The two loves of sophie.., p.5
The Two Loves of Sophie Strom, page 5
‘Oh. But I didn’t,’ Max said, confused. ‘It was—’
‘It’s okay,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t tell anyone if you really want to keep it a secret. I’m Paula, by the way.’
He hesitated, then shook her hand. It was delicate, pale and warm.
When the class was over, Paula congratulated him on being a ‘virtuoso’, then took him by the arm and marched him through the corridors. She was obviously popular: lots of people greeted her as they passed and she introduced Max to each of them as ‘the boy who hit Maus’. A rumour, Max thought, was like a pearl: all it took was the tiniest speck of grit and the most improbable lies could coalesce around it, forming something bigger and brighter than the small forgotten truth trapped within.
Outside on the street, Max scanned the mass of faces for Sophie’s. But he didn’t spot her until Paula exclaimed: ‘Ugh, that bald French girl is waving at you! Come on …’ She pulled him by the hand until they were around the corner, then breezily said: ‘You’re welcome.’
‘For what?’ Max asked.
‘Rescuing you from the Freak! You don’t want to get too close to her – I heard she has nits.’
Hans
He sat alone in the school cafeteria, chewing the gristly schnitzel and reading his history textbook. They were studying Alexander the Great and in his mind Hans was the young conqueror, discovering new lands, slaughtering his enemies. He’d been at the Musikgymnasium for a week now and still had no friends.
The only other person who deigned to sit at the same table as him was Rudi Schleicher, a good-looking boy whose nickname was Creep and whom the whole school treated like a leper. An invisible cloud of shame seemed to follow Creep around, but even he didn’t speak to Hans. The only one to say a kind word to him so far had been Sophie Strom and he hadn’t seen her since that French class on his first day. Jens Arnstein and Niklas Mauser, on the other hand, seemed to be in almost all his classes.
Hans heard sniggering behind his back and guessed what was coming. He took another bite of schnitzel, read another paragraph about the Battle of Issus, then clenched his biceps, pectoral and abdominal muscles for five seconds each. He knew he would never be as big as Karl, but he could still be the toughest possible version of himself. His ambition was to be top of his class and strong enough to beat up Jens Arnstein by the time school ended next summer. They were reading Nietzsche’s Götzen-Dämmerung in philosophy – ‘What does not kill me makes me stronger’ – and Hans had decided to make this his motto.
‘Hey, Rinderhack!’ Hans heard footsteps on the tile floor and in the corner of his eye saw Mauser reaching a hand towards his face. The fingers drew slowly nearer then pulled away just before touching the puckered, molten tissue of Hans’s scar. ‘Ek-el-haft!’ Mauser shouted, pretending to vomit. Hans tensed his stomach muscles but said nothing: he didn’t need anyone else to tell him that his face was disgusting.
‘Go on, Maus!’ said another voice. ‘I’ll give you twenty pfennigs if you do it!’ Mauser grinned and reached out again. Hans tensed his chest muscles and gripped his cutlery. As the boy’s fingertips touched his face, Hans stabbed at the air with his fork and yelled, ‘Get off me!’
Oooooh, said the table behind.
Mauser stared at his hand. ‘You stabbed me!’ he shrieked.
‘He didn’t even touch you,’ said a girl’s voice witheringly. ‘And you’re the disgusting one.’ Hans looked up as Sophie sat next to him.
The boy muttered something about leaving the freaks alone so they could have sex. Sophie glanced up and said: ‘Yes, please go away.’ She smiled at Hans and he started to smile back before remembering what he looked like when he did that.
October
Max
He rang the doorbell and Paula answered it. She took his hand and led him into the brightly lit living room. Everything looked brand new and the air smelled of furniture polish. Paula removed her shoes and arranged them neatly against the wall. Max copied her. ‘Max, my parents,’ she said, gesturing at the man and woman sitting on a leather sofa at the other end of the room. Between them lay an expanse of freshly raked carpet. Max trod on it as lightly as he could but still left footprints behind, as in snow. The man stood up and thrust out his hand. ‘Dieter Weiss!’ he barked. ‘And this is my wife, Emma.’ Herr and Frau Weiss, Max noticed, looked much younger than his own parents. There were no bags under their eyes, no furrows on their foreheads, as if life had left less of an imprint on them. Or as if they’d just been raked. ‘Please take a seat,’ said Herr Weiss. ‘So, Paula tells me that you wish to be her boyfriend?’
