1987

Tim lowered his voice even more, as if the old woman—she would be very old now—was out there somewhere, listening in on the two children:

“So the woman disappears with the soldiers down the stairs to the U-Bahn. She was never seen again. She was the same age as your mum, or thereabouts. It happened at the U-Bahn stairs just outside our building.”

“Liar,” 8-year old Caroline said defiantly, but her voice was quivering.

“It’s true,” Tim said, almost in a whisper. “It’s history.”

She leaned out of her bunk to face him. “Why are ye telling me this again? Ye’re my brother.”

“Only half-brother, sis. My real mum’s back in the hospital back home, remember?” He was looking down on her from the top bunk with a disinterested frown, like he was thinking about something else.

Caroline withdrew back in. “I know where she is.”

“Good. And I am telling you all of this so nothing happens to you when you go out alone. So you know where not to go.”

Caroline nodded and lay very still.

“So,” Tim continued, very seriously, “the woman who disappeared had cooked for Hitler. It was the end of the war. The Russians had occupied the entire city and they were looking for anyone who had been close to Hitler. I think you can guess what happened to her when they finally found her.”

Caroline nodded again but said nothing. It wouldn’t help, anyway. Tim would go on and on with this or some other scary story. 

And she did know Hitler was a bad man.

That he had started a war long ago, and that he was somehow also to blame for the ugly Wall in the middle of this big, big city.

Did Timothy think she was stupid when he kept repeating all that—kept talking about Hitler?

He was 13 and thought he knew everything.

Outside, high up in the night sky, she could hear a plane from Tempelhof, flying over their rundown condos, leftovers that hadn’t been included in the big rebuilding after the war. 

The plane was heading towards the world outside of Island Berlin, another island very different from the one Caroline had grown up on in the Inner Hebrides. Her father had promised they’d go home after he had finished teaching those classes for soldiers, about how to survive in the wild when the Russians came again, like he had survived in the Falklands after being shot in the knee and left for dead.

And so they were trapped in the little room they had to share until Dad could find a bigger place for them.

Every night they had to go to the bunks in the same room, and Tim took the top one and she took the lower one.

And Tim started rambling about all sorts of things. Including very old women who might not be dead and still roam the U-Bahn, she took every morning to the international school.

She hoped the year in Berlin would pass quickly.

And she hoped Tim would soon move out again, when the came home, so she could have her mother and father for herself. 

She didn’t want to feel this way, because Tim’s mother—‘Aunt’ Clarissa’—was really scary, especially if she forgot her pills. 

But even though she felt sorry for her brother, she hated him enough that night not to care.

*

2016 – now

The carpet on the floor in the hallway felt odd, somehow.

Like Emma wasn’t touching it with her bare feet. Finally she stood in the living room.

“Em?” Her dad’s face looked ghostly in the light from the TV. There were no lamps turned on. 

Jonathan Reese had muted the TV before she came in. She thought for a moment he was sleeping, but now he looked straight at her.

“You are supposed to be in bed, young lady.”

“I can’t sleep.” Emma looked at the sofa table. The photo album from this evening was still there.

She sat down quietly on the sofa beside her father. For a moment they both looked at the table. And the album.

“What’s wrong, Em?” Her father’s voice was distant.

Emma shook her head, but then after a few more seconds, she said, “I think Mom is mad at me.”

“Mom sat with you all evening, showing you all the old photos.” He smiled faintly.  “And she had a long day looking for work. She is tired.”

“I … wanted to like Uncle Tim,” Emma continued. “I thought he was as nice as Uncle Dave, who gave me the necklace from Mali and always tries to cheer me up.”

Jon had an open beer on the table. The bottle looked empty but he put it to his lips for a long slow gulp. “I’ve never met your Uncle Timothy. He died two years before I began seeing your Mom.”

Before Emma could say anything, he continued, “But I’m sure Tim was just as nice a guy as your other uncle who—fortunately—is still here.”

He put his arm around her and gave her a reassuring smile. “You should really be in bed.”

He glanced at the silent TV screen. It looked as if Cruz was ahead in Carolina, according to NBC.

Emma reached for the album. She opened it on a random page where there was a photo of her mother and Tim near a big ugly wall with graffiti on it. Her mother was only a year younger than Emma was now.

Someone had scribbled ‘March 1987’ under the photo.

“Looks like a birthday photo,” her father remarked. “Mom’s birthday is in March.”

“I know that,” Emma said. “But …”

“But what?”

“Mom always said Uncle Tim looked out for her when they lived on Skye—when she was bullied. And that she sometimes dreams of him still. But the year they were in West Berlin he was mean to her—all the time.”

“Not all the time,” Jon said.

Emma frowned, like she was somewhere else now, trying to get her bearings. “Uncle Tim was a soldier. Like Grandpa. Like you.”

“I’m not a soldier anymore.”

“But you were in Iraq.”

“That was a long time ago. And it was even longer that your Grandpa was away.”

Emma nodded. Then she said, “Why do people make war, Dad?”

Jon lifted the near-empty bottle for another gulp. “It can be many different reasons. Most of the time, I suppose, it’s because they’re afraid of the other—so one side hits first before they can get hit themselves.”

“Do you think Meredith is afraid of me?”

Jon frowned. “We talked with her parents, your teachers … they didn’t say much, but I think she may have some troubles at home.”

“What kind of troubles?”

“I don’t know, Emma. And it’s very late. But I suppose she wouldn’t do so many mean things if she didn’t have trouble herself.”

“You mean, maybe she wouldn’t have thrown Uncle Dave’s necklace into the toilet? Or all the other things she did to hurt me?” 

“It’s possible,” Jon said slowly. “But whatever the case, she shouldn’t have done it. And we’re not going to let anything happen to you anymore.” 

Her father’s arm around her squeezed firmly, yet Emma still felt that she shivered.

She looked intensely at the photo in the album again. There was something about that Wall that made her feel very alone. 

“Dad, if Uncle Tim could change things somehow and not be mean to Mom back then, do you think he would—I mean, if he had lived?”

Jon shook his head. “That’s … a question you can’t answer, Emma.”

“Because Uncle Tim didn’t live?”

Jon switched on the DVD. “Let’s watch one more from Mom’s Christmas gift to you. You still like it, right?”

“It’s old,” Emma said. “But it’s good. I can understand why it was Mom’s favorite when she was my age.”

“Okay, so one episode and then bed—do we have an agreement?”

Emma nodded, put the photo album back on the table and nestled herself against one side of her father. Jon took the blanket he had been using as head support and put it over her.

On the screen, a new episode of She-Ra: Princess of Power started: “He Ain’t Heavy” …

*

CARRIE & TIM 1987, EMMA & JON 2016

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Cover photo by Kelly Sikkema

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38-230224.1223

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Soundtrack: Alphaville – “Forever Young”