?’

His roommate didn’t answer. He waited for the question to disappear, to wear out over seconds and minutes. Malik had been asleep all day long and now, abruptly, had all the energy of a bouncing ball.

‘Are you not working at the warehouse anymore?’ Thomas asked. ‘All you seem to do is sleep.’

Malik shook his head. Then, smirking, he claimed he’d been poisoned. ‘Somebody spiked my cocktail last night. I swear it. They are trying to intimidate me, these people, or seduce me. I’m not sure which.’ His voice was too theatrical to be believable.

‘And the warehouse job?’

Malik pretended not to hear. ‘Any possibility of a cup of coffee?’ he said. ‘How about a cigarette? Do you have any?’

‘No.’

Malik went to the window and drew aside the curtain. ‘The warehouse closed. The owner was arrested. Don’t ask me why.’ Then, ‘Is it evening?’ he said with a kind of distress, as if the colours of night time had disorientated him.

‘It’s seven o’clock.’

‘Really? How did that happen? I’ve slept for sixteen hours.’

‘I really have no idea.’

‘Got any booze?’

‘No. But I wish I did.’

‘Then open this for me.’ Malik pulled out a bottle of wine from the satchel that hung over the bed stand. Within a few moments the wine bottle was open and Malik was midway through a rather exceptional story about the night before: ‘It was fabulous. Like no night I’ve ever had. One chap was wearing a dog-collar, I mean, a man of the cloth. I told him I would join his congregation. He winked at me and said “We don’t accept confession, only dark secrets!” I had no idea what he was talking about but I laughed so much I almost fell over. Then two women came over, started talking to me – except they weren’t women at all but old men dressed up. So ugly, but wonderful too. Have you ever heard anything like it?’

‘Sounds like you had fun.’

‘What I saw last night, I wouldn’t have believed it. Men in blond wigs. Women in top hats.’ He moved across the room, eagerly slurping from his beaker. ‘I’ve always said, this city is inexhaustible.’ Then he paused over a copy of a newspaper left on Thomas’ chair. ‘Vorwärts?’ he said with scorn. ‘You’re reading this now?’

‘Yes, why not?’

‘I didn’t know you had it in you. Thomas, you know this is a socialist paper?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, are you enlightened now?’

‘I’m weighing things up.’

‘Some things never change! When will you come down from that fence of yours? The world won’t wait for you forever!’ Malik was incredulous and thoroughly enjoying himself. ‘What should I call you then? Can we use the word proletariat?’

‘There are worse things to be called.’

‘Good, good! How about a Bolshevik?’

‘Perhaps, someday soon.’

‘You are beautiful, Thomas! When are you going to finally make up your mind?’

‘I don’t know Malik. Perhaps you’ve made up your mind too quickly!’

Malik pondered the retort. ‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to wait until I’m dead before I decide what I believe.’

‘You know Malik, you’re nothing more than a silly romantic. I don’t think you even know what any of the words mean. You’re just looking for an adventure.’

‘Oh Thomas! How can I answer that? Apart from to say, thank you. You have finally said something true!’

Malik put down his cup and paced the floor once in each direction, then returned to his beaker and filled it up again. The evening noises of the street – the fringes of the Kurfürstendamm – trickled into the room, the hum of tram wheels, the voices of people talking, someone whistling a tune. Malik moved from his place by the window and began flicking through the newspaper. At first he appeared to be reading it, but then, as a smile crept onto his face, he looked up with a sardonic eyebrow raised.

‘So, how is your love life?’

‘What now?’

‘You never did answer me?’

Thomas preferred not to be asked. Whatever happened with Käthe the day before, he preferred not to think about. But Malik was insistent.

‘Thomas? Are you going to ignore me all evening?’

‘I have nothing to say.’

‘The girl. The one from Potsdam. You have been seeing her, haven’t you?’

‘I may have ruined it,’ Thomas said, discovering some relief in the admission.

‘Tell me why.’

‘I told her I didn’t like her hair. She had it shortened and I was mad at her for it.’

‘Why Thomas?’

‘Because I didn’t like it. It’s too modern.’

‘Thomas, I don’t understand. Do you have a right to tell a woman what haircut she should have?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have a right to keep her locked in the last century?’

‘That’s what she said.’

‘Then why are you behaving like this?’

‘I don’t know. I thought she was different, not just another follower. Now I have probably ruined it with her.’