Max nodded uncertainly. In fact he’d never expressed a firm opinion on the matter – everyone else just seemed to take it for granted that this was what he wanted – but he had a feeling it wouldn’t help to point this out. Only four weeks had passed since the start of school but already Max felt trapped in his new role: he was the Maus-slayer, the popular new boy, and now Paula Weiss’s latest beau. Of course this was preferable to being a scarred orphan but all the same it made him a little uncomfortable.
‘Let me warn you, Max: if I ever hear that you have mistreated my daughter, I will make you regret it for the rest of your life.’ This was the kind of thing that Max’s father might say as a joke and he waited a couple of seconds for a burst of laughter, a slap on the shoulder. But Paula’s father continued to stare at him.
‘Of course, sir,’ Max said nervously. ‘I would never do that.’
‘No need to scare him, Liebchen,’ said Paula’s mother, placing a hand on her husband’s forearm. ‘Max, why don’t you tell us about your family?’ Her smile was polite but somehow detached-looking, as if she might remove it and put it in a drawer at night.
‘Um, my mother is a piano teacher and my father plays the trumpet …’
‘In an orchestra?’ Frau Weiss asked, looking impressed.
Max nodded vaguely while sipping his tea. He didn’t think the Weisses would approve of the jazz club where Franz Spiegelman had been earning his living since the destruction of the shop.
‘So you’re a musical family, that’s nice. And what church do you attend?’
‘The Karlskirche,’ Max answered. Paula had warned him that they would ask this question. In truth he hadn’t been to church in a long time but his mother had taken him to a few Christmas services back when her own mother had still been alive.
What are your hobbies? What do you want to do when you’re older? Where do you stand on the issue of a Greater Germany? Slowly and painfully Max made it through the minefield of their questions. He did not tell any outright lies but his evasions, omissions and exaggerations left him shrivelled inside. What would his mother think if she could see him now? What would Sophie think?
During the past month Max had spoken with Sophie Strom only twice. But each time he’d been acutely aware of the looks of surprise and distaste on the faces of those around them, and Sophie, perhaps sensing his unease, had cut the conversation short. He still hadn’t asked her if she remembered who he was. He only really knew her from his dreams.
At last Max and Paula were told they could go to her bedroom to work on their biology project. ‘You have one hour precisely,’ said Herr Weiss, checking his watch.
‘And please leave your door open,’ Frau Weiss added.
Inside Paula’s bedroom Max looked around at the framed photographs of mountains, forests and waterfalls, at the enormous collection of dolls that covered her bed. He turned to see Paula leaning out into the hallway. ‘Listen,’ he whispered, ‘I don’t have my books with me. I didn’t realise you wanted to work on the project.’
She shushed him, then stood listening. Music came from a radio in the living room and Paula softly closed the door.
Max frowned. ‘Didn’t your mother—’
‘Do you always follow the rules, Max?’
‘No, but … Well, your father seems quite strict.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about him – barking dogs never bite. You’d better not mistreat me, though, or I’ll make you regret it.’
‘What do you mean?’
Paula began to inspect her fingernails. ‘You know Rudi Schleicher?’
‘Creep? Yes, of course. Well, I know who he is.’
‘He was my boyfriend once. He hurt me.’ Paula paused and her eyes narrowed at the memory. ‘So I hurt him.’
Max felt a prickle of fear. ‘What did you do?’
‘Just started a few rumours.’ She smiled and moved closer. ‘It’s all right, I would never do that to you … As long as you’re nice to me.’ Max started to speak but Paula pushed him onto the bed and pressed her mouth against his before he could make any promises. To Max’s surprise, her tongue grazed his lips. She sat up and laughed. ‘Haven’t you ever kissed a girl?’ Max shook his head. ‘Really? I’ll have to teach you.’
