At last the news reached the children’s home. The police had found the piece of paper in Radu’s pocket and made contact with Bernhardt Mannheim. They wanted to know if the dead man had any connexion with the home.
The child gazed at Irma and Bernhardt, bewildered; after a long pause he said slowly, ‘He was my mother’s friend. I think Mama very sad.’
The two youth workers looked at him, not knowing what to say. Then at last Bernhardt sat down, and pointed to a chair for Ion. He perched on the edge, looking blank.
‘Ion – would you like to go and live in a family soon? With a mother and father who would look after you in their house?’
‘House?’ he repeated.
‘Yes, a nice house. You see, I think we can find you some foster parents. Do you understand?’
‘I leave here?’
Irma nodded, squatting down beside him, disconcerted by the emptiness in his eyes. ‘Yes, but you would not be, far away, I think. The people, they will treat you like their own child.’
‘And can Franklin come too?’
She glanced up at Bernhardt, who frowned, and shrugged. ‘That is difficult, Ion,’ he said.
‘I want to … stay with Franklin.’
Bernhardt’s voice was gentle. ‘Ion, children have to leave here. Franklin will soon go to another children’s home where he will stay for a long time. Nobody stays here for very long. That is how it works, you see.’
‘But my mother, she comes to find me. Very soon. I told here I was here.’
Again, the two Germans exchanged glances. Ion had resolutely refused to give them any more information about his mother, other than her first name.
‘You wrote to her?’ asked Bernhardt.
Quickly, Irma pulled up a chair and sat close to Ion, taking his hand. ‘Ion, if we could tell your mother you’re well … and we could find out when she is coming … Please, won’t you tell us how we can telephone her? Now?’
Ion looked down, and was silent. His hand lay slackly in hers; she squeezed it encouragingly.
Radu was dead. The man who had brought him, the man who (his mother had told him again and again) had given them a home when he was born, the man whose voice down the line had sounded so flat and sad … He was dead. They said he was running away, but no one knew why. He was coming to see me, thought Ion, and his eyes smarted. But he would not cry, never again.
Yet now, with Radu dead, everything depended on his mother coming soon. He knew she would come, and maybe … maybe if she told them when, they would let him stay – and Franklin too. He looked up at the clock on the wall, and made his decision. ‘She is at her work,’ he said.
Irma sighed raggedly: they had broken through. ‘Yes, Ion, but we can telephone her at work. We can do it today. Tell us where she works … is it in Bucharest?’
He nodded, looked as if he was going to speak, then hesitated.
‘Please, Ion. We won’t tell anyone why we want to talk to her. We will just speak to her – and maybe you can speak to her too!’ said Bernhardt, thinking ruefully of the telephone bill, and the low budget he had to administer.
At that Ion jerked his head up sharply, his eyes bright. A deep breath, and he said, ‘British Embassy. Her work is the British Embassy.’
‘Good!’ said Irma, giving his hand a final squeeze. ‘Now you can go and play, Ion, and we will start trying. Sometimes it takes a long time. But when we reach her, we will call you. I promise.’ Then, in rapid German to Bernhardt, ‘My God, I hope we can get hold of her and work something out. This kid – he gets to me, somehow …’
It took Bernhardt Mannheim forty minutes to get through to the British Embassy, Bucharest. He asked the woman on the switchboard if he could speak to Ana Popescu, and after a long pause, she muttered something he could not quite catch. She was obviously trying to transfer him, and he waited patiently, wondering what Ion’s mother would sound like. At last a voice said something in Romanian, and he repeated his request (in slow English) to speak to Ana Popescu.
‘There is nobody here of that name,’ said the woman’s voice coldly, without hesitation.
‘Please, I am telephoning from Germany … I have information about Ana Popescu’s son, so I must speak to her. I know she works there. Please can you give her a message?’
‘Nobody of that name works here,’ the woman repeated, her voice tinny.
‘Look, I am with the Youth Department of Frankfurt, West Germany. This is an official inquiry. I can telephone the German Ambassador to Romania, and ask him to find out from the British. But perhaps you will be able to help me, after all?’
There was a short pause. Then, in a slightly different tone, the women said. ‘I am Floria Milea, and I have the job Ana Popescu left. She has gone. A long time ago. Nobody knows anything about her. I am sorry.’
‘Where?’
‘I am sorry, I am unable to help you. Goodbye.’
Ion was playing table football with Franklin when they called him. His face brightened, and he almost ran from the room, leaving Franklin alone, staring after him and kicking the table leg: preoccupied, almost morose. He was still angry; he had been told he would be transferred to a children’s home at Wuppertal, where he would have more lessons, and some training as a mechanic. And Ion? he had asked. Ion would be fostered very soon; there were plenty of families ready to take a child his age. Franklin shook his head, wondering at the anticipation in Ion’s face.
The youth workers were used to telling the children bad news. So many of them had been sent away by their parents with a promise that in a week or so they would follow. As the days passed – one week, two, three, four – it dawned on the children that this would never happen. Or sometimes they had to be told, to stop them waiting, to enable them to progress to the next stage. And then they wept more bitterly than ever before, or sat in numbed silence, miserable and confused, as Ion did now.
