A Ladder to the Sky(24)

‘Oh no,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘No, I’m sorry but I don’t want anyone to read it until it’s published.’

‘Don’t you mean unless it’s published?’

‘No, I mean until. I choose to look on the positive side of things.’

‘I just don’t want you to feel upset if—’

‘Why aren’t you supporting me in this?’ he asked, putting his glass down and giving me a quizzical look.

‘I am,’ I said, my face flushing a little. ‘I just happen to know how unkind this business can be, that’s all, and I’d hate to see you disappointed. Some young writers have to write two or three novels before they produce one that’s good enough to find a publisher.’

‘You sound as if you’re jealous.’

‘Why on earth would I be jealous?’

‘No reason that I can think of, which is what makes your attitude so peculiar. I can’t decide whether you don’t think I’m good enough to succeed or whether you’d just prefer me to fail. I can’t be your protégé for ever, you know. Nor will I always need a mentor.’

‘That’s unkind,’ I said. ‘Surely you must know by now that I’m on your side.’

‘I’ve always assumed that you were.’

‘I am, Maurice, I am,’ I insisted, reaching across and attempting to place my hand atop his, but he pulled away from me, as if my touch might burn him. ‘Perhaps I expressed myself wrongly, that’s all,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m sure you’re right and your novel will be a great success.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, without any great enthusiasm.

‘I suppose that means you won’t be available next year?’

‘Next year?’ he asked. ‘For what?’

‘For the paperback publication of Dread. I imagine that I’ll be invited to other countries, other cities and other literary festivals. You could always join me again if you wanted to? We could see—’

‘I don’t think so, Erich,’ he said. ‘It’s probably time for me to focus on my own career now and not yours.’

‘Of course,’ I said, feeling humiliated, and as I lifted my glass I could see that my hand was shaking a little.

‘Anyway, as this is our last night together,’ he said, smiling again, looking as if he wanted to restore our equanimity, ‘then I’d like to know how things turned out between Oskar and Alysse. Did they escape Germany in time?’

‘Oh, that’s all so long ago,’ I muttered, in no mood now to return to those dark days, wishing instead that we could simply go back to the hotel and retire for the night. I felt very low, close to tears. Was I jealous? I asked myself. And if so, of what?

‘But I have to know how it ended,’ he insisted. ‘Come on, you’re a storyteller. You can’t walk away without revealing the final chapter.’

‘There’s not that much more to tell,’ I said with a sigh.

‘There must be. When we were in Madrid, you said that Oskar and Alysse had decided to leave Berlin. That she was a … what was the word you used again?’

‘A Mischling,’ I said. ‘And it wasn’t Madrid, it was New York.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’m so well travelled now that I get confused.’

I knew that I had no choice. I had got this far, after all. In the fifty years since the start of the war, those events had stayed with me, a shadow across any possibility I might have had for happiness. In fact, as I had walked to the stage on that evening in London to collect The Prize, I had thought of them both, had even imagined that I saw them seated in the audience near the front, a small boy between them, the only three people not applauding or standing in an ovation but sitting side by side, looking exactly as they did in 1939, all the time staring at me and wondering how such extraordinary success could be visited upon a man who had committed such a heinous and unforgivable act.

The fact was, there was no way that I could have permitted Oskar and Alysse to leave Berlin together. My feelings for him were too strong and in my sexual confusion I had allowed myself to become so overwhelmed that I simply could no longer think straight. I had convinced myself that if I could somehow persuade him to stay, then our friendship would transform into something more intimate. Two days after his birthday he left a note for me at my home, asking me to meet him in the late afternoon by the entrance to the Tiergarten Zoo and, as we walked back towards Maxingstra?e, I begged him to reconsider his decision.

‘I can’t,’ he told me with utter certainty. ‘For heaven’s sake, Erich, you live in this city. You’ve seen what’s happening. I won’t stand by and wait for them to take Alysse away.’

‘Oh, just listen to yourself,’ I said, raising my voice in frustration. ‘They’re Jews, Oskar. I know you think that you love her but—’

‘Erich, you’re a Jew,’ he pointed out.

‘I’m not,’ I insisted. ‘Not really.’

‘If either of us needs to be worried about how things are changing here, then it should be you, not me. Anyway, it’s all been decided so there’s no point in trying to change my mind. We’re going to America, her entire family and me. That’s why I wanted to meet you this afternoon. To say goodbye.’