The Other Side of Silence

“It’s not that I don’t like spending time with you, my darling snail. I do. These moments we have here are very precious to me. Shall I tell you why? Because I never thought I would have them. When you showed up in my life I had more or less reconciled to myself to ending my life here without ever having known the real love of a man.”

“What about Christoph? The fellow who died at Stalingrad.”

“We were lovers. But we weren’t in love. There’s a difference. Besides, he was just a boy.”

“Nothing wrong with that if you’re just a girl.”

“I know you think that. And maybe that’s what I was before. But I’m a woman now. You made that happen. Without you I’d still be giggling in cinemas. You treat me like something precious. Like I matter to you. You listen to what I have to say like you genuinely care. I can’t tell you what that means to a woman. That’s all I ever wanted. To be heard by the man I love.”

I was silent for a few moments after that. There’s nothing quite like a few loving words from a woman to make a man quiet.

“Look,” I said, “if anyone ever threatens me as a way of trying to get to you, then please tell them to go to hell. I’ll take my chances. In this life and the next.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m just saying. I’m not the one who’s important here. You are.”

“Yes, but why are you saying it?”

“There’s a war on. People say all kinds of strange things when there’s a war on.”

“All right. I understand all that. Look, has this got anything to do with Captain Hennig?”

“No,” I lied. “Nothing to do with him at all. As a matter of fact I don’t think I’ve seen him since that night in Spatenbrau, on the day we were married.”

“I couldn’t let anything happen to you, Bernie,” she said. “Not now. You’re such a sweet man, do you know that? You’ve given me my life.”

“Nonsense. It was yours from the beginning.”

“It’s true. No one was ever as kind to me as you’ve been. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You have to think of the baby now. Not me. Do you understand? I’m not in the least bit important beside you and the child.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you talking like this?”

“All I’m saying is that I want you to be careful, Irmela.”

“We’re surrounded by the Red Army, by Russian fighters, there’s no fuel and not much food, there are no secret weapons to rescue us, our homes are defended by the Father and Son Brigade, and you want me to be careful? You’re ridiculous, do you know that? If I didn’t love you so much I’d say you were going crazy.”

“Maybe I’m just crazy about you? Did you consider that possibility? That’s right. I’m mad about you.”

“Well, that makes two of us who are mad. It’s infectious, obviously. Give me another cigarette.”

“In my tunic.”

I hadn’t intended to give her the amber necklace but she found it when she was going through my pockets looking for cigarettes and I hadn’t the heart to tell her that it had been given to me by Erich Koch.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “For me?”

“No, I was rather thinking I might wear it myself.”

“I absolutely love it,” she said, putting on the amber necklace immediately and bounding across her bedroom to look at herself in the cheval mirror. “What do you think?” she asked, turning to face me.

I had to admit it suited her very well, a conclusion that was made easier for me by the fact that she was entirely naked at the time.

“Yes, it looks good on you.”

“You really think so?”

I smiled. “Yesterday’s newspaper would look good on you, Irmela.”

“It must have been very expensive,” she said.

Once again I felt a little awkward when I failed to admit that it had been a gift from Erich Koch and very soon afterward I started to regret I hadn’t told her the truth about the necklace, fearing Harold Hennig would do it for me and spoil things. There was no doubt about it. I had started to care for Irmela very deeply, much more than I could have imagined was even possible for a man of my age. I had no right to the love of a nice girl of twenty-three. I was almost fifty, after all; fifty years of fuckups and disappointments, which means that when you think you only have a few months of life ahead of you every minute seems to count, and every feeling becomes magnified, massively. I’d have done anything to protect her and the baby she was carrying, but it’s odd how inadequate anything like that can begin to feel. The best part of me was probably gone forever, but I could still hope to look after her.