Goodbye Lucille Read online

  ‘Why you take this pictures?’ Arî asked again when I returned. ‘In your kitchen? Why?’

  The musicians launched into a version of Charlie Parker’s Ornithology. I wondered whether they missed Florida at all during their marathon tour. My fingers thrummed against the underside of the table.

  ‘I’m not sure, Arî,’ I said. ‘I think I want to find out why people leave places. Their impulses. What makes them get up and go … What that can do to a person. I’m still not clear about it … Do you see what I mean?’

  He made a slight moue, but didn’t respond. He took a long drag on his cigarette and stopped badgering me with questions after that. We listened to the band until it grew late and Arî began to fret about returning to Kreuzberg. As we left, without my prompting, he invited me to take his picture if I still wanted to.

  Looking at his photographs now, his irritation and anxiety visible, I was tempted to ask him if I could start all over again. After a while I reasoned it was the way he had felt at the time. I suppose I was fortunate to have captured the essence of him, that faraway look in his eyes. He seemed to be staring out into a distance I had been unaware of. I hadn’t given him a set of instructions – what to wear, whether to smile, where to look. I had simply told him to do whatever he wanted – sit or stand – in his temporary home.

  I had asked him about his family and he talked of his brothers, his mother, Hezar his fiancée, who was only sixteen. I imagined his journey from south-east Turkey to Germany, those he had left behind. I thought then that if you left the place you loved, that you were familiar with, if you changed it for another place, how could it not affect you? How could there not be pain?

  I developed the prints and hung them up to dry. I had no idea which ones to choose so I arranged them on the kitchen walls and the cupboard doors to attain a clearer insight over the following days.

  The telephone rang, startling me out of the silence.

  ‘Hey, honey!’ a voice sang out. Clariss. She wanted to know if Frau Lieser was still in the vicinity.

  ‘Haven’t seen her,’ I said.

  ‘Marvellous!’ she screamed. She must have remained in the Rio all afternoon. ‘I need to dash in and fix myself up for tonight. For the party. Wanna come?’

  I knew Clariss’s dash would mean a couple of hours parading round her apartment deciding what to wear, applying and removing make-up, gossiping with friends on the telephone. She always seemed to be on the way to a party or returning from one, emerging from a cab with groceries bought at KaDeWe. I could never wring out of her exactly how she earned a living; she never went to work, but she always wore long sequined dresses, expensive-looking gowns, power suits. I never once saw her in jeans.

  ‘Sorry, can’t come,’ I said. ‘Working.’ I looked round at the prints for support.

  ‘Your loss, sweetpea.’ She hung up before I could reply.

  Clariss was always inviting the tenants to her parties or to one of her favourite clubs. Sometimes Caroline and Dieter went, but I never accepted. I had heard too much, too often – the stories and the rumours. What had happened at a particular party, who had choked on their own vomit, who had been caught in flagrante with whom. The fights. Always Clariss only just managed to survive to tell the tale, escaping murder by fleeing down the Ku’damm wearing only a pair of stilettos, or out of a fourth floor window into the arms of a burly fireman; I’d heard the news about the inferno at the TicTac club, and I guessed she’d heard it too, and allowed her imagination to meld with reality.

  4

  WHEN THE TELEPHONE rang I was in the bath. I let it ring until the machine took the message, then tried to recover my previous state of calm. It didn’t work. I drew more hot water into the tub and watched bubbles rise around me until islands of foam floated to the floor. I was trying to decipher who might have called. I got so agitated I dragged myself out of the bath to listen to the message.

  Marie’s voice was not what I’d wanted to hear; I was hoping it might be Lucille. Marie isn’t good with technology – odd considering she spends most of her day on the telephone. She said, ‘Hallo, it’s Marie here … Hallo … Hallo? Oh, it’s the machine … About tomorrow – there’s something I need to do before the Henkelmann assignment, so it might be best if we meet there instead of at the office … say, in the auditorium … No! No! Why not … Let’s make it outside the venue or, no! In the Bliss café. Yes? – On the corner of Dieffenbachstrasse and Schönleinstrasse? That’s it. We’ll meet there. Got it? Bliss café. Corner of Dieffenbach and Schönlein. At eleven. Don’t be late, okay? See you there then …Hallo? Um, it’s Marie!’

