The Pages Page 14

  One night, she says, coming back from our Sunday trip, we came out of 30th Street Station in Philadelphia onto the street and a car pulled up beside us. One of the men inside leaned out to ask me what age I was. We took a different route home but the car caught up with us and the man called out – hey, Lena, look at you, I bet you’re sixteen now. My father told me to pay them no mind. He took me into a diner and we sat there for an hour while the car kept passing by every now and again. I asked him what they wanted, and he told me they were workmates, probably drunk, it was nothing to worry about.

  Then I suddenly found myself in West Cork, thinking – what did I do to deserve this? Like I was being sent to the rainiest part of the world as punishment for letting men talk to me out the window of a car.

  Ireland was a foreign country to me, she says. He might as well have sent me to live on Pluto. Even though the language people spoke was English, it was totally different, everybody calling each other boy. I hated the landscape, the hills, the narrow lanes. I hated the school, the weather, the sight of the sea made me sick. I wrote letters to my father begging him to take me back. He replied each time, saying he was missing me and asking me to hold out. At one point, because I refused to speak to the teachers, my mother opted for homeschooling, but that was an even bigger disaster.

  After I got back to Philadelphia, Lena says, my father finally told me what happened at the bakery. He opened up one day and said the black man had been pushed off a steel platform by two of their work colleagues. The police were brought in to investigate and my father told them he had seen them forcing Julian Ives over the railing.

  My father made little mistakes in his sentence structure. That’s what made him so convincing, like everything was being translated simultaneously from German in his head while he was speaking. He used some ancient words that he must have got from books and nobody used any more. Like the word merriment. After the men had pushed Julian Ives over the railing, they were full of merriment. He heard them laughing over the sound of the kneading machines.

  And that’s when the trouble started, she says. They began to threaten my father and follow us in the street. The black man, Julian Ives, recovered from his injuries and went back to work. Nothing more was said about the incident. My father quit his job and found work in a small bakery further away. He carried this alone. He didn’t talk much. Maybe he was trying to shield me from the truth by sending me to Ireland.

  What would it take to bring those stations back to life? Lena wonders.

  I go visit people I know in Philadelphia from time to time, she says, and they’re still there, the dead stations we used to pass through when I was a girl. Nothing has changed. The hoarding is still there preventing people from getting in and out. The train still goes through without stopping. It’s like passing through a different country, like train stations that don’t belong to America. Like some faraway place has been lifted up and put down at random in the middle of Philadelphia.

  I’ve taken a series of photographs from the train, Lena says. I’ve gone there in a taxi and taken pictures of the entrance to some of the stations, all the graffiti and the dust of traffic layered on the walls, some with the scorch marks of fires in the doorways. I try to imagine them back in service, with people standing on the platforms and the trains stopping as they once did before I was born. I can see them painted up in bright new colours and people so proud of their station they will add hanging baskets in summer, maybe an old wheelbarrow with a display of flowers, like they do in some of the other stations further on the line out to Bryn Mawr. What would it take for that to happen? she wonders. What would make those stations viable once more? A whole country would need to change. All I can think of doing is to take more photographs. Next time I get back, she says, I will go and talk to the people who live there. Maybe I can put it together as an exhibition. Call it something like – Bringing Up the Dead Stations.

  33

  On the train back to Berlin, Lena has another conversation with Mike. The motion of the train is coming up through the wheels as she takes me out of the bag and places me on the table. She opens out the page with the map. Pointing the phone down, she takes a photograph and sends it to Mike.

  Mike, she says, you’ve got to come over.

  It’s a bit difficult right now, he says.

  I have it. Henning gave me directions.

  Where?

  The map I sent you, she says. In the book – Rebellion. On the last page. Remember? Henning told me how to get there.

  There’s a lot going on here, Lena.

  Mike, she says, there’s something in this. I can feel it. I don’t know what it is. But we need to go, you and me. The two of us, let’s go out there together. Find out where it leads to. It’s like we can step back in time.

  Can’t do it, Lena. Not right now.

  It wouldn’t take long, Mike.

  It’s Mom, he says.

  This map, Lena says. This book. It’s beginning to open up a whole new world for me, Mike. There’s a story here that I want to excavate. Bring it to life in my work. I need you to come and find it with me. Us both. You’ll love it.

  I can’t leave my mother right now.

  What’s going on?

  Do you know what the neighbours have now done? You’re not going to believe this, Lena. They’ve put up this gigantic fence around the parking lot. I know it’s their property, they have a right to do that. But it now means my mother can’t get into the house around the back any more. If she parks in the lot, she has to walk back out into the street again to go in the front door.

  No way, Lena says.

  Yeah, he says. And wait for it. They have now put up security lights. And cameras. It’s lit up like a stadium at night. It’s not just, like, one or two lights. It’s fifteen bright arc lights, I counted them, just to let our lawyers know everything that’s going on. I mean, how is this going to look in court? The judge is going to say they’re being totally unreasonable. They’re creating an atmosphere of hostility.

