He boarded the plane and sat in his seat by the window, watching as the bags were loaded below, impatient to take off. Taking the magazine from the seat pocket, he flicked through the slippery pages containing advertisements for luxury goods. People felt their richest when they travelled. He looked at the photos designed to seduce. He was glad he had freed himself from having to take pictures like this, telling small but inviting lies about the world.
As the plane lifted from the ground, he felt a sudden lightness, as though he was now, after weeks of procrastinating, on his way to solving all his problems. Optimism flooded through him like warm mead.
A little less than two hours later, the plane was circling over Berlin. He could just make out the cranes, yellow and orange struts perched next to buildings. It was a city permanently under construction, building and rebuilding itself, always conscious of the ruins from which it had come. From above, the Spree, silver in the sunlight, sliced through Berlin like a corrugated blade.
He retrieved his baggage then boarded a bus to the city centre. There was something comforting about moving through streets he knew and the familiar voices around him.
Instead of going straight to their apartment, he got off at Alexanderplatz and walked through Mitte, seeking out the familiarity of the streets there. He wanted to visit his studio first, the place where he’d spent most of his time in Berlin. He wanted to regain that sense of belonging he’d had before he left. How fleeting the feeling was; it came and, the moment he got used to it, he lost it again. Around him, Berlin was a patchwork of ugliness and beauty, a city that had survived a terrible history and had become something different and good. He loved this broken city.
When he reached the Spree he looked down at the water, which was dark and still. The metal rail along the edge felt frozen cold. He couldn’t imagine wanting to submit to that darkness, the way Kirsten had submerged herself in the lake. He started walking towards his studio and on his way a group of young Australian girls with long hair passed him and their easy accent broke his concentration.
He walked through the front door and up one flight of stairs. He could never reconcile the grey exterior of the building and its sharp, definite lines, with the expansive spaces inside. The rooms in the building were big, cavernous and cool, ideal for studios. When he worked there, he liked being able to hear the movement of other people in the rooms above and beside his studio. He often thought when he was there of bees in a hive, working separately but together, towards a common purpose.
He unlocked his studio and the room was as empty as he’d left it. As he looked around he saw it contained no trace of him. He came here each day, he laboured, agonised over photographs or ideas he had for them. He failed constantly and he hated himself for it. And then, each night, he returned home to Dom. Her love gave him permission to fail.
His phone rang.
‘Hello?’
‘Andrew? It’s Pippa.’ He felt suddenly nervous, worried that she’d be angry at him for allowing Phoebe’s image to be printed in a newspaper. ‘I got your email.’
‘The review?’
‘Yes. Phoebe was impressed too. It sounds like the exhibition was a success?’ There was a sudden quavering in her voice.
‘Yes, I suppose it was.’ He shut the door of his studio and walked out into the shadowy hall.
‘Aren’t you happy?’
‘Happy? I don’t know if that’s the right word. Maybe more like relieved.’ There were old glazed tiles lining the walls around him, a pattern of creams and a crimson so dark it might have been drawn from blood.
‘Yes, I think I know what you mean.’
‘You weren’t upset, then?’
‘About what?’
‘That they put Phoebe’s photo in the paper?’
‘I suppose I was aware something like that might happen.’
He sighed. ‘I didn’t tell you, but I was thinking about not exhibiting Phoebe’s photographs at all. In the end, though, I felt I had to go through with it.’
‘I’m glad you did. The photos are striking. Sometimes when I look at them I think it doesn’t even look like Phoebe at all.’
‘I guess. I don’t know.’ He said his next words without really formulating them; they were words he had been thinking around. ‘I used to think photographs were my way of speaking.’ He wasn’t sure why he was telling her this; for some reason he thought she’d understand.
‘Your photographs are a beautiful language.’
‘I thought photography could be everything I needed. But they are no substitute for conversation. Or laughing. Or touch.’
‘I suppose not.’
There was a pause. Neither of them spoke, but there was no discomfort in their silence.
‘Phoebe’s here. Would you like to speak to her quickly?
‘Sure,’ he said, switching the phone to his other ear.
‘Hello?’ she said, as though the word were a question.
‘Hi, Phoebe. How are you?’
‘I’m good. My photograph was in the paper.’ She sounded much younger on the phone than she did in person.
‘It was, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that would happen.’
‘I don’t mind. I like the photo.’ She was quiet for a moment. ‘I’ve been using the camera you gave me. Mostly I’ve been taking photos of plants. I really like leaves, the under-side with all the veins.’
‘Leaves? I’m not sure I’ve ever photographed a leaf.’
‘I think I understand why you take photos now.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Like the photograph of me. I’ll never be like that again, will I? I’ll always be changing,’ she said.
‘Yes, you will.’
‘Because I’m living and it’s not. I like the camera, but maybe I won’t be a photographer when I grow up. Maybe I’ll be something else instead.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘Still something like what you do. Something that lets me say what I feel,’ she said, loudly and clearly.
He closed his eyes and smiled, looking at the ceiling where watermarks had gathered in unusual shapes.
When they were finished talking he stood up and moved towards his old Rolleiflex, still sitting there on the shelf. He picked it up and it felt metallic, the surface rough. The camera was a box of mystery given to him by his father that he hadn’t been able to put down since.
Speaking to Pippa and Phoebe he understood he’d caused no permanent harm. Maybe he’d even in some way helped.
•
He took the U-Bahn to Kottbusser Tor and walked the familiar path to their apartment, his suitcase bumping along the grooves in the cement as he pulled it behind him. Thud, thud, thud, it sounded at regular intervals, like a measuring wheel. He’d walked this street so often he had the feeling that he was doing nothing unusual; he was returning home after a day’s work and Dom would be as happy to see him as she always had been.
He crossed the street, walking on a diagonal. Since he’d been there last, the earth had tilted on its axis, moving back towards the sun. A feeling rose in him, a good feeling, a warm one. Such happiness in these moments before he had suffered disappointment, such bliss when all he had at his disposal was hope.
Not far away, the train thudded over its elevated track, the racket of metal and bolts that held it together. Along the side of the apartment building he saw graffiti, large swollen letters in green and silver, painted there in the black of night and now catching the last light of the day. What would Dom say to him now? Would she allow him to resume their love?
He buzzed the apartment instead of using his key. The noise was sudden and crude. Through the intercom he heard a voice, but one so far away it sounded like the trace of a voice, carried off by the wind.
‘Dom?’
He thought he heard his name. The door clicked open when he pushed it.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs, unsure he could make it all the way to the top with his heavy suitcase. He negotiated the first flight of stairs and rested on the landing with his suitcase at his feet.
It was peaceful in the stairwell. He always enjoyed standing there, in this hall of doors. The winter light through the glass was watery. It filled the stairwell with ambient light. The branches on the trees outside cast spidery shadows on a wall. He felt suddenly alert. He was assessing the room for light, he realised. It was his automatic reaction to the world, to decide whether it would make a good photograph.
He looked up through the staircase towards his own door. There was light seeping out beneath it. It was faint but warm; it was the light they lived by. He took his suitcase in his hand and kept moving towards it.