  I was a few minutes late the following day, but was relieved to discover Marie hadn’t arrived. I wolfed down a fried croque-monsieur and trained my eyes on the passing traffic. A woman with long coal-black hair and bedroom eyes stopped at the window and looked in. I smiled, trying to encourage her in, but it seemed to have the opposite effect and she couldn’t get away quickly enough. When Marie drove up a moment later, I felt superior because, for once, I had given the impression of being on time. She parked her metallic grey Mercedes right outside the café.

  ‘Something to drink? Tea, coffee?’ She leaned down to kiss me.

  I glanced at my watch. ‘Won’t we be late?’

  ‘No, no, there’s still plenty of time. I thought we should arrive early just in case.’

  ‘In case of what?’ I asked, suspicious, thinking it had to do with my timekeeping.

  ‘In case, in case – don’t be so querulous. What’ll you have?’

  I looked up at the board. ‘Coffee, I suppose.’ I didn’t want anything, but it was a way to pass the time.

  At the counter, Marie reached up on tiptoe in biscuit-beige heels to squint at the blackboard. Her calf muscles bulged. I turned away. In a moment, I looked back again. I followed the curve of her legs, the inverted wine bottles, the slight ankles flowing out to the swell of thick calves. A tan suede skirt hugged her ample behind. She exuded strength and sensuality. By the time she tottered back to the table with the tray of coffees and cakes I could feel my blood pumping.

  ‘I shouldn’t, I know.’ She made an impish face as she set down the cups. ‘I’ve got you some sachertorte. The pastries look as if they’ve been sitting there for days.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m not hungry,’ I said, even though the sight of the sachertorte made my heart swell. She pushed the plate towards me regardless.

  ‘So, this Henkelmann character – you really think he’s worth covering?’ I asked. ‘I mean, people – your readers – aren’t they going to find this sort of thing dull? Politics? Agendas?’

  ‘I disagree. I think we can approach this from another angle, not just concentrate on the politics, but personal stuff – home life, taste in music, opinions.’ A few customers glanced in our direction, drawn by Marie’s singsong voice. She reached over with a fork and cut herself a piece of cake. ‘It’s not as if he’s a complete unknown. I reckon he’s got as much voter appeal as Bauer.’

  ‘Well, I guess it’s best to reach them in their infancy, before they’re inaccessible,’ I said.

  ‘My sentiments exactly,’ she nodded. There was another lunge for the sachertorte. She didn’t appear to realize what she was doing. ‘He’s a big fan of Bessie Corday, you know.’

  ‘Corday? She’s coming over for a concert, isn’t she?’ I cut a hefty triangle of cake with the knife, nibbled it, cradled the rest in my hand.

  ‘Not only that, we’re hoping to feature her. It’ll make an interesting tie-in – politician/jazz singer.’ She flashed her palms for emphasis, then helped herself to the final piece of cake. I finished my own slice, then considered getting up for another plate.

  Marie glanced at her watch. ‘Come on then!’ She was almost stamping her feet. ‘Don’t want to be late.’

  ‘I thought you said there was plenty of time?’ She was always like this. Unpredictable.

  ‘Time is money,’ she chirped. ‘The early bird and all
that. Don’t forget, I need to secure an interview if any of this is going to be worthwhile. I’ll need to corner Henkelmann when I get a chance.’

  It took six minutes to trot to the half-empty auditorium. Six minutes to work up a sweat in the morning heat. I could feel the coffee and cake and fried food sloshing inside me during this uncustomary exercise. We shuffled into a row of vacant seats in the middle of the hall. Marie rummaged in her bag for a tape recorder and notebook.

  ‘This is too far back,’ I wheezed. I pointed to the recorder. ‘You won’t pick up anything with that.’ I tucked in my shirt and leaned down to catch my breath.

  Marie hadn’t so much as a hair out of place. ‘You think?’ She glanced about, her head a sparrow’s anxious twitch.

