Postcards From Berlin (31 page)

On the corner there’s a snack bar called Japan-Imbiss that has a narrow window crammed with advertisements for Lucky Lights,
and next to it a bank with a cash point. The bank is shut still. I go to the cash point, put in my Visa card, select my language,
and tap in my PIN, trying to work out how much money I need. But the wrong display comes up: It doesn’t seem to recognize
my card. Maybe I can’t use my card abroad after all, yet I’m sure this is possible, I know I’ve used it in Italy. There’s
someone behind me; I hear the rustle of the plastic bag they’re holding and how they move from foot to foot. The presence
of this unseen waiting person makes me nervous, yet if I turned and tried to explain they wouldn’t understand me. I wonder
how many goes you get before the machine eats your card. I take the card out of the slot and start all over again. The same
display comes up. I take the card and put it in my bag. Suddenly, London is real to me again: our drawing room, the vase of
peonies on the table by the telephone, and the postcard — where did I leave the postcard? I see it in my mind — the picture
of the monument, the woman in white marble, and on the back my mother’s address and phone number. I see myself about to dial,
putting it down by the phone where I could see the number. Then, after the call, rushing around to pack, calling the taxi,
speaking to Daisy, feverish, a little high — it’s all a blur now. I can’t remember where I put the postcard.

I turn, walk past the woman who’s waiting there with a plastic bag of vegetables, whose rustling made me nervous. I tell myself,
Everything’s fine; it’s just a problem with the credit card. Later, when the bank is open, I will get everything sorted. The
cashier will smile, will explain to me in careful, precise English exactly what has happened. It’s just some kind of mistake.
I tell myself this over and over. Nothing has happened; it’s just a computer error. Everything will be fine. But when I get
back to the flats where my mother lives and push against the door handle, I find my hands are slippery with sweat.

Daisy spends the morning on the sofa, watching television. She feels sick, she says. She is tired, her eyes stained with shadow.
I help my mother tidy the kitchen, though there’s scarcely enough to do to occupy two people. Daisy’s illness frustrates my
mother.

“I thought we could go out,” she says. “I thought we could go to the Tiergarten. We could have a chocolate muffin at the Café
am Neuen See.” Her German is careful, ponderous. “We could take a boat on the lake. A little rowing boat. Daisy would like
that.…”

She’s somehow unable to cope with this change in her plans. She tries to talk to me about England, about my life and all the
things I have done, but there’s a fog in my mind: I can’t talk easily. In the end we sit and drink more coffee and watch the
television with Daisy. It’s a dubbed comedy, set in some English country house, which bizarrely stars Ricki Lake, who mostly
appears in full hunting rig.

Lunch, which we eat early, is much like yesterday’s supper: bread and sausage, and the now fully thawed Sacher torte. Daisy
eats some bread. After lunch she says she wants to get up.

My mother and I take the plates to the kitchen, and my mother stacks them in the bowl. Through the narrow window beside the
sink, you can see down into the courtyard, the worn gray wall, the hydrangeas. It all looks shabby, neglected, in the harsh
noon light. The hydrangeas are nearly over, some of the flowerets brown and crumpled like paper. It’s the empty time, when
everything feels flat and meaningless: The sun has gone in; the vitality has all seeped out of the day. A wave of despair
washes through me. I wonder what on earth I thought I’d find in coming here.

I hear Daisy go to the bathroom. She’s left the door half open. She must be trying to clean her teeth — I hear her start to
retch.

My mother turns to me. eyes widening.

“That’s Daisy?”

“Yes.”

“Poor little scrap.” She shakes her head. She puts on hand cream and then her rubber gloves, and runs water into the washing-up
bowl. I find a tea towel in the drawer of the dresser. “That takes me back. Christopher used to do that,” she says. “That
weird dry retching.”

“Like Daisy?”

She nods. “Christopher had a lot of health problems, you see, darling. Like I said, you wouldn’t have thought it to look at
him. But he used to get so ill sometimes, and nobody knew what it was. The doctor didn’t know what to make of it — well, he
said it was probably stress.”

“My father.”

“Yes. Of course, darling. Your father.”

“You never told me.”

