He poured that out so quickly, Karen had to ask Markus to repeat his translation, to make sure she had properly understood.
‘I don’t follow. Father was kind and he had helped her, so what reason would she have to be angry with him?’
Michael’s fingers locked; Karen could feel him pulling away.
‘You are asking about things that were never discussed.’
‘But you must have had a theory? You must have wondered. Could he have been different when you weren’t there? Pushed her too far about her past and Lottie maybe? Did he ever give you any reason to dislike him?’
‘No! Not at all! Your father was a very good man. I never believed him capable of treating her or anyone badly. Even later, with the lengths he was forced to go to…’
Michael rubbed his face and shook off whatever it was he was going to say.
‘Neither of us knew how deep her misery ran, how broken she was. By the time we realised, it was too late. Or perhaps Andrew guessed and he kept it to himself, thought he could fix things.’
Phrases slid in and out of Karen’s head. So protective even then. The lengths he was forced to go to. How broken she was. By the time we realised, it was too late. They felt like clues, but she had no idea what to go hunting for.
Markus had stopped watching her and was watching his increasingly uncomfortable father. Karen could feel her moment slipping away. Markus looked on the verge of stopping his translation; she had to trust that her German would hold.
‘What was Liese like when Father found her at the station?’
Michael shook his head. ‘He never said, not really. Except that she was weak and wobbling on the platform and didn’t seem to know what she was doing.’
Then his hands knotted and unknotted. Karen’s stomach started to follow.
‘If I am honest, I didn’t believe him. I think… I think she had been trying to throw herself under a train and Andrew chose not to tell me. He wouldn’t have wanted to discuss that, if it had happened. He wasn’t a man much given to dwelling on emotions outside his control.’
The description of her father was so accurate, Karen couldn’t argue with it. The description of her mother about to throw herself under a train was one she wished she had never had to hear.
‘Is that a guess, that she was suicidal? Because of Lottie? Or did you know?’
Michael sighed and his words slowed.
‘Know is a strong word. How can anyone ever truly know something so intimate? But the deliberately absent way she behaved in the hospital was so unlike her. There was a well of emotion bursting below her flat words, but she wouldn’t let any of it out. Except once. When she was talking about the day Lottie died, when Suhren recognised her. She said she hadn’t got to do what she wanted and die. She refused to repeat it; she refused to discuss the day again. But I never forgot what I heard.’
He stopped as if he was winded. His hands stilled; his body stiffened. It was clear this time he did not intend to go on.
Liese’s agony hung between them. Karen’s head was hammering. She wanted to leave and never see Michael again, to never hear another word of her mother’s terrible story, but there was still a gap, another bit of the jigsaw still out of her reach. Her mouth was as dry as if it was coated with sand, but she couldn’t risk asking for water and giving Michael a chance to remove himself from the room.
‘My mother wanted to die in the camp, and she wanted to die at the station. And something, including my father, kept getting in the way. Is that why she was angry with him?’
Michael remained silent, his face too tight to read.
‘Why is there always something missing? She must have got better. She didn’t try to kill herself again then, or not so that you’ve said. So she can’t have stayed like that: angry with him for stopping her, not wanting to live? Please, Michael, that wouldn’t make sense. If she had continued like that, surely she would have killed herself sooner, or she wouldn’t have married him?’
When Michael answered, all the emotion had leached from his voice. He could have been discussing a stranger.
‘What she did or didn’t do, and how they were together, is not for me to say.’
Karen didn’t need Markus to translate that.
‘But you know. You were in their wedding photo; you stayed in their lives. You told me that you loved her, that she loved you. My father rescued her and she didn’t want him to, that’s what you’ve said. So what happened next? If she grew to love him, you would have said so. You haven’t. And yet she stayed alive and she married him and moved to a country she didn’t belong in, a country where no German would get an easy ride. Why? What changed?’
Her voice was shrill enough to bring Markus to the arm of her chair. It made no impression on Michael. He had stiffened back into the man with a firm handshake and equally firm boundaries.
‘Your mother had suffered a terrible loss. She struggled to get over it. Your father loved your mother and went to great lengths to protect her. Those things I know. As to their marriage and what led up to it, that is not my story to tell.’
‘Please, Michael, help me understand this.’
He brushed her distress away.
‘I have told you what I am able to. If you believe there is more, that is between you and your father. You must talk to him.’
‘Don’t you think I’ve tried? Do you think I’d be here if he would talk back…?’
Michael got to his feet so briskly, Karen lost the thread of her argument.
‘This has not been an easy conversation for either of us, but I hope it has helped. If you ever return to Berlin, perhaps we can meet under happier circumstances.’
He sounded like he had memorised a script.
Karen gaped at him as he motioned her up and directed her to the door.
‘Goodbye, Fraulein Cartwright. Please remember me to your father. It is growing late. It is time I retired for the night. Markus will see you out.’
Karen was through the flat and out in the hallway, the front door clicked shut, before she could gather her breath.
‘What just happened?’
‘He managed you.’ Markus leaned against the wall and reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. ‘He’s a master at it.’
He offered Karen the packet; she took one but couldn’t hold her hand steady enough to light it.
‘I guessed he would be careful and I was right. He knew exactly how much he was prepared to give and, when you managed to get too close and he realised he’d slipped over his lines, he closed you down.’
Karen waited while Markus struck another match and took a deep drag on the cigarette. She was out of practice: the nicotine made her head swirl.
‘I didn’t imagine it, did I? There were things he said that pointed to something else happening after Lottie’s murder. Something that made my mother marry a man who, at one point at least, she didn’t seem to like very much.’
‘No, you didn’t imagine it.’
Karen dropped the cigarette and ground it furiously into the wooden flooring.
‘So what do I do? I leave tomorrow evening. There’s nothing here that will open my father up. I’ll tell him I know about Lottie and he’ll say I’ve heard everything. But I haven’t.’
This time, when her voice rose, Markus pulled her into his arms. Her head dropped onto his shoulder; she was almost sure she felt his lips on her hair.