  ‘Look, there are seats near the front,’ I said. ‘Why don’t we move?’

  Marie bundled her contraptions back into her bag and we were off again. The host had walked onto the stage and people were quiet now.

  ‘Who is he?’ I whispered.

  ‘No idea,’ Marie shrugged. ‘Haven’t got a name. Community leader, I suppose.’

  I looked round at the rest of the auditorium, which was by now three-quarters full. The atmosphere was dull as a school assembly. There were mainly Turkish men wearing C&A suits that had been dragged out and pressed for the day. A few journalists huddled at the front, joined by a handful of photographers, one of whom kept clicking away from the centre aisle as if he had nothing better to do. Several bemused-looking men who might have wandered in off the street stood guard at the back. Marie was, as far as I could see, the only woman.

  The host introduced the main speaker and people began to rouse a little. Perhaps it seemed that way to me because of the throat-clearing and feeble applause. Also, a photographer in the side aisle knelt down and began to peer through his viewfinder. I took that as my cue and moved into the centre aisle to take a few pictures of both the figures on stage and members of the audience. It didn’t seem at all spirited and after being on my feet for two minutes, I promptly sat down again.

  ‘He’s broader than he looks on TV,’ Marie whispered. She stared at the gesticulating grey-haired man on stage. Henkelmann was talking about capital injection and the revival of small business and industry. A few of the suits in the audience began to nod in appreciation.

  ‘Business leaders in areas such as this need to band together,’ he said. ‘We have to support one another so that the community as a whole can prosper.’ He spread out his arms as if to embrace the entire auditorium. I liked his use of ‘we’; he probably lived along the Havel in a three-storey villa passed down through several generations.

  If the Social Democrats came to power, he pledged, incentives would be provided for deprived areas such as Kreuzberg to ensure reinvigoration. That was a word he bandied about with increasing frequency. ‘Reinvigoration!’ he boomed, ‘is at the top of our agenda, my friends, and this can only be accomplished with the skills and leadership of people such as yourselves.’ There was a roar from the audience. Marie was scribbling furiously. Henkelmann had changed gear suddenly. Sweat marks bloomed from his armpits across his lilac shirt. All our cameras were clicking now.

  Outside, the walkabout had been organized to follow a route past chosen local shops and buildings. These were meant to be representative of the area, but everything had a sheen suggesting the whole affair had been stage-managed. Graffiti had been scrubbed away. The exterior of Flossi’s launderette still smelled of new paint. I had walked these streets often enough myself; it wasn’t far from where I lived. I couldn’t blame anyone for putting up appearances. We all like to show our best side when it matters most.

  A little market ran along part of the street. Ordinarily the stallholders were brash, aggressive even, about selling their wares. Today they seemed to huddle together, glancing suspiciously at the oncoming entourage.

  ‘I need to nip in closer,’ Marie said. ‘It’s no good being way out here if I can’t ask any questions. I can hardly hear what’s being said.’

  I hovered around the periphery to obtain a better overview. I watched Marie scramble towards the nucleus. As the procession approached the market, the stallholders grew more tense. Henkelmann seemed to be steering towards a butcher’s shop. I stumbled through the throng to get to the centre of things.

  One of the butchers, the one who appeared to be in charge, was a stout, bloated man with a string apron stretched across his waist. The apron cut into his stomach which bulged in a way I thought was slightly obscene. He had no hair except for a slight monastic fringe. His clean, broad face stretched like a moist balloon from his thick eyebrows to the back of his head where his neck disappeared. He resembled a well-fed pig. As the group approached the shop he tried to ready himself. Part of his face attempted to crease into what I took to be a smile, but then collapsed as if under too much strain. It looked as if, had you tapped him on the shoulder, he might well have bolted like one of his carcasses, had they still been alive. Occasionally he wiped a cloth across his brow and bald head, but the moisture rose to the surface again almost immediately. The heat was inescapable. The denuded chickens and wounds of beef and pork were making my head spin. The sight of so much raw meat in this weather seemed perverse. The smell was of quiet carnage.