She was a good teacher. Max had never imagined that kissing could be so pleasurable. He’d seen people do it in films, of course, but he’d never guessed what they were feeling as their faces merged and the string section stirred. Kissing was like music, like hearing Mozart for the first time. But it was also intensely physical, Max thought. Like fighting without the pain.
After a while Paula lay back on the bed and sighed. ‘Not bad for a beginner …’ There was a knock at the door. ‘Shit.’ She jumped to her feet and adjusted her skirt. ‘Sit at the desk and pretend to work,’ she told Max before calmly opening the door.
‘Why was your door shut?’ her father demanded.
‘Your music was too loud. We couldn’t concentrate. But we’ve made good progress on our biology project. Haven’t we, Max?’
Max peered fearfully at the doorway where Herr Weiss stood. ‘Uh, yes.’
‘What is your project about?’ Paula’s father asked, still a little suspicious.
‘The human mouth,’ Paula replied without hesitation. Then smiled, as if waiting for him to leave.
Hans
He knocked on the door – there was no doorbell – and Sophie answered it. She took his hand and led him through the chaotic apartment. Stockings, books and half-eaten plates of food littered the wooden floorboards. The furniture sagged, the sunlit air swirled with dust. Sophie opened the door to a long room lined with windows overlooking the canal, where a woman with short, paint-flecked hair was gouging a pair of eye sockets into a clay skull. ‘My mother’s studio. Mama, this is Hans!’ The woman looked up briefly and gave a curt nod before slipping her thumbs back into the moist holes. ‘She doesn’t like to be disturbed when she’s working,’ Sophie whispered.
‘She’s a sculptor?’
‘An artist. She paints and draws too.’ Sophie gestured at the studio walls, which were covered with bizarre images. Hans saw a man with bark for skin and tree branches growing out of his ears, a clock with facial expressions instead of numbers, two children playing marbles with human eyeballs. ‘She used to be a surrealist but her work is changing now. It’s more political.’
‘What’s a surrealist?’ asked Hans, whose knowledge of art was limited to the yellowed Achenbach prints that decorated the walls of the Schattens’ house.
‘Mama says it’s about blurring the boundary between dream and reality. Anyway, let’s go to my room. Do you want something to drink?’
They sipped lemonade and sat side by side on Sophie’s bed. Hans looked at the posters on her walls – a man and a woman kissing, with sheets on their heads; watches melting in a desert landscape – and felt nervous. Blurring the boundary between dream and reality did not sound like a good idea to him. Hans’s feelings about his dreams had changed since the bandages had come off: before, his nightly visions had consoled him; now, they taunted him with all he had lost. A family, good looks, popularity, a girlfriend … Perhaps the dreams were part of God’s punishment. Or perhaps the Almighty was simply testing him? Yes, the God in Oma Hannah’s stories had always been testing people, Hans remembered. Abraham and Isaac. The trials of Job.
Sophie put down her empty glass and smiled. ‘So are you ready to start work on our biology project?’
They worked together for the next hour and Hans’s confusion faded. Sophie was easy to be around, easy to talk to. She had a way of looking at him – neither consciously avoiding nor insistently glancing at his scars – that made him momentarily forget his deformity. When the project was complete, she lay on the bed with her head on the pillow and patted the space beside her. A little warily, Hans lay down. Sophie looked up at the ceiling, which was painted dark blue and dotted with silvery stars, and said: ‘I’d like to get to know you better, Hans. But I’ve noticed you seem uncomfortable when I look at you, so maybe if we both look at the ceiling or close our eyes it’ll be easier for you?’
Hans nodded slightly, his eyes moving from star to star.
‘You do need to speak instead of nodding, though, if we’re going to do it this way.’
He laughed and some of his nervousness escaped. ‘Yes. I think that’s a good idea.’
‘So do you want to go first or should I?’
‘You first.’
‘I thought you might say that.’ He could hear her smile as she said this. She started to talk and he closed his eyes. ‘Well, my name is Sophie Angela Strom and I was born in 1920 in Berlin. But my mother is French, so maybe I should tell you about her first and how she ended up in Germany?’
