The Dark Room (27 page)

—I didn’t have to.

—
How do you know, then? How can you know?

—Because I knew my father. You never really knew him, Michael, you were too small.

—
It’s that easy?

—Yes.

—
Yes, of course it is. Because I can’t dispute that, can I? I can’t ever know him like you did, can I?

He can feel the pulse in his throat. They have never spoken like this before. Micha’s mother frowns.

—No. You can’t.

—
You were thirteen when he came back.

—Twelve.

—
You didn’t know him, then. He’d been away all your life.

—He was my papa. Always Askan. Just the way he was. Upset. Voice raised, hand raised.

—He wasn’t capable, Micha.

—
But everyone would say that about their father, wouldn’t they? No one would think their own father could murder.

—I don’t know about that, Michael. Perhaps you should ask someone whose father is a murderer.

—
You can’t be sure. If you’ve never asked, you can’t be sure.

—He didn’t do anything.

Micha’s mother carries the pots out to the dining room. He follows with the salad. His father has opened the wine and is sitting at the table with his hands in his lap. He has been listening. He doesn’t
look at Micha and he doesn’t speak. Mina sits opposite him. She looks up at Micha as he comes into the room.
Embarrassed, angry.
He can’t tell, can’t read her expression. Her eyes are dark and her lips drawn tight. They eat.

But Micha is furious. He puts the food in his mouth, chewing and chewing. He swallows, puts his knife and fork down.

—
Will you want to know?

His mother looks at him.
She wants me to stop.
Micha doesn’t want to. His father stands up.

—
If I find out. Should I tell you?

—Shut up!

Micha’s father shouts, his mother looks away. He thinks she might cry now, and he still doesn’t want to stop.

—
Will you want to know?

Mina stands up and leaves the room. Micha’s father slams the wine bottle down on the table, dark splashes on the blue linen. Micha stops. His father presses his palms flat on the cloth, breathes in loud and long. Micha can see him searching for something to say; too angry. His mother still doesn’t speak.

Micha leaves the room, finds Mina in the kitchen. She is standing by the sink with a glass of water.

—
We should go.

—Right.

She walks past him, takes her coat from the chair in the hall and goes into the dining room. Micha can’t hear what she says. When Mina comes back again she is crying. He holds the door open for her and she walks out. Without looking at him, and she stays ahead of him up the street.

Micha doesn’t get on the train with her. He stays in the station, drinks a coffee, eats a pastry. Sweet and sticky on his tongue. He lets himself sit alone and quiet for a while, not think about what he has done.

When he gets home, Mina isn’t there. Her swimming gear is
gone from the hook in the bathroom. Micha calls his parents and gets the machine. He says,
Hello, it’s me, just calling to see how you are.
He doesn’t say sorry.

—You think I’ve come to tell you off, but I haven’t.

Luise’s voice on the intercom. She hauls her bike up the stairs, sweat on her upper lip. Splashes her face at the sink in the kitchen, leaves it wet, sits down at the table to get her breath back. Micha waits by the fridge for her to speak.

—You didn’t have to tell them what you’re doing.

—
I thought you weren’t here to tell me off.

—Sorry. Sorry.

Luise has wine in her bag. She gets it out, puts it on the table.

—
Too early in the day for me, Luise.

—Yeah?

She looks at the bottle, pushes it away from herself.

—I tried to find out about Opa, too.

The blood rushes in Micha’s ears. He hears its high-pitched singing over the hum of the refrigerator. They are silent for some time. Luise takes her hands away from her face. She looks like she will cry.
Don’t cry.
Sweat prickles under the skin on Micha’s back.

—
When?

—While I was studying in London. There is a library there, set up by a Jewish man. German. He fled, in ’33, I think. Anyway. They hold lots of information. About the camps, survivors. About Nazis. They were very helpful, very kind. I used to go there every week. It made me feel better.

She is crying. Her voice is tight. Pushed out of her throat.

—
Better?

—Yes. Like it was okay. No, not like it was okay. I don’t know. It helped.

Luise smiles, wipes her face with her hands.

—
And?

—What?

—
What did you find about Opa?

—Oh. Nothing.

—
Nothing?

Micha can’t believe her.

—He wasn’t on any list. There were a couple of readers at the library. People with lists of war criminals, Nazi officials. They didn’t have him.

—
I called up about one of these databases, too.

—In London?

—No,
in this country.

—Yes? And?

—
Nothing.

Luise nods.
Nothing.

—
You think that means he didn’t do anything?

She breathes out, hard.

—Mutti and Vati don’t need to know.

—
That’s your opinion.

—Yes, that’s my opinion.

Luise stands up, takes her coat and bag.

—
This conversation is over now, is it, Luise? Because you say so?

—It has to be their choice, Michael. You can’t inflict it on them.

—
They would just choose not to know.

—What’s wrong with that? How does it help them to know?

—
Why should we protect them from what he did?

—We don’t know what he did, Michael. If he did anything.

—
But you think he did do something?

—I don’t know. I don’t know and you don’t know.

Luise screams at him. Her finger points sharp at his chest. They stand about a meter apart in the kitchen.
She will tell Mina that I didn’t even blink when she screamed.
Micha sets his face hard. He doesn’t want to show her what he feels. Doesn’t want to have to show her.

—You know, a lot of treatments we use now are based on research from the camp hospitals?

—
No, I didn’t know.

—They are. I used to get sick thinking about it. I’d get sick thinking about the doctors in the camps.

—
And now?

—Christ, Michael. It still makes me sick.

Micha wonders how long she’s been here. It feels like ages. Time for Mina to come home.
She would talk to Luise and I could go and lie down.
Micha is ashamed of his thoughts, but he still wishes his sister would go.