  As soon as Henkelmann entered the shop, the butcher shot out his hand so rapidly it seemed several minutes passed before they actually made physical contact. I waited, peering through the viewfinder, for Henkelmann to reach the man and shake his eager hand.

  ‘Very pleased to meet you,’ Henkelmann announced. The butcher only nodded his head. I didn’t care; I photographed them, regardless. Then the politician started to talk to the journalists surrounding him and I could see Marie reaching in with her tape recorder. There was a lot of gesturing: Henkelmann indicated the butcher, pointed to various parts of the shop, the other workers, then nodded to the man by way of farewell, shook the overzealous hand again. The butcher nodded vigorously in return and I noticed his smile was more sustained this time. The group did an about-turn and left the shop to continue along the street. In all that time, the butcher hadn’t uttered a single word.

  I stayed behind to take more photographs of the butcher and his colleagues. For a while they pretended to ignore me. Then the butcher whirled about as if he had only just noticed.

  ‘What d’you think you’re doing there, eh?’ he said, with a hint of aggression or cocky humour. I couldn’t tell. He was putting on a show for his team.

  ‘I’m just taking pictures of you and your fine shop,’ I said. I waved at the other men, the hunks of meat.

  ‘Taking pictures of our shop?’ he bellowed. ‘Unbelievable! They come in here. They like what they see. They talk, they take pictures, but do they give us a single pfennig for it? This is a pauper’s game, my friend.’ He turned to his colleagues who all broke out into raucous laughter. It didn’t seem malicious. I could tell he was elated that the politician had chosen to enter his shop. He was guffawing so much he began to wheeze; single tears squeezed out of the piggy eyes. I laughed along with the men, and continued to take my photographs.

  Henkelmann came to a halt near the centre of the market where a small crowd had gathered to hear what he had to say. A group of Turkish women scuttled over to see what the commotion was about. They clutched shopping bags and tried to squeeze in as close as possible. Occasionally they glanced at one another and pouted as if they couldn’t discern who or what was at the centre of attention, what it was all about.

  ‘This district’s already had several cash handouts. What d’you say to those who think you’re only jumping on the bandwagon of a lost cause?’ one of the journalists shouted. Antje Kiesinger.

  Henkelmann smiled. ‘What handouts? Show me! Point out all the wonderful improvements and then we’ll talk.’

  One of the Turkish women had two small children with her: a boy and an older girl. At one stage the boy, who couldn’t see above the heads of the adults, squeezed to the front of the crow
d. A moment later he was whisked up into the air, brought to rest against Henkelmann’s shoulder. He didn’t seem at all anxious, rather he looked vaguely bored by the whole affair as he squinted against the sun. But Henkelmann was grinning now and our cameras went into overdrive. Even the child’s mother seemed pleased. His sister beamed. I knew it would be the photograph to grace the pages of the newspapers the next day. It was too obvious and it annoyed me.

  In the centre of my viewfinder, a cyclist wearing a mustard-coloured jacket was staring at me from the other side of the crowd. When he realized he was in my frame, he immediately shielded his face with his helmet and turned one way and then another. Abruptly, he weaved his bicycle through the crowd, mounted and cycled quickly down the street. It was an overreaction, but I dismissed it. People are always shying away from the camera.

  The Turkish boy soon grew restless with the attention. Henkelmann set him back down on the ground and he ran to his mother. I thought of Uncle Raymond, when I was little. Whenever he lifted me up, I would always want to return to ground level. I never wanted him to carry me. I don’t know why. I used to feel guilty because I realized it was peculiar for a child not to want to be held, to be carried.

  Some of the other photographers had already drifted away. It was clear the most important photographs of the day had already been taken, so I pushed forward to Marie who was still trying to obtain her quotes.

  ‘Aren’t you continuing with the rest of the tour?’ she asked. ‘It’ll be interesting to hear what else he has to say.’

  ‘I’ll take some pictures of the neighbourhood,’ I said half-heartedly. ‘At least it’ll be more representative of the area.’

  Marie shrugged as if she didn’t care one way or the other.