Little Grey Mice (2 page)

Elke got to Bad Godesberg early, and that allowed her to drive around Bonn's dormitory suburb to a safe car-park instead of risking the vehicle on another meter, where she'd read hit-and-run damage was most likely. It was some way from Ida's home on Stümpchesweg but the walk gave Poppi the opportunity to relieve himself: it was a nuisance – and a vague embarrassment – if he began demanding to be let out as soon as they got there.

The house Elke was approaching was a large but slowly decaying structure, three storeys high and with a basement in which her brother-in-law maintained an inferior wine cellar he couldn't afford, just as she suspected he couldn't afford the house itself. The paint was fading in odd, discoloured patches and in too many places had cracked away from the wood beneath, which was twisted and warped by exposure to the weather. That much of the front garden Elke could see was weed-strewn and overgrown because there was no regular gardener and he never got around to tending it himself. An outer fence sagged as if weary of trying to contain the mess. Horst Kissel had bought the house within a year of his promotion to Personnel Director of Federal communications, shortly after marrying Ida sixteen years earlier, and Elke could not recall his doing anything about its upkeep from its day of purchase. Occasionally she wondered what her sister, who was impatiently vibrant and sometimes over-demanding, had ever seen in the man. But only occasionally: Elke did not consider herself qualified to criticize another's choice in men.

Kissel was at the drawing-room window when Elke pushed through the creaking, path-scuffing gate, so he was already at the front door when she reached it. That creaked too. Kissel was a large, fat-bellied man whose hair had receded to the middle of his head and was rapidly retreating further. When he gave her the duty family kiss, Elke detected a cologne she hadn't smelled before.

‘Beautiful, Elke!' enthused the man, expansively. ‘Every time you look more beautiful. And that suit is superb: I haven't seen it before. Always so elegant!'

Elegant for what or for whom? wondered Elke. The suit was a green tweed, a British import: Kissel had admired it when she'd worn it to lunch two weekends before. Playing the expected role, Elke said: ‘How's the world of big business?'

Kissel took her hand, which she wished he hadn't because she didn't enjoy physical contact, and led her into the drawing-room from which he had seen her approach. He said: ‘Terrible: you couldn't believe the pressure. I arrive at eight and sometimes I don't leave until after seven. And I never look up, not for a moment. I don't remember the last time I left my desk for a proper lunch.'

‘You shouldn't let them work you so hard.' Where were Ida and the children?

Kissel raised his shoulders and held them high, in a gesture which made him look oddly froglike. ‘That's the dedication expected from senior executives. You should know that, surely!'

Elke hoped her sister would not be much longer. She said: ‘The Chancellery has certainly been very busy, with so many changes in the East.' There was no indiscretion there.

‘Yours are still the pampered lot,' dismissed Kissel. ‘All glamorous trips and free lunches. They don't know what hard work is.'

It was a frequent sneer and Elke didn't respond. She didn't imagine her brother-in-law knew what hard work was, either.

‘Let's drink some wine,' suggested Kissel, the anxious host. ‘I've got something special: some excellent red from the Drachenfels slopes. You'd be amazed at the bargains there are if you know what you're buying, like I do.'

While the man was pouring, Ida thrust into the room with her usual exuberance, trailed by the children. Elke was kissed and hugged and kissed again before bending to be further kissed by the children, first Doris, then Georg. Elke presented the gifts and got more kisses in return. From Georg's reaction to the tape it seemed the assistant's recommendation had been a good one: the boy asked at once to go to his room and hurried out with Doris at his heels. Ida accepted the glass from her husband, sipped the wine and pulled a face.

‘What's the matter with it?' demanded Kissel, defensively.

‘It's beautiful, darling,' said Ida, easily. ‘I just wish I had the palate to appreciate it like you do.' She led Elke towards a worn couch set in front of the windows. The light showed how badly the upholstery had faded.

Kissel frowned, suspiciously. To Elke he said: ‘What do you think of it?'

‘It's very good,' lied Elke. The wine was thin and sharp, souring her throat.

‘You've got better taste than your sister,' smiled Kissel, gratefully. ‘I'll open some more, for lunch.'

