6

The old friends split like two leaves falling from the same wind-beaten tree. They took separate trains back to Berlin, and it crossed Thomas’ mind that they might never speak to each other again.

At seven o’clock the following morning, the hovering rays of morning cut through Thomas’ curtains like soundless intruders. Outside his apartment door some men were arguing, an angry rally of shouts that left him wide awake.

He dressed and tidied up his room. His apartment was long and narrow, consisting of a series of alcoves that somehow provided space for a kitchen, a bedroom and a dining room. In those quarters, he became an expert in frugal living, not only in monetary terms, but in spatial economy too. The only way to make the room physically habitable was to do away with furniture, a state of affairs he grew so used to that he forwent any decoration too, including ornaments on the walls and any homely comforts for the floor. When, occasionally, a visitor came around, they would always make the same comment – ‘How could you possibly live like this?’ – which annoyed and pleased Thomas in equal measure. (He remembered someone once saying, ‘Your room is so inhospitable it’s offensive,’ and that made him smile.)

He went to the window, drew back the curtain and mindfully sifted through the people below. He looked along to the end of the Kurfürstendamm. If he pressed his face to the glass and looked to the left, he could see the Gedächtniskirche, that strange and lonely church amongst the stifling mêlée of car horns and commerce.

His building sat incongruently at the end of a row of lavish residences erected across the street from a theatre. The building was a slim, three-storey tenement house with eleven rooms. It was a crumbling, downbeat structure that clung to the end of a well-mannered cast of apartments like a parasite. Here was the story of Berlin in a single architectural anomaly.

In the beginning, the building had been an exciting place to live. All manner of people passed through – lawyers, actors, chefs, students, soldiers, policemen, artists – some on their way up, many on their way down. At times, it could feel like a series of life-lessons passing before his eyes, the variety of ways a person could be thrown into success or cast into failure by circumstances beyond their control.

The long-standing proprietor of the whole apartment block was known as Herr Beenken. Now here was a man of pitiful appearance! By the age of fifty, he had the look of a man twenty years older. His face was marred by a string of uncommon illnesses that stole from him any hint of vitality. He smoked a pipe all day through and most of the night too, out of pure boredom mainly, never pausing to step out into the wider city, which was too daunting by far. Rumour had it that Beenken once had a son who ended up on murder charges. They said he set light to a motorcar with another man inside it in a botched attempt to fake his own death. The rumour also said that he went to the guillotine for it – not that Beenken had ever hinted at any of this to Thomas. Most of the time, he was a lonesome presence inside the building, to be found pressed up against a window somewhere, firing his pipe and sending swells of blue smoke upwards from his overweight silhouette.

What made matters worse was that Beenken had taken a distinct liking to Thomas as if he considered him a true friend. His visits to Thomas’ room were as predictable as they were punishing. The usual creak of the bannister, the slow whine of the floorboard before the door, that revolting cough – a sharp hak, hak, hak. Then the turning of the key in the lock, an intrusion Thomas had no power to stop. Through the gap the old man’s face slowly slid into view, grinning apologetically as he shuffled in with new linen for the bed, his little eyes creased up behind little spectacles, the trace of pipe-stink and fetor carried in on his clothes.

‘Did you hear?’ Beenken said that morning as he arrived into Thomas’ room, ‘about the latest resident driven out for falling into arrears? All his clothes thrown out into the street? He’s a destitute now.’

Beenken had recently hired some hard-nuts to take care of the rough and tumble, and spoke now in fascinated tones as if referring to some remote piece of hearsay, not his own handiwork.

Beenken wore the same musty tweed suit every day. The jacket was too large, and the trousers, lacking a belt or pair of braces, were worn halfway up his torso and required pulling up every half-minute or so. He paused by the chair, ran his meaty hand across his brow, pushing his side-parting back into place, then cast his eyes around the room, hoping to start a conversation that might prolong his visit. His face trembled, his round, rubicund features a picture of illness. His eyes were puffy and pink, and between his lips a small array of two or three grey teeth poked through and seemed to be there regardless of whether his mouth was open or closed. Presently, he raised his finger in the air to make a point and began muttering the beginnings of sentences only for them to slip into nothingness as his train of thought derailed. He continued to do this for the next three minutes, pottering about the room as he did, and was just about to leave when finally he hit upon something solid to delay his exit.

‘Yes, yes’ he said, as if halfway through a discussion. ‘I have been lucky to land on my feet. These few rooms bring me a comfortable income, and given my age, this life of leisure is fitting. I suppose that’s the way of things.’ He paused until another thought came to him. ‘Have I told you? I have taken to reading philosophy in my spare time, and believe I am an excellent pupil. I am reading the great Schopenhauer, whom I am sure you have studied yourself?’

Thomas shook his head.