‘I am sorry, Ion,’ said Irma, so softly Bernhardt could barely hear her. ‘There must be a good reason for your mother … er … not to be there. Do you understand what I am saying?’
He nodded, staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed and glassy, like those of a doll.
There was a short silence. Then Bernhardt spoke. ‘Ion, we think it would be much better for you to move to live with a family now. They will treat you like their own child – and when you are settled they will help you write to your mother again. We don’t know what has happened. But you can try again …’
‘Yes, dear, you can keep trying, and I’m sure you will hear from her … one day,’ said Irma. She wished he would cry. It was easier to deal with than this silence.
Ion went on staring. He did not even blink. Then at last he opened his mouth, slowly, like a fish. ‘He is in shock,’ muttered Bernhardt in German, as, to their astonishment, the child began to sing – a thin, faraway sound:
Nani, nani puiul mamii şi al cucoanei
Vino peste de mi-l creste
Şi tu somn de mi-l adorni
Şi tu stiuca de mi-l culca …
He rocked to and fro, closing his eyes briefly, as if the lullaby had sent him to sleep.
Irma and Bernhardt glanced at each other, full of pity, each wishing at that moment that they had chosen some other form of work. Their hands swung helplessly at their sides. ‘Ion?’
He swivelled his eyes to look at Irma, without moving his head – like a little robot. Then in a flat, bleak voice he said, ‘I think my mother is dead.’
‘But we don’t know that. We …’ She faltered, not knowing what they knew, nor what there is to be known, all certainties vanished, and the universe contracting in that second to the blank, abandoned misery on a single child’s face.
‘Mama is dead. She will not come for me. I know it.’ Then he looked from one to the other, gave a small, matter-of-fact shrug, and left the room.
He paused for a second outside the door, shaking his head slightly as a dog flings off the last few drops of water. Then he went across to look at the map of the world, staring for a long, long time at the little marker which represented him, in the middle of Romania. Other children passed by and stared at him but he took no notice; a Kurdish boy his own age tapped him on the shoulder and indicated the cricket bat he was carrying, but Ion shook his head, turning back to his contemplation.
It was so big, Romania, much bigger than Hungary or Bulgaria. His eyes roved upwards. But Germany was big too, just a different shape. And up there was England, his mother’s favourite, the place she read all those books about, carried home from work and studied under the candle. He never really understood why she liked it so much, although he knew that there were wonderful shops in London, as in Frankfurt, Paris, and New York. Maybe that was it … He frowned. But no; Mama wasn’t like that. What was she like?
He squinted hard at the map, so that outlines blurred and colours merged – remembering. Suddenly it seemed desperately important to fix an image, in case it faded, and – chase it as he would – could never be caught again. What was she like? Her hair, he thought suddenly, was rather like Italy, long and straight, with that little flick at the end. Staring at the land mass, he seemed to see her pale oval face in the blue of the Adriatic, kind and beautiful … swimming upwards towards him, through water. NO!
Angry with himself he hit at his eyes, as if to smash the source of the tears, wiping his hands quickly on his trousers. And he started to shiver, although the day was hot, knowing she would never come. He tried to imagine her in the earth somewhere, and wondered yet again what happens: do you feel the worms eating you? Do they eat your eyes (brown and large) and your hair (long, dark brown, smelling of soap and the indescribable perfume of her) and even your nails (cut very short, sometimes with flaking skin around them)? And when the ground is hard, and the snow lies thick, can you feel it down there, or are you warm, tucked away securely in your little home, forever?
She was dead, and her death was probably his fault. They must have shot her for letting him escape to freedom (the correct phrase still came easily, in preference to words that would worm their way to the surface, sending him away), or maybe when she was trying to come too. People were always punished, he knew that.
But perhaps she wasn’t dead … Ion was torn between wanting to belive that, with its inevitable implication that therefore she had not come because she had not wanted to come – and needing somehow to accept that she was dead, and so no longer had any choice. Even if her death was his fault.
Teeth chattering, he closed his eyes. In his imagination Ana was falling in slow motion down a dark tunnel, down and down, cartwheeling slowly, until she reached the bottom. But there was no hard ground there, just sparkling water, and she floated away on the water, hair webbing out around her, eyes closed, until he could see her no more. ‘Mamă, întoarce-te! Come back!’
Franklin heard him, and stood for a moment in the doorway of the games room. He could see that something had happened; Ion stood stiffly, head thrown back, unseeing but looking up at the map still, and shuddering every now and then as though racked with cold. Slowly, the Tamil made his way across the hall.
There was, inside Franklin, a silence: something mysterious, strong and impenetrable. The teenager who laughed and played games and squabbled sometimes with fellow-Tamils might suddenly become an old man, brooding and preoccupied. Ion felt it but perhaps because it matched some confusion within himself, was untroubled by such moods, but kept contentedly at Franklin’s side, like a little brother.