‘Will she forgive you?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Then run to her. Tell her you’re sorry. Do it quickly.’ As he said this, Malik shook his head as if the complexities of the world were entirely obvious to him. ‘You must make it up to her. Listen to me. Do all you can to repair things. Tell her she is beautiful. Admit that you made a terrible mistake.’

Thomas listened, and yet, inside himself, he found he had no appetite for Malik’s advice. Instead, there was a strange pleasure to be gained from this feeling of self-contempt. Yes, he had done the wrong thing. But so be it! He would have to suffer for it. He shrugged off Malik’s encouragements, gathered himself off his bed and went to the washbasin to wet his hands and face. Then he put on a woollen cardigan and sat back down on his bed. Tired still, he began to sift through a collection of odds and ends, of coins and trinkets and cinema tickets and other assorted material he kept on a brass tray on his bedside table, pushing his finger through the jetsam so the tray beneath made a scratchy noise. He let his fingers hover over a pair of tram stubs he kept from his first date with Käthe.

‘You are lost, aren’t you?’ Malik said, pointing to Thomas’ restless hands. At this, Malik went to his jacket and just like a magic trick conjured a bag full of food. He pulled out Wurst and Schinken. All types of meat. Some Pumpernickel and Kümmelbrot, a thick block of cheese, some apples, and a second bottle of wine. He poured another cup for each diner, and distributing the food between them, he raised a toast.

‘Here’s to the future: when Thomas will eventually find himself!’

Thomas raised his cup and allowed himself to smile. For the next twenty minutes they gorged on the food, and Thomas, in a happy moment of unruliness, sank three cups of wine in succession. By the time he lifted his head, he felt dazed and a little bit sick.

Malik looked up. ‘Well? Have I made you happy with my feast?’

‘Yes you have. You are remarkable. Quite remarkable.’

Malik stood up and stretched his arms, half-triumphantly and half-worn out. ‘God help me. I need to find some relief. Let’s leave Berlin, Thomas. Sometimes it gets too much, even for me. Let’s go somewhere where nobody knows us. Where we don’t know the language and they don’t know ours, where we will look out of place. I want to be a tourist, feel like a stranger. How about it? Let’s travel somewhere, somewhere warm. What about Italy? We’ll drink lots, chase girls, and get into fights with the local boys. What do you say to that?’

Thomas didn’t respond. His mind was on his own life. He took a bite from an apple, realised he was quite drunk by now, and thought that it was probably time to go to work.

He went to the window and looked down the street below. It was raining now and the long avenue was covered in a cloak of shifting grey. He would have to walk through this downpour.

Then he noticed something on the ground, right below his window. It was just where he’d seen old Beenken scrubbing away at the swastika sign, the one painted in black on the pavement.

Beenken had washed it all away. But now, with the rain making the ground wet, the sign seemed to be resurfacing. He could see its hooked arms emerging from the gloom, a ghost of the sign rising out of the stone.

Then he realised.

In Potsdam, looking over the railings, he’d seen the same thing. Only then he’d seen a hooked limb and a bent arm. He’d seen the silhouette of a body on the ground.

But it was no body at all. He saw now it was just a painted swastika, a daubed symbol, cleaned up but brought back to life when the rain fell.

Had he wanted to see a body when there wasn’t one? Had he invented the idea to give him reason to punish Erich?

No, he’d seen the boy go over. It wasn’t an invention. He saw it all. And yet, the realisation of the swastika on the street brought a new wave of doubt. Just when he thought he knew the truth, it eluded him once more.

He left the apartment feeling dazed by drink. As he walked, nothing seemed real. He saw reflections of people passing in glass windows, the warbling echoes of the city. The rainfall had not drained away, so the asphalt roads glistened like shellac. Further ahead, a stone flight of steps met with the pavement – the entrance to a theatre – and on the steps moved evening hats, walking canes, feathers and overcoats, now immersed in the business of pleasure, men and women exchanging smiles in a genteel act, a veneer for eager flirtations. Tall gaudy lights loomed above, spreading unearthly radiance into the sky. And in the queue on the staircase, the punters rubbed their hands for warmth, ready to give applause to the dancers, actors and singers about to take to the stage. Across the street, music came from behind a glass façade, where inside couples danced to an up-tempo rhythm. The gigantic city seemed to spread all about, as big as the night itself. Thomas looked onto these brightly coloured lights and excited activity. He listened to the voices and the music, yet he was met with a kind of silence. That which dazzled most brightly was furthest from his grasp, and all that seemed close-by was mute. Then, he knew how it had to be, how his initiation into the city had come to an end and already his exile was underway.