‘He is a most interesting character. One day we shall have to discuss his Distinctions. But – ah yes, that can wait for another day. Suffice to say, I receive enough income from these few rooms to see me through to my expiration. It is a comfortable income, and I have you to thank for that.’ Beenken smiled his very best paternal smile. ‘And what is more, I won’t have to sell my war medals now I have this convenient pension – they were my nest egg you know? And they are highly prized. You are aware that I have many admirers in the museums of Berlin who would do just about anything to get their hands on my medals? Oh, they would do anything for my collection from the last war, and especially for my Frederick collection, which I keep in a very special hiding place. Yes, yes. It is true, Frederick was a diplomat of the first order. I know you have a grasp of history so I won’t talk too much about Silesia, but let us agree he was also a military leader of true genius. History has hardly known a man like him. Men were prepared to go to their graves for Frederick. Brave men. Oh yes. Had I been there – well, I am a coward you see. Even so, I would have surely died a noble death. Even me. We are talking about a man who could inspire armies. Oh well, it is our misfortune to have lived through these times and not his.’

Beenken sighed. Thomas knew all too well about his affections for the military. Beenken in fact went to great lengths to present himself as if from military stock, an ex-soldier perhaps, steeped in the histories and decorum of army life. But in truth he’d never worn a uniform and not a single one of the medals he spoke of was his own (most of them had been bought from pawnbrokers when inflation hit veterans hard). The fact was, his kinship with the military was more wishful thinking than fact, and those who visited his room above Thomas’ were invariably surprised by the lack of decorum in the furnishings, the shabbiness of its appearance and how his belongings amounted to little more than a pile of rubbish.

Beenken’s three grey teeth propped up a smile. ‘The next time this country goes to war, it will be under another Frederick, and we will have a new generation to go to battle.’ With this comment he smirked, almost childishly.

‘I’m not a soldier,’ Thomas objected. ‘I’ve no appetite to kill a complete stranger.’

‘We are all soldiers – wouldn’t you fight for your country?’

‘I would do all I could to make friends with the enemy.’

‘My dear boy, now I know you’re pulling my leg. After all, your country is all you have. Without it you are nothing.’

‘I’d like to make my own choice about that.’

‘Oh yes, of course – it’s your life. That is why I respect you. But remember this: A man’s country is his most important unit of identity. I will say no more on the matter.’ Beenken adjusted his parting again and took on a self-satisfied look. ‘I say boy,’ he began again. ‘Have you seen my flag? Oh yes, my family has its own standard; I take it whenever I go on visits.’ Thomas laughed to himself; he knew Beenken never visited anywhere. ‘And it will pass on from my generation to the next when I die. But you mustn’t think of me in a different light just because I have my own flag. No, I wouldn’t allow it. I have to earn your respect. Does that sound strange to you? That I should have to earn your respect? Well, it shouldn’t. I would not deserve it otherwise. After all, we must never forget, a General is only as powerful as the allegiance of his men…’

Beenken pushed his hair across his forehead and looked about pensively for a moment. Thomas felt sure the old man was losing his sanity, especially when he swung from one dubious story to another, as he did next (and he was on particularly good form that day). ‘I’m thinking of buying a cow, Thomas. An English breed I think. I’ll put her out to pasture on the grass behind the building and collect the milk each evening. What do you think of that? A good idea, yes? Then one day I will take her to the slaughter and feast on her for a whole year. You must let me know if you want any meat, before it all runs out.’

Beenken turned away distracted and muttered to himself a few words, then taking babyish steps, as if his balance might just falter, or perhaps longing for a mother’s arms to cradle him, he left the room.

Thomas breathed a sigh of relief. He got up and put away his new linen, then went to the window that overlooked the small patch of land to the rear of the building. He pictured a cow tethered there nibbling the scraps of grass, this rough square of dirt surrounded by trees and a brick wall on one side. During the day local residents would walk through the square; schoolchildren came and went in the afternoon. By twilight groups of older men populated the two benches, usually the shopkeepers, the grocers and the booksellers. The old men were later usurped by a series of night time revellers who arrived and left without pattern, drinking beer and singing. From then on the area fell quiet, but if one listened carefully one could hear the sing-song giggles of tipsy young couples among the trees. And when the noises were particularly expressive, Thomas would look out of his window and try to locate their shadows. At the same time, he would invariably hear the creak of floorboards above him and would know that Beenken was also looking out of his window over the same square of dirt, their eyes occupied by the same trembling darkness.

Just then, the old walrus put his head back through the doorway. ‘Yes, yes, I knew there was something else. I forgot to mention. You’ve got a new roommate. I’ll bring him by tomorrow if you don’t mind. You don’t mind do you?’

Thomas glowered. ‘A new roommate! My rent covers this whole apartment! I’m not prepared to share. Not for a minute.’

Beenken shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. A new roommate for Thomas. That’s what I’ve been told.’

‘I won’t stand for it!’

‘The boy’s name is Malik. It’s been decided. That’s the way things are I suppose.’ Beenken shrugged again, withdrew his head and closed the door behind him.

Thomas threw his shoe at it.