They could sit for a long time, without talking, on a sunny bench behind the house, watching the other children’s games, then rise in unison to join them, although nothing had been said. They knew nothing of each other’s lives but the simplest facts, and yet understood instinctively that what united them – pure loss and mere accident of timing – was strong because it was all they had. Somewhere in their eyes, at times, was the unspoken knowledge that they had both, deliberately, been ‘lost’ – and the reasons for that receded as the pain became numb. Something of Franklin’s silence, which had at its core a will to endure, slipped across to become a part of Ion too – strengthening him, although he did not know it.
‘Mama!’ Ion said again, softly this time; not so much a cry as a tiny, pleading statement.
Franklin stood beside him, and looked down at Ion’s face, saying nothing, but with a question in his eyes.
‘My mother is dead,’ answered Ion.
‘They tell you?’ Franklin’s eyes were huge, and he placed an hand on Ion’s shoulder.
‘Nein…’
‘How you know?’
‘They telephone her work. They tell them she is not there. She is gone … gone. And in here’ – he jabbed his chest – ‘I know she is dead.’
‘A … mm.’ Franklin’s sound was inarticulate, conveying neither agreement nor doubt.
‘And Irma says I must go and live with a family. I don’t want a family, I want Mama.’ This was said with no grief, rather a fierceness that startled Franklin, who wrinkled up his nose as if in doubt.
‘Yes, I know,’ Ion insisted. ‘She will not come. Not never come here.’ He paused, and became in that instant like a much younger child, both sincere and wheedlingly manipulative, ‘I want to stay with you, Franklin. Please.’
Franklin nodded gravely. Then he said, ‘Yes.’
Not long afterwards he went up to their room, took hold of his jacket, and from the little zipped pocket in which he kept the piece of sari, took a folded scrap of paper. There were some numbers scribbled on it; Franklin screwed up his face in concentration, moving his mouth again and again, until one was memorized. Then he replaced the paper in his pocket, pausing briefly to take the little piece of material, hold it so the sun made its gold threads glitter, and press it briefly to his mouth.
When everyone was at supper he rose, casually jingling the coins in his pocket. The food was good; the air rich with the scent of cardamom and cumin.
‘Hey, Franklin – don’t you like my cooking?’ called Pushpa in Tamil.
Franklin mimed clutching his stomach and vomiting, grinned broadly, left the room, and headed for the pay-phone.
Three nights later, just before midnight, he woke Ion, shaking him gently. ‘You awake now, Ion. Quick! You come with me.’
‘Come?’ Ion blinked sleepily.
Franklin nodded urgently. ‘We leave here. We go – together. You and me. A man coming here for me. We go to friends. Quick, Ion!’
Ion stared at him. Franklin was stuffing his few garments into a white plastic hold-all, muttering from time to time in Tamil, as if he were in a temper. Then he looked at Ion. ‘You and me – brothers. We stay together, Ion.’
It was one of those moments when the world seems to pause, teetering on the precipice of space, like a top slowing to wobble drunkenly, before being whipped onwards again. Ion did not fully understand what was going on; he was sure of two things only: his mother would never come to fetch him now, and the only person he could love and trust was this fifteen-year-old from Sri Lanka, to whom he had clung from the beginning. And yet everything had taught him to be obedient, afraid of authority … even if it was represented by people as kind as Bernhardt, Irma and Pushpa. To leave here, to walk out into the darkness with Franklin; the thought made his mouth grow dry.
He wondered – what would you want me to do, Mama? There was no answering voice in his head.
Without saying anything he nodded, jumped out of bed, and found the small bag he had arrived with. He pushed his few belongings into it, hesitating over the clothes he had been given, then deciding that since they were a gift they were his to take.
Carrying their shoes they crept down the imposing staircase of the mansion, cringing at every creak. Once outside Franklin strode confidently, motioning to Ion to keep very close behind him. Ion needed no telling. It was a cool, cloudy night; the moon was hidden, and the shadows seemed very black.
A little way along the main road they paused by a bus stop. Franklin was looking around nervously; then, noticing that Ion was staring up at him, attempted a confident grin.
Ion thought, where are we going? Who is coming for us? How did Franklin arrange this? What would Mama say? Will she be disappointed? But how can she be, if she is dead? Do I know Franklin? Yes, I know Franklin. He is my family now … But where are we going …? Still he said nothing, clutching his bag to his chest, waiting.
At last there was the sound of a car. It stopped about a hundred yards down the road, switched off its headlights, then illuminated them again briefly, as a signal.
Franklin set off towards it at a slow, loping run, Ion keeping up with two steps to every one. When they reached the old Volkswagen Franklin spoke briefly in Tamil to the man at the wheel, then opened the back door for Ion. ‘It’s good. Quick!’
Cigarette smoke had permeated the furry covers of the seats; there was a pile of old blankets in the back, and newspaper on the floor.
‘Lie down. You sleep. We go long way,’ whispered Franklin, closing the door and getting in the front. Then he whispered quickly to the driver in his own language, the man replying in monosyllables.
Ion pulled a blanket around him, shivering slightly even though it was not cold. But he did not lie down. With wide, fixed eyes he stared out of the window as they left the children’s home behind, and the little town, and even the distant lights of Frankfurt itself – and disappeared into the blackness of Europe.