Ida waited until her husband left the room and said: ‘It's your fault now that you'll have to drink this horse piss.' She squeezed her sister's hand, which she still held. ‘You're looking good.'

From anyone else the remark would have sounded insincere, but Elke knew her sister meant what she said. It had always been this way between them, a deep closeness that neither bothered to define as love but which Elke supposed to be the only description: a genuine, unassailable, unbreachable love that no one else could understand or intrude upon. There had never been any jealousy or resentment or eroding, lasting anger, not even when they'd been children and might have been expected to fall out, as all children fall out. Older by two years, it seemed Ida had always been with her, always protective, always comforting. Just as there had never been jealousy or resentment or true anger, neither had there ever been criticism or judgement. And there'd certainly been the opportunity for critical judgement. Remembering that morning on the bathroom scales, Elke said: ‘I'm putting on weight.'

‘It doesn't show,' assured the other woman. ‘You've no cause for concern. I'm the one who should be worried.'

Elke was aware for the first time of a rare plumpness around her sister's waist and hips. She extended the examination, recalling the long ago but frequent, flattering comparison of others between them in their teens and even later: constant surprise at their close similarity, going as far as repeated insistences that they had to be twins, not just sisters. Elke supposed it was understandable. Both she and Ida had the same luxuriant white blonde hair – the colouring Doris had inherited – and deep blue eyes and had never had to worry about growing-up spots or blemishes, each equally lucky with clear, unmarked skin that still only required a minimum of make-up. During those teenage years, although never with envy, they'd matched and measured each other's femininity: because she was older Ida's bust had been bigger, but Elke had caught up to be just as heavily breasted, their measurements eventually identical, just as they were identical in those other parts and places which had seemed so important then.

But Elke knew there
was
a difference between them. Not physically, not even now, but in other ways. She sought an explanation of the dissimilarity, wanting to get it right. Attitude, perhaps. Demeanour, although that sounded too stiffly formal. Personal ambience? Some way towards what she was trying to find. Ida had always seemed to possess more internal enthusiasm, about everything. She bounced rather than walked. Laughed more easily. Cried, too, unashamed of showing emotion. Elke thought back to her impression when her sister had first entered the room: how exuberance had immediately come to mind.
That
was how it had always been. Ida filled a room when she entered it: people looked at her and were drawn to her, wanting to be enclosed in the charisma which surrounded her and in which she moved.

Elke knew she didn't have charisma. She might look the same and feel the same but there was one comparison that didn't exist at all between them. She didn't so unconsciously, so effortlessly or so attractively project herself, as Ida did: side by side, coiffured the same, dressed the same, it had always been Ida to whom people – to whom men – looked, never her. Quickly, aware of the extended silence, Elke said: ‘We should go on a diet together.'

‘Does it show?'

‘Yes,' said Elke, with the honesty there always was with each other.

‘Shit!' said Ida, but without too much feeling. ‘Sometimes I wish you'd lie a little.'

‘What's all the news?' asked Elke.

Her sister shrugged. ‘Georg got a commendation, for his mathematics. Doris finally started her periods, last week. I told her she was a woman now. She seemed quite proud. There were hardly any cramps, thank God. Horst tried to increase his loan from the bank, to get a new car, but they deferred a decision so it looks like we'll have to struggle on with that bloody old Opel, although I'm frightened to risk a trip even to somewhere as close as Bonn any more …' The woman stopped, grinning. Then she announced: ‘And Horst's deputy made a pass at me.'

‘What?'

‘Made a pass at me,' Ida repeated, still smiling.

Elke realized with surprise that her sister wasn't at all upset. ‘How? When?'

‘It was a boring retirement dinner for someone in the Finance department,' Ida recounted. ‘I was sitting next to Horst's deputy and just when the speeches started I felt a hand upon my leg.' Ida smiled again. ‘Actually under my skirt.'

‘You're not serious!'

‘Of course I'm serious.'

‘What did you do?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Nothing!'

‘Darling,' said Ida, patiently. ‘He was sitting more or less upright beside me. There was no way he could reach the interesting parts, was there?'

‘You mean you just sat there and let him do it!'

‘It was more interesting than all the mumbled crap about what a fine man the Finance Controller had been.'