  They must hate themselves.

  The place looks like a detention centre. I swear, it’s like a prison yard. All you need is prisoners walking around in a circle twice a day, and armed wardens standing by. My mother can’t even bear looking out there at night. She’s embarrassed when her friends come to play bridge and they ask – what’s that going on out back? She’s got to explain it to them – it’s a parking lot, the neighbours have decided to light it up at night for security reasons. Which is entirely their choice, of course, but it now sounds like it’s a rough neighbourhood, like people are no longer safe if they need all those lights and high security fences. And what’s more, they leave the lights on all night. I had to get my mother some blackout curtains.

  They must hate their own lives, Lena says. That’s the only explanation I can think of. The neighbours. Can they not see how ugly it is, even if it is their own lights?

  You don’t hear your own noise either, Mike says.

  This will backfire on them in court, Lena says. It’s pure intimidation. Is it even legal?

  This is it, Mike says. My mother is not going as far as the courts. She’s had enough.

  She’s not going to sell up, is she?

  What else?

  It’s your home, Mike.

  She’s made up her mind.

  Does that mean they’ve won?

  What can we do? She was going to have to sell up sometime. A day comes when you leave it all behind. We’ve all got to keep moving on.

  She has been driven out.

  The other neighbours have got together in a group to fight this whole thing legally, Mike says. But she’s out. She has no time for that confrontation. She’s been having trouble with her stomach in the last while. Doesn’t eat properly. She used to have a great appetite. She’s a mean cook, you know that, Lena. But this has got to her.

  And the old
cop at the back, he’s gone nuts. Dan Mulvaney. He’s threatened to shoot the neighbours. If they come anywhere near his property, he’ll shoot without warning. Intruders, he calls them. Interlopers. He’s standing at the back door with his rifle, day and night, just waiting for them to put their heads over the fence.

  It’s like war, Lena says.

  The neighbour’s kid, playing basketball, Mike says. He used to go in there to get his ball back now and again from the old cop. Dan would have a chat with him. I’ve even seen him in the parking lot throwing the ball into the hoop himself. Now that’s all over. If that ball goes into Dan’s place, it’s gone.

  I can see his point, Mike says. The old cop. It’s his whole life, that house. He raised four sons there. He lost his wife only a couple years ago. I see him up there on the roof doing those repair jobs himself. That’s all he has now. That and a bit of hunting at the weekends.

  It’s just sad, Lena says.

  Hey, it’s not the end of the world, Lena. My mother can have a long life. She’s talking about moving into a condo. She’s quite upbeat, looking up all these properties around the state. This might be the start of something new. Who knows? It might be the best thing that ever happened.

  34

  Back in Berlin, Lena went straight from the train station to the music venue. She managed a quick bite to eat, but there was no time to go back to the apartment and drop off her case. Julia was in Hamburg, getting Matt settled in with his other mother.

  Lena sent her a message – here with Madina.

  She attached a photo of herself standing beside Madina, the Chechen-born folk-rock artist. It showed them on stage with a set of drums in the background and a man behind them on the right with his back turned. The singer has her arm around Lena, both smiling, standing in such a way that it appears as though Lena has the prosthetic leg. The illusion works perfectly. Lena seems to be lifting her knee up to show her prosthesis with an illuminated design along the shin, wearing light-blue footwear. It’s a trademark image of the singer. She has been photographed like this with her fans, also with some prominent artists like Nils Frahm.

  Madina’s head is shaved on one side. She has a wave of red hair coming down along the other side of her face which gets tossed around during the performance. Her arms are bare and there is a tattoo that looks like a shadow along her neck. Lena wears a black jacket and a russet dress, from which the thigh with the prosthesis seems to be emerging. Her hair is shorter than before, with a green streak running across the top that could be mistaken for foliage.

  A message back from Julia – sounds like a great night. What happened to your leg?

  Lena’s reply – if only I had her voice.

  Followed by a quick chain of messages. Hope all going well in Hamburg. Doing a lot of swimming. Lots of walking in forest with the dog.

  Lena sent the same photo to Mike in New York with these words – amazing Chechen singer. Plays the accordion, totally mind-blowing.

  Mike’s reply – you cut your hair.

  Lena – you like it?

  Mike – love the leg.

  She sent him a link to a track on YouTube. A recording of the band in which the trumpet and accordion appear to chase each other in a circle, while the singer’s striking voice comes striding across the top with the chorus in English – ‘No Time for Bones’.

  Just imagine how the ex-barrel organ player feels right now, in his prison cell, hearing that somewhere in the future, at a well-known Berlin music venue, a young Chechen-German singer with a titanium leg plays the accordion like an absolute demon. Her dancing is inhuman. He would give a raucous cheer and start dancing around his cell himself, stamping his good foot. He would dance to his memory of marching tunes, and children’s rhymes, ancient love songs that my author grew up with in the East. A beat of horses’ hoofs. The smack of splitting wood. The rhythm of carpet-beating. He would jump on his bunk and celebrate this living female artist a hundred years younger than himself with a brilliant roar through his prison window at the night sky. The guard would come running to see what was going on and bang on the door. If only Andreas could start over again. He would take the courtyards by storm. Bring the mothers and children of the city out dancing. Men whistling his melodies coming home late from the bars.