“Didn’t I? Well, I guess it never seemed important.” She turns to me then. Her eyes are wide, as though something has surprised
her. “But it might be, mightn’t it? D’you think it might be important?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe it’s in the blood. That happens with illnesses, doesn’t it? Things get passed on, down the generations.”

“Yes, that happens.” I feel excitement prickle along my skin. I put the tea towel down. “Tell me about it. Anything you can
remember.”

“There’s not that much to say. really. There was this diet he tried.…”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t remember exactly, darling. He got it out of a book. I had to use this funny flour — he couldn’t have wheat, you see.
It was quite a pain, to be honest. I bet she didn’t do it, the little tramp he went off with,” she adds with satisfaction.
“I shouldn’t think she bothered for a moment.…”

I feel a surge of rage with her, with the way she’s always sidetracked by her own concerns. “Please try and remember. Please.”

“I’m trying, darling. Now, don’t go getting all cross with me,” she says. “I’m doing my best. It’s all so long ago now.”

The sound of the intercom buzzer makes me start. I swear under my breath, can’t bear this interruption.

“Leave that. Please,” I tell her.

“But of course I can’t just leave it, darling.” She peels off her rubber gloves. “I don’t know who it is.…” She goes to lift
the receiver.

She speaks in halting German, turning to face me as she talks. Her eyes are wide, alarmed, fixed on my face as though she’s
signaling something.

“Yes,” she says then, switching to English. “They are. Well, you’d better come up. We’re on the fifth floor. There’s a light
switch by the door; it’s on a timer.”

She puts down the receiver, comes to me. The little lines deepen between her eyes.

“Trina.” She’s speaking in an urgent whisper. “It’s the police.”

“Oh, my God.”

“They wanted to know if you and Daisy were here.”

“No. No.”

“They want to see you and Daisy.”

“No. And you let them in.”

She recoils from my anger.

“Well, what could I do? They were going to come up anyway. Trina, are you in some kind of trouble, darling?”

“Yes.”

My mother is frightened. Her hands move in front of her face, fluttering like birds.

My heart is pounding in my chest. I shout for Daisy.

“Get your jacket on. We’ve got to go.”

She appears at the bedroom door.

“We can’t go, Mum. We’ve only just got here.…”

“
Just do it
.”

A shadow darts across her face. I’m rarely cross with her. She goes rapidly back to the bedroom.

I turn to my mother. “There’s a fire escape, isn’t there?” My mind is racing. I will grab Daisy and go, find a way out of
the back of the flats. We will run, hide. “I’m sure I saw a fire escape. Where’s the door? Show me.”

“It’s on the landing,” says my mother. “But Trina, you can’t go that way.…”

I rush out onto the landing. A blind, fierce panic seizes me. I will take my child and flee. The fire escape is behind some
stacked boxes. I slip behind the boxes, push at the door. It’s locked; I can’t move it.

My mother follows me, helpless. “Trina, they’re coming now.…”

A desperate rage fills me. I beat my fists on the door.

“Trina, they’ll hear you.…”

My hands hurt, and the wild mood leaves me. I hear their feet on the stairs. I follow my mother back into her flat. Despair
overwhelms me. I see with a sudden terrible clarity just what I have done in running away with Daisy, in coming here: I have
confirmed their worst suspicions about me.

Daisy has her jacket on. She looks at me warily, nervous of my mood.

“Daisy.” I kneel down, wrap my arms around her. “There are people coming. They’re from the police. They want to speak to us.”

“Mum, why are you squeezing me like that? I can’t breathe.”

“I think it’s to do with that hospital — the one I told you about.”

“Oh,” she says. Her face is clouded; all this is unreal to her.

If they arrest me, I don’t want her to see.

“Sweetheart, why don’t you go and brush your hair? See if you can find the butterfly hair clip, it’s in the bag somewhere.…”

She goes to my mother’s bedroom.

“Listen,” I tell my mother. “I want to change my mind. About the money.”

At first, she doesn’t know what I mean. She stares at me.

They are here. There are heavy footsteps and voices on the landing, then someone bangs on the door. My mother turns; I grab
her arm.

“No, please don’t. Not yet. Leave them.”

“Trina, what can I do? I don’t want my door kicked in.”

