“Tea,” said Ute. “Becky, would you like some tea?” She leaned forward and poured out five cups.
“Any news from the police on that wild man? Have they caught him yet?” said Michael.
Watching him take a sip of milky tea made my stomach flip.
“They are meant to be telephoning today,” said Ute.
“He wasn’t a wild man,” I said at the same time.
“Let’s hope they have good news, so we can all sleep a little sounder,” said Michael.
“Is he here then, in Highgate?” said Becky, sitting up straighter.
“No, no, of course not,” said Ute.
“He wasn’t a wild man,” I repeated. “He was my lover.”
All movement in the room stopped: Becky with a lump of cake in her cheek, Michael with his teacup halfway to his mouth, and Ute. Ute was looking straight at me and I saw her eyebrows lower, her open mouth close, and her eyes move down over my chest and come to rest on my stomach. Something changed in her face—understanding, realization—as I knew something was changing in mine.
It seemed that everyone was still for minutes, but eventually Becky said, “You should have some cake, Peggy. It’s lovely.”
“Peggy has got a bit of an upset stomach today,” said Ute.
Becky looked at me while she took another bite of Apfelkuchen. “I sold another story, the one about the King of the Mussels, so there’ll be buns for tea,” she said with her mouth full, and we both laughed. There were crumbs of cake in her teeth, but I didn’t mind; instead I felt a burst of hopefulness, as if perhaps sometime in the future we might be friends again.
When Michael and Becky had left, the three of us sat down in a row on the sofa with Ute in the middle.
“When your brother was born,” Ute said, “I was on my own. I telephoned the hospital and called for a taxi. I was very frightened. I did not know what to do—the baby was coming at any moment.”
“Mum,” complained Oskar, and rolled his eyes.
“I open the bedroom window and call to an old man walking down the street. He takes a long time to look around him and find who is shouting. ‘Ich habe ein Baby!’ I yell, and only when another contraction has passed do I realize I have been calling to him in German. Finally he understands, but he takes a long time to get into the house because all the doors are locked for reason of security, and he has to break a window. So much glass smashed in this house.” Ute leaned back on the sofa, remembering. “By the time the man came to the bedroom, my little Oskar had arrived already. Do you know why I name him that?”
“It was the old man’s name,” Oskar said, as if he had heard this story a million times before. He had taken my father’s leaving note out of his pocket—the pieces taped back together—and was holding it in his hands.
“No, that is not correct,” said Ute. “There have been too many lies. It was Oliver Hannington’s middle name.”
My brother and I stared at her, confused.
“I was angry with James for leaving, for taking Peggy, for not coming back, for me having the baby all by myself. So I call the baby Oskar.”
“After Oliver Hannington?” I said, trying to make things clearer in my head.
“Yes, Oliver Oscar Hannington,” she said. And then to my brother, “He was your father’s friend . . .” She paused, choosing her words with precision. “. . . and mine. When I became pregnant, I did not know if the father was Oliver or James. I told your father that, on the telephone from Germany. This is why he left.”
I remembered how I had often thought Oliver Hannington was a dangerous influence on my father, but now it seemed I had been worrying about the wrong parent.
“I should have kept quiet,” Ute continued. “Of course, as soon as you were born I could tell James was your father. But by then it was too late—he was gone. And Peggy with him.”
Oskar stared down at the note.
“It is all my fault,” Ute said, and was about to say more, but the telephone rang. She and I looked at each other, then she hefted herself off the sofa and left the room. I heard her pick up the phone in the hall.
“Hello?”
“What? What is it?” said Oskar, looking at my face.
“Shh,” I said, standing up and walking to the doorway. “It must be the police.”
Ute wasn’t talking. When I peeped into the hall, she’d sat down on the telephone seat, the same one that had been there when I was a child. She looked at me and her face drained of colour while she listened to the voice on the other end.
“Have they found Reuben?” I said to her. But she put her hand up to silence me, still listening.
“No, I think you must be not correct,” she said into the receiver. “This is not possible.”
“Have they found him?” I hissed at her again, but she turned her back on me.
“What about the name carved into the cabin?” she said down the phone.
“Why are the police calling?” said Oskar, tugging on my sleeve.
I yanked myself loose. “They went back to die Hütte, to the cabin, to look for Reuben. They said they would phone today.”
“Yes, that is correct, but she is receiving treatment for the past two months,” Ute was saying. “Yes, OK. Tomorrow.” She replaced the receiver with care and stood up.
“Have they found him?” asked Oskar. Ute came back into the sitting room, went to the piano, and held on to it. Without turning around she said, “I would like you to go to your bedroom, Oskar. I need to talk to Peggy alone.”
“Why?” he complained. “What did they say?”
“Please, now, Oskar.”
Her voice frightened me, and it must have scared my brother too because with a pout he left. I heard his feet on the stairs, although I suspected he may have been marching on the bottom step and was still listening outside the door. I needed to see Ute’s face, but she didn’t seem about to turn around, so I went to the piano and sat on the stool in front of the closed key lid.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” I said, already worried for the creature inside me.
“No, Peggy, he is not dead.” She turned to look at me and I held her gaze. “They said he never existed.”
Her eyes slid away from mine and I opened the key lid and saw again the row of polished teeth.
“They only found your fingerprints . . .” She paused. “. . . on the axe.”
With quiet deliberation I laid my fingers out across the keys in the position for the start of La Campanella.
“They searched the other side of the river, but there was no camp. Do you understand, Peggy?”
Softly, I pressed my fingers down. The piano didn’t make a sound. I thought again about the beautiful silent piano in die Hütte cleaved in two with the axe that Reuben had used to kill my father.
“They found your den, but they didn’t find Reuben’s hat. There was no hat, Peggy!”
I lifted my fingers off the keys and heard the muffled click of the hammers moving.
“They only found blue mittens, that is all there was.” Ute leaned forward and the concave scoop of the piano held her. “They found two names cut in the wood. But they told me that when they cleaned your room in the hospital, they see that you cut the same names into the wall. Peggy?” She looked at me, wanting answers, but I had none to give her. “They said you have invented Reuben, but if that is so, then it wasn’t Reuben who killed James. And if Reuben isn’t real, it means the baby . . .” She looked at my stomach again and didn’t finish her sentence.