  Madina Schneider – just like my author. Endless flight. Endless hotels. Carrying her identity around in a suitcase. Her memory in her songs. Her selection of prosthetic legs in an extra suitcase along with the band’s equipment. Always beginning again. Always unpacking. Getting up on stage every time with the performance of her life.

  She had the audience banging on the tables.

  And then a moment of drama that nobody was expecting. At the end of a song, when she was removing the accordion, like taking a jacket off her shoulders, there was an interruption from the crowd. The band were taking a breather before the next song and the audience had broken out in a wave of conversation, when Bogdanov, her ex-partner, showed up right in front of the stage with a bottle in his hand.

  Madina – I love you, he shouted.

  At first he looked like an over-devoted fan.

  I can’t get enough of you. I want you. I need you, Madina. You’re killing me.

  It was the type of situation where nobody knew what to do. How can you complain about a man who loves her music so much that he is willing to make a show of himself?

  Madina leaned down towards him and said – stop this, Uli. There’s no point.

  Kill me, go on, he said.

  Go away, Uli.

  Please, he said, going down on one knee. You’re the only one, Maddy.

  Uli. You’re wasting your time.

  The band got ready to start up again. The drummer gave the initial tap of the drumsticks. He set up the beat for the next song, but it lost energy and dropped off. The unfolding disruption was getting in the way.

  Bogdanov managed to haul himself up on stage. He stood in front of the microphone and tapped to see if it was working, then he said – one, two. His voice was so loud he jumped back. He began pointing at Madina with the bottle as he declared to the audience –

  I started her off. I got her singing. Me – Uli Bogdanov. She loves me. She offers me protection.

  Nobody wanted to tackle him. Perhaps they assumed he was her manager, making an official announcement. Maybe they thought this was some big Johnny Cash declaration on stage. The audience finally became irritated because he was not making a lot of sense.

  Get him off.

  He became aggressive. He threatened the audience with his bottle. You’re all wankers, he said, you have no idea how much we love each other.

  Asshole.

  He turned back to her and pleaded – Maddy, please, please, I’m yours.

  He dropped the bottle and made a lunge for her. She pushed his face away with her hand.

  Uli, fuck off.

  His sense of balance failed. He began to rock on his feet. He slowly tilted backwards, knocking over the microphone with his elbow. His weight gathered momentum as he reversed across the stage, tripping over the accordion, getting his foot caught in the straps. He continued staggering into an electric guitar and finally collapsed against the drums. His hand reached out like a drowning man for something to hold on to, pulling down a stand with cymbals on top of himself with a clanging finish.

  Silence.

  It was like the end of a song. Somebody in the audience applauded.

  They laughed. They whistled.

  Bury him deep.

  Two men rushed onto the stage and pulled Bogdanov away, still protesting, turning around to see Madina, blowing her kisses with both hands as he was dragged outside.

  The band started up again with renewed energy. The night was a great success, the Bogdanov display of admiration seemed like part of a singer’s gathering fame, the audience loved her even more.

 
; Everyone sat around with the band at the bar after the performance. It felt good being part of the inner circle, hearing them joking about the earlier disruption. One of them remarked that Madina would need a security detail in future. She was getting mobbed. What she needed was a couple of heavies with big necks to stand in front of the stage with their legs apart and their arms folded, looking out for signs of restlessness in the audience. This could be Altamont. Madina laughed and said she could do her own self-defence, thank you.

  They were talking about their touring schedule. Armin put his arm around his sister and said to Lena – she’s impossible to catch up with now. Madina and her band were starting a ten-day tour of Scandinavia. She had then been meant to do a tour of Britain but that had been cancelled because one of the band members might have had difficulty getting a visa. Instead they were filling in with a tour of France and Italy. Then it would be back to Holland to record an album.

  Madina stood behind Armin and put her hands on his shoulders – our new roadie.

  She kissed each one of the band members, then she gave Lena a warm embrace, thanking her for coming to the gig. Armin said he would see his sister out the door to the taxi and come back in a moment.

  The rest of the band was packing up. Lena was getting ready to leave. She went to the bathroom and then she looked around for Armin, asking the band members if they had seen him come back in. She went outside, thinking he was still with Madina, that they might have been talking before she got into the taxi. Eventually Lena found him a little distance down the street. There was a man holding him by the throat against the wall. It was Bogdanov. Lena recognized him. She shouted at him. He pointed his finger at her like a warning not to come any closer. She had the presence of mind to take a video of him walking away, but it was too dark to make out his face. She was more concerned about Armin. He was spitting blood.