‘All right.’ Hans started tensing his muscles as he listened. Pectorals. Triceps. Biceps.
‘Her name is Suzanne and she grew up in the French country-side … Is this too boring?’
Abdominals. Quadriceps.
‘No.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Honestly.’
‘Okay. But tell me if you start dozing off and I’ll give you the abridged version. Anyway, she wanted to be an artist, so at eighteen she moved to Paris. This was in the middle of the war, when all French people hated the Germans. But my mother wasn’t like everyone else, so when the war was over she travelled to Berlin. And that was where she met my father, Ralf, who was just starting off as an architect. So, you know, they fell in love …’ – Sophie’s voice changed when she said this and Hans tensed his abdominals for longer than usual – ‘… and eventually they got married, even though my mother thinks marriage is a stupid bourgeois institution.’
‘So why do it?’
‘Because she loved him and his family expected it. She’s a non-conformist but she does have a pragmatic side too.’
Hans wasn’t sure what either of those long words meant but he didn’t want to interrupt.
‘And then I came into the world and ruined everything!’ Sophie laughed. ‘Just kidding. Well, partly. Anyway, I grew up speaking French at home and German at school, so I’m bilingual. I don’t like one language more than the other. On the whole I think German is better for arguing and French is better for poetry. What do you think?’
‘I don’t speak much French.’
‘Yeah, I know. I’ve heard you in Monsieur LaRue’s class, remember?’ She elbowed him in the ribs and Hans blushed.
‘So why aren’t your parents together anymore?’
‘Politics.’ She spat the word out like it tasted bad. ‘You know about the new government in Germany, right? Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists.’
Hans thought of the books he had seen on Karl’s shelves. ‘A little bit,’ he said.
‘Well, my father’s firm won a big government contract so my father ended up working for them. But my mother had just had an exhibition banned. She was on the Nazis’ list of degenerate artists. So my parents didn’t see eye to eye anymore. And then in March they had this really big fight and in the middle of the night my mother packed our suitcases and she took me in a taxi to the train station. We left for Vienna that morning. I never even had a chance to say goodbye to my father.’
‘Oh,’ said Hans, trying to sound sympathetic. ‘What’s he doing now?’
‘He’s still in Berlin, working for the government.’
‘Does he write to you?’
‘Sometimes. And we’ve talked on the telephone.’
‘But you miss him?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice caught in her throat. ‘Mama says what he’s doing is evil but I don’t think he’s really changed.’
He turned his head sideways to look at her. ‘Do you want to go back to Germany?’
Sophie shrugged. She was looking up at the ceiling. ‘I miss my friends, and my dad of course. But I like it here too.’
‘Are you still in touch with your friends?’
‘Yes. I had one best friend and I write to her every week. But …’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know, it’s like I can feel her getting more distant. The first letter she wrote to me was twelve pages long. The one I got last week wasn’t even a page. Not that I think you can measure friendship in the thickness of an envelope, but—’
‘I know what you mean.’
Hans hesitated. He tensed his thigh muscles while trying to decide if he should tell her.
‘Why do you keep doing that?’ Sophie asked.
‘Doing what?’
‘Tensing your muscles like that.’
‘Oh.’ He forced himself to stop. ‘I want to be strong. So no one can hurt me.’
‘Not everyone wants to hurt you, you know. Sometimes you have to trust people.’
‘I trust you,’ Hans told the stars.
‘Good,’ said Sophie. ‘So tell me what you were going to say.’
‘Just that … I lost my best friend too, recently.’
‘What happened?’
He could feel her eyes on him now.
‘We had a fight.’
‘What about?’
Politics, he almost said. Then: ‘Just something stupid.’ He swallowed. ‘Maybe we could be best friends? You and me, I mean.’
He looked at her and she smiled. ‘I’d like that, Hans.’ Then he looked at the stars again, so he could smile without her seeing. ‘Now it’s your turn,’ Sophie said. ‘Tell me everything.’