—Shall we open the wine?

—
No. I’ll save it for when you come again.

—You want me to leave, don’t you?

Micha shrugs. He knows he’s being cruel. Luise stands for a couple of seconds, and then she smiles and Micha smiles back.
She’s sad. So am I.
Micha doesn’t tell her, but he hopes she knows.

—If you find anything, you will let me know, won’t you?

—
About Opa?

—Yes.

—
You want to know?

—Of course I do. You think you have a monopoly on honesty, Michael?

—
No.

—Yes you do.

They’re in the hallway. Micha holds the door while she wheels her bike out.

—I don’t think Mutti and Vati need to know, that’s all. That’s all I wanted to say.

—
Okay. You’ve said it.

Luise lifts her bike, starts walking down the stairs. Micha stays in the doorway, but she doesn’t look back.

—Tell Mina I said hello.

—
I will
.

—Tell her I think my brother is an arrogant shit, too.

—
I will.

—Of course you will.

He hears her blow her nose at the bottom of the stairs and then he closes the door.

We fought a lot when we were children, my sister and me. Vicious, with scratching and kicking, and blood sometimes, too.

I remember one fight at Oma and Opa’s house. I got into a real rage. We were at the top of the stairs, and I was lying on the floor. Screaming, hiccups, that kind of thing. I kept trying to kick her, but Luise was just out of reach. She was on the top step, crying too, and she had her mouth wide open. Her lip was split and her teeth were red. I must have done that.

And then Opa was there, up on the landing with me, holding me inside his arm, against his chest, and pressing his cheek against my hair. I can remember his smell: soap and smoke.

He held Luise inside his other arm. I remember he pressed his cheek against her hair, too, but I didn’t mind. Later, maybe, I was jealous, but not at the time. Opa was there and you couldn’t be angry. When Opa was there you were fine.

Micha cycles home from school and it rains. So hard he has to take off his glasses and squint to see the road. Cars loud next to him in the spray. Soaked through when he gets home, he undresses and climbs into bed. For a long time he doesn’t sleep, he just lies and watchs the light leave the day. He gets hungry, and Mina is still not home, and he can’t get warm. He thinks of Opa Askan’s photo: in his pocket, in his wet trousers, lying with his other wet clothes on the bathroom floor.

It is dark in the flat when the phone goes. He has been dozing,
unsure of the time, and the ringer sounds loud in the cold quiet of the hall.

—What do you want?

The question comes before he has even said his name.

—What did you want to ask?

—
Sorry? Who is this?

But Micha knows who it is, and already his hands shake; even before he can think, before he can speak.
No.

—This is Jozef Kolesnik. Calling from Belarus. I want to know your question.

There is silence on the line, then a long breath.
In or out?
Micha remembers the old man was kind. Polite. But he is angry now.

—
Sorry. Mr. Kolesnik, you will have to forgive me. I have been asleep. I lost track of time
—

—Are you a journalist?

—No.

—You want to know about me?

—No.

—No?

—
I’m not a journalist.

—Who are you?

—
Michael Lehner.

—So you said.

—
I’m a teacher.

—What do you want from me?

Micha can’t think of a reply. Not one which doesn’t include Opa, and he doesn’t want to include Opa.

—What do you want from me, Mr. Lehner?

—
You remember the Germans, the occupation. I was told that.

No reply, just the same breath. Difficult, frightened; a deep breath in.

—
I wanted to speak to someone about what happened. In your town, when the Germans came.

—You are Jewish.

It’s not a question.

—
No. No. I am German. I mean, I am not Jewish.

—So what is your question?

—
Mr. Kolesnik, I’m not sure the telephone
—

—Your question!

He shouts, hoarse. His voice rips into Micha’s ear. Micha hangs up the phone.

Micha is shaken by the phone call, and by Kolesnik’s anger, but he prays for him to phone again.

Micha takes time off school. He calls in sick after Mina leaves for the clinic, then he sits in the kitchen with the phone.

After four days of silence, he goes back to work, and when he gets home on the fifth, a letter has arrived.

Herr Lehner,

Please accept my apologies. I lived through it here, and I think you know it was a terrible time.

Please understand. I don’t think I can answer your questions. It is painful to remember those years. I prefer not to talk about them.

Jozef Kolesnik

Micha reads the precise, cautious constructions over and again. The careful, sloping hand.

—Why didn’t you tell me about him?

—
Because I cried, Mina, and I didn’t show him the photo.

—Why didn’t you tell me he phoned?

—
Same reason. I hung up, ran away. I don’t know.

Mina sighs and the blood rushes to Micha’s face. She pushes the letter away from herself across the table, leans forward, and presses her fist into the small of her back. The weight of the baby is already changing the way she moves and stands.

—What did you say to him? When you were in Belarus, I mean.

—
Nothing. I wanted to ask him questions, and then I didn’t have the courage, and then he told me to go away. Asked me.

—Is he Jewish?

Micha shakes his head.

—
All the Jews were killed.

—No. I can’t deal with this anymore, Michael.

Mina shakes her head, opens her mouth to speak again, but Micha cuts her off.

—
I think I will go back.

—What?

—
To Belarus, talk to him.

—But he says he wants to be left alone.

—
I will leave him alone. I only want to know about Opa. I won’t ask anything about him.

—He’ll just tell you to go away again.

—
Maybe, I don’t know. I’m going to write to him, try to go. Next holidays, next month sometime.

—Fuck. Michael.

Mina stands up and walks across the room. She faces away from him, leans against the door.

—
Mina.

—I can’t deal with this anymore. It’s disgusting, Michael. I don’t want it in my home.

—
I’m sorry, Yasemin. I am, and we don’t have to talk about it anymore. I’ll just go and then I’ll know.