“The money,” I say again. “The money you wanted to give me. I’m going to need it now.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you say so?” She’s looking anxiously at the door, but she gets her checkbook from the dresser. “Just a moment,”
she shouts toward the door. She writes a check and hands it to me. I stare, amazed by how much it is.

“Thank you.”

“I was going to leave it to you,” she says. “If, you know, anything happened.… Trina, look, I’m going to open that door.”

There are two of them, a man and a woman, in brown-and-khaki uniforms. They walk straight in. They seem too big, too urgent,
for the room. The man immediately places himself in front of the window, as though he thinks I might fling myself through.
They ask in exact, evenly accented English for Daisy and Catriona Lydgate.

“I’m Catriona Lydgate,” I tell them.

It’s hard to breathe, as though the room is filling up with water.

“We need to see Daisy Lydgate,” says the woman. “Daisy is here?”

“Of course she’s here. She’s my daughter.…”

“We need to see her, please. We have to send Daisy back to England. She has been made a ward of court. We have copies of the
documents if you wish to see them. I need to see her now.”

I call her. She comes from the bedroom. I put my arm around her, afraid they will immediately take her from me.

“You are Daisy Lydgate?” the woman asks.

Daisy nods. She looks much younger suddenly.

“Your police in England have asked me to find you,” she says. “They want you to be in a special hospital in England.”

Daisy nods but doesn’t speak. I feel how she presses into me.

They say they will take her to the airport and put her on the flight and that a social worker will meet her at Heathrow.

“I’m going with her,” I tell them.

They say they can take me to the airport along with Daisy, but first I should check if I can transfer my ticket. I am obsequiously
grateful, though I know it’s just that they want me out of the country.

My mother’s telephone is in her bedroom. I ring the airport; it’s arranged. And then I find Fergal’s number in my wallet.
I can’t work out what time it will be in England, whether he’ll be picking Jamie up from school. It’s his answerphone. I leave
a message, tell him what has happened, and that we are coming back to England, and that I will need a solicitor.

I start to pack. They tell me to hurry. There’s a crazy part of me that yearns to shout at them, to scream out that I am not
a child abductor, that I am simply a mother trying to do her best for her child, that all this is so cruelly unjust. But I
don’t say these things; I just get on with the packing, sorting everything, putting Daisy’s things in her hand luggage so
we won’t have to reorganize it all at Heathrow.

The man and the woman sit at my mother’s table. She offers them coffee, but they refuse it. My mother is anxious, placating,
her hands fluttering. She tries to make small talk, tries to tell them about Daisy, how happy she has been to see her grandchild
at last. Do they have children? If they do they will surely understand.… Mostly they ignore her.

I put our bags together in the hallway. The policeman pushes at the door.

My mother comes toward us.

“I need to say good-bye to my daughter,” she tells the policeman.

To my surprise, he shrugs.

She turns to me. We stand there for a moment. Awkward, not knowing whether to put our arms around each other.

“We never got to the Tiergarten, then,” says my mother.

“No, I’m sorry,” I say.

“Daisy would have loved it,” she says. “A muffin and a rowing-boat on the lake. We’ll do it next time?”

“Yes. Of course we will.”

“And we’ll go to the KaDeWe, where your teddy bear came from, Daisy. Everyone has to go to the KaDeWe. The toys are wonderful
there: It’s got a worldwide reputation.” Pride briefly fattens her voice. “They had an animated display when I went to buy
your teddy bear. A cat that played the violin and a monkey on the drums. And we’ll have some cake in the winter garden and
look out over the city.”

“That sounds lovely,” I say.

“We’ll do it when you come again. We’ll do it next time.”

“Yes,” I tell her. “Next time.”

“There’s so much to see here,” she says. “You wouldn’t believe how much.” She spreads it out before us like a magic carpet,
this fantasy city. Her face seems briefly younger, more alive. “This woman I know said she took her little boy to the Markisches
Museum, and in the garden at the back they found a family of bears. Just imagine that, Daisy. A family of bears.”

Daisy’s eyes gleam.

“Real brown bears?” she asks.

“Real bears,” says my mother. “A family of bears. We’ll go there when you come again. We’ll go and see the bears.”

“Can we, Mum? Say we can.”