“I expected the thought would occur to you someday.” She turned one of the chairs back to front and straddled it, shaking her head. “But my hair used to be blond, not dark blond, not platinum blond, and definitely not strawberry blond. Sorry.”
Albert glanced through the four-paned window. Outside, Fred lay stretched flat on his belly, his head resting on the encyclopedia, like somebody who’d been shot from behind.
“What were you looking for in the sewers?” Klondi asked.
“The truth.”
“But let’s be honest here, do you actually want to find it? Or just your own version of it?”
“There’s only ever one truth. That’s what makes it truth.”
“I’ve heard,” said Klondi, without responding to his commentary, “that Dickens and Rowling are both strangely beloved by orphans.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Those kinds of stories can arouse false expectations,” she said, poking around in the ashtray with her fingers. “Who, after all, turns out to be a Harry Potter or an Oliver Twist? Who actually discovers something special about themselves, or develops some magical power? Most orphans aren’t princes or students of magic; they’re just kids who’ve gotten less love than the rest.”
Of course Albert knew that, and yet it hurt to have it said so baldly, right to his face. What was Klondi up to? He asked himself whether it wasn’t time to go.
Klondi ground out her cigarette. “Maybe I can tell you who your mother is.”
Albert coughed.
“I said maybe.” She smiled at him sympathetically. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”
“Don’t bother yourself too much about me,” he said as calmly as possible, avoiding her eyes. When somebody asked him not to get his hopes up, he could do nothing but get his hopes up.
A husky laugh. “You’d be a miserable poker player.” She bent forward, so that her chair stood shakily on two legs, grabbed his head with both hands, and pressed a kiss onto the cheek with the cops-and-robbers scar. “But not such a bad son.”
Albert pushed her back onto all four chair legs, and she let rip with her truth. The sunshine falling through the window lacked warmth, and there wasn’t much to spare in Albert, either. His body felt stiff, he shivered, but he was too exhausted to do anything about it. So he listened.
Klondi’s Story
It all began with Klondi bringing a little girl into the world in 1971. She’d been pleased about the prospect, actually — she could hardly wait to hold the child in her arms. Just before the delivery she’d switched hospitals because, as she’d discovered very late, in the clinic where it was supposed to happen, all the babies were washed after birth, before being passed to their parents, and Klondi wanted no part of that, she wanted to hold her daughter in her arms while the baby was slick and bloody — in for a penny, in for a pound — and so she and her husband, Ludwig, hailed another taxi and shouted to the driver, “Next hospital!” And he answered, “But there’s one right here!” And they tossed all the cash they had onto the passenger seat. And the driver put his car into gear.
And so, at that next hospital, Klondi gave birth to a girl, her name was Marina because Ludwig had wanted it that way, Marina, it sounded almost like Mina, which had been Ludwig’s mother’s name. Marina fidgeted and squalled just like Klondi had imagined she would, and Klondi smiled, because she felt like she’d made up for the two abortions she’d had earlier in her life, or at least one of them, and she pressed Marina to her breast and cupped a hand over her head like a helmet, and sniffed her. They say that babies don’t smell, but this baby, Klondi’s baby, did smell — though not good, somehow. That’s what she got for absolutely having to hold her daughter in her arms right away, thought Klondi, nobody had told her about the smell, they all talked about the miracle of having a living being slide out of you, the miracle of creating — with a little masculine help — a brand-new life, but nobody warned you how badly said life could stink. Klondi didn’t want to do any violence to her nose, her body had already been through enough, and she passed Marina to the nurse, so that she could get started with the washing. “Make sure she’s really clean,” Klondi said, and added, because the nurse had shot her a confused look, “Give her a mirror finish!” and when she was alone, she gave her hands a sniff and made a face. Klondi slept for a few hours, waking just when she started to dream she was going into labor. Marina was brought back to her, this time spotlessly clean, wrapped in white blankets, what a sight, and Klondi took her, full of joy, she wanted to hold her daughter, this creature who had never been separated from her for so long, she raised the little bundle to her face, wanting to kiss it, and pursed her lips and pushed her head forward, and just couldn’t do it. That simply didn’t smell good. Maybe it had something to do with hormones, maybe it was an allergic reaction, the doctor couldn’t explain it. Marina smelled fantastic, he assured her, and Ludwig seconded him, and Klondi didn’t like that at all, they were making it sound as if it were her fault, yet her nose was just fine, as later investigations confirmed. Possibly it was the hospital’s fault, the doctor interjected, whereupon Klondi decided to go home immediately.
Half an hour later Ludwig was steering their car toward the house in Königsdorf, and Marina lay in a little basket on the backseat beside Klondi, who wasn’t sad or frightened in the least, only confused, because she couldn’t say where her happiness had gone. For nine months she’d waited, for nine months she’d restrained herself, hadn’t gone out dancing until dawn or gotten drunk, hadn’t gone swimming in the frigid Isar or smoked any grass, had followed through with the whole maternity program, heavy breathing and listening to music and letting them run tests on her and the whole nine yards, everything that was meant to do you good, in order to stay the course at least once in her life, and now she wanted her reward, she wanted the happiness.
The car pulled to a stop in front of their semidetached house, for which they’d recently made the down payment, in Osterhofen, a neighborhood of Königsdorf that borders the moor, and Klondi got out and carried Marina in her little basket through the garden, taking no notice of the pink banner above the front door that read CONGRATULATIONS!!!, waited for Ludwig to let her in, then brought Marina into her room with its green walls. There Klondi unwrapped Marina, tossed the basket and everything else that had been in contact with her out onto the porch, and washed Marina again with her own hands. Maybe they hadn’t done it thoroughly in the hospital. Gently she ran the sponge across Marina’s skin and through every fold, speaking to her, explaining to the little whiner that she was sorry, it had to be like this, but not to worry, it would all be over soon. Then she dried Marina off and wrapped her up in towels that had been washed with their own usual detergent, line-dried in their garden, stored in their linen closet, and she carried Marina into the living room, where Ludwig was waiting, the sweetheart, though at the moment she couldn’t spare a thought for him, he could look as confused as he liked, there were other things to worry about, and she sat down on her chair in the solarium, which she’d arranged there because during her pregnancy she’d thought how nice it would be to sit in this chair with its view of the garden and a couple of houses and the expanse of moor, and suckle her daughter, and Klondi opened her blouse and lifted her breast from the bra and smelled Marina and clutched her breasts and smelled her again and stood up and passed her daughter to her husband.
The marriage held out for another seven months.
In 1976, Marina, five years old, discovered a slightly bitter-smelling bridal gown in a box of rags in the basement of the house where Ludwig was now living alone. Later on, Ludwig told Klondi that their daughter had insisted on wearing the dress, even though he, Ludwig, had explained that it was much too big and old for her. Marina merely stamped her feet and said that Mama would certainly have let her do it, and moreover, at Mama’s house she could stay up as late and eat as much chocolate as she wanted. Ludwig, whom this hurt more than he could show, did not reply that Mama took care of her only on the weekends, Mama had left her behind, Mama loved her from the depths of her heart, but not enough to actually be a mother to her. Instead, Ludwig said, “That’s just Mama.” And Marina said, “Mama is much nicer.” And Ludwig said nothing.