‘You're mad,' declared Elke, genuinely shocked. Was that what Ida intended? If it was, her sister was succeeding.

‘Where's the harm?'

‘Your husband's deputy was running his hand up your leg, under your skirt, and you ask me where the harm is!'

‘He wasn't really running his hand
up
my skirt. He couldn't because the skirt was quite tight.'

‘Mad,' insisted Elke. She wanted better words: stopping words.

‘Then he asked if he could call me.'

Elke shook her head in disbelief. ‘What did you say?'

‘Of course.'

‘So what are you going to say, when he does?'

‘I'm not sure, not yet.'

Elke twisted on the lumpy couch. ‘You're surely not going to do anything about it! Have an affair, I mean?'

‘I don't know. He hasn't telephoned yet.'

‘Ida!'

‘His name's Kurt. He's got soft hands …' Ida smiled at the outrage on her sister's face. ‘… And a stutter.'

‘What are you going to do?' insisted Elke.

‘I already told you, I don't know.'

‘What about Horst? And Georg and Doris?'

‘Darling! Nothing's
happened.'

‘It sounds as if it's going to.'

‘No one's made a pass at me for years.'

‘So you're flattered,' accused Elke. ‘That's juvenile!' No one had ever put their hand on her knee under a dinner table.

‘I told you, the speeches were boring.'

‘I know I shouldn't give warnings … that I'm the last person to give warnings … but don't be as stupid as I was.'

Ida's face seemed to dim, as if a light had gone out. ‘You didn't have to say that. I've never once thought you were stupid. Just unlucky.'

‘It's just …' Elke waved a hand, without direction. ‘… You're worrying me!'

‘I'm
playing
!' said Ida.

‘You mean it never happened?'

‘Of course it happened. I mean I'm not going to do anything about it, even if he does call. His prick's probably smaller than Georg's.'

‘That's disgusting!'

‘No it's not. Don't you ever look at a man and wonder how big his prick is?'

‘No!' said Elke, tightly and at once.

‘You told me you did once,' accused Ida. ‘About the geography teacher at college.'

‘I don't remember,' said Elke, who did.

Ida used her free hand to measure from that holding the wine glass. ‘You said you thought it would be that big, at least. That you'd like to see it.'

‘I didn't,' denied Elke. She knew she had coloured.

‘You don't have to worry!' said her sister. ‘I'm sorry I told you now.' She straightened herself abruptly, which had always been a signal that any discussion between them was concluded, like the closing of a book. ‘You seeing Ursula tomorrow?'

‘Of course.'

‘Would you like me to come with you?'

‘There wouldn't be any point. I've told you before.'

‘I'd still like to come, one weekend. It's been a long time.'

Elke listlessly raised and dropped her shoulders. She didn't like anyone coming with her, not even Ida, which was why she always tried to avoid company. Ursula belonged to her, no one else: anyone else was an interloper. She said: ‘That would be nice, sometime.'

‘One weekend soon,' pressed Ida.

Kissel came back into the room, rubbing his hands like a workman who had completed a hard day's labour. ‘The wine's open,' he announced. ‘I've called the children down: Doris has taken the dog out to pee.'

The child returned from the garden as they were sitting down. The lunch was veal, with sauerkraut and dumplings, not what Elke had earlier hoped it would be. She refused potatoes and only ate half a dumpling, looking quizzically at Ida, who ate a whole portion of each while ignoring the accusing stare. Elke congratulated Georg on the commendation and listened politely to an interminable story from Kissel that had something to do with the difficulty of installing the necessary electronic links throughout Europe to accommodate the incredible demand for facsimile machines. The man made it sound as if he were personally installing every line. Elke was ready when Kissel insisted upon the inside stories of high-level government and what was really happening in East Germany and in all the other former communist countries, because Kissel made the same demands at every visit. She replied as she always did with what had appeared in every newspaper and been broadcast on every television channel during the preceding week. Kissel appeared not to recognize some of the stories, which was a frequent reaction, and Elke wondered if the man ever repeated what she said, trying to convey some special knowledge. She hoped not: she wouldn't have wanted to expose him to ridicule.