Retrograde Page 3

  JOACHIM

  The red light flashing on his answering machine catches Joachim’s eye as he comes in; he almost never gets a message. It must be his mother. Everyone else has heard of call ID by now.

  Before he can play back the message, the phone rings again.

  “Mr. Schmidt?” a strange woman’s voice asks. She sounds official; maybe it’s something to do with this year’s taxes.

  “Yes?”

  “Vivantes Hospital. It’s about your wife.”

  If he’d ever pictured this scenario to himself, if he’d imagined his next words, he would’ve expected to ask: What wife? But he feels no such confusion. In the immediacy of the moment, their separation vanishes, as if she’d only just stepped out.

  “Is she all right?” She can’t be dead, he reminds himself, or it would be the police and not the hospital. She can’t be dead or they’d come in person.

  “You’d better come in.”

  HELENA

  Helena wakes with a general sense of nausea. She doesn’t feel like she’s going to vomit, but like each individual part of her body is about to heave its entire contents into the white glare surrounding her. Then the light takes shape and becomes a narrow room with two beds—the one she’s lying in, and one to her right, in which a shriveled old woman is either sleeping or dead. Helena shifts her arms and legs, just to make sure she can. Her right arm feels strangely heavy and the white sheet spread taut over her legs resists her, but she can control her body. There’s some kind of cast from her right wrist to her elbow. Her mouth tastes like metal and soap. There’s a window to her left with the blinds down, and when she turns to examine the strange feeling in her left arm, she discovers a tube clamped to the inside of her elbow, pumping an unidentified fluid into her. She winces and swallows hard, more nauseous than ever.

  Gingerly, she leans forward and explores her face with her left hand. Most of it is bandaged. She can feel something hard on her right leg that could be another cast, and something firm is holding her torso in place. She wants to yell for help or simply an explanation, but is afraid of disturbing the old woman. Something is terribly wrong, but she can’t think what. She must’ve had an accident—did she fall down the stairs? It must be the medicine in her arm making her groggy. She’ll remember when she’s more awake.

  She finds the call button on the wall and presses it firmly, like an insistent visitor ringing a doorbell.

  The nurse who comes in is young, just out of school, with thin blonde hair and a blotchy complexion. She looks first at the old woman, as if she’d long expected an emergency call from that bed, then approaches Helena.

  “So, you’re awake. How are you feeling?” She uses the formal you, but Helena still notices and resents something condescending in her tone. She may have just regained consciousness but she isn’t a child.

  “Where am I?” she snaps.

  “The hospital—”

  “I know that! I mean…” She feels angry, helpless, helpless to direct her anger toward anyone. She wants to shout at this young woman, stand up and shake the answers out of her. What hospital? What’s happened? She doesn’t even know what day it is. Or, she realizes to her horror, what year. Has she been here for long? She can’t breathe and a wave of dizziness washes over her so that she falls back against the stiff pillow behind her.

  “Calm down, ma’am. Everything’s fine. You’ve had an accident, but you’re going to be okay. Your husband will be back in a moment; he just stepped out to get some coffee.”

  “I see.” Helena struggles to remain calm, to act with dignity. But already tears of relief are rolling down her face. Just like Joachim, she thinks. Stepping out for coffee right when I need him. But the thought of his presence reassures her, takes away all her confusion. Joachim will be here any minute, and he’ll explain. It can’t be as bad as she thinks.

  He comes through the door and the young nurse dashes out as if chased.

  “Oh, darling, I was so scared!” She doesn’t want him to think she’s blaming him for stepping out, but she can’t help herself.

  “Hi, Helena. I’m glad to see you up.” Something about him is different, though she can’t quite place it. His hair’s longer, for one thing.

  “How long have I been here? What happened? What day is it?”

  “There, there.” He walks over to her bed and places his hand on hers. “It’s all right. You’re going to be all right now.”

  They must’ve had a fight, she thinks. That’s why his manner is so strange. They must’ve had a fight before whatever happened to her happened, and now he feels awkward because of that. He shouldn’t bother. She can’t remember the fight, whatever it was. She wants to tell him that but he begins to answer her questions in that measured, soothing tone he uses when he knows she’s upset. Like she’s a bundle of explosives he’s taking care not to ignite.

  “Today’s Tuesday. You’ve been here for three days now,” he says. “Don’t worry, I let your work know what was up. Do you remember what happened?”

  “Of course not! Why else would I have asked? Nobody around here wants to tell me a thing!” She presses his hand so he won’t be angry with her. The drip in her arm pulls taut. He hates when she raises her voice.

  “You were crossing the street and you got hit by a truck. The driver braked, but you still got knocked down, broke a couple ribs, your arm, and your ankle. The doctor said none of it will leave major damage, and you’ll be on crutches in a couple days. That’s pretty lucky, right?”

  Yeah, lucky. A few broken bones and who knows how much work piled up when she gets back to the office. And who’s going to be cleaning the apartment while she hobbles around on crutches? He sure isn’t.

  “Where was I?” she asks. It’s not important, but it bothers her that she can’t remember. Something isn’t right here, and it’s not just the nausea coursing through her body and keeping her from thinking straight.

  “They said you were in Friedrichshain, crossing Warschauer Strasse.”

  “But Joachim, weren’t you with me?”

  He doesn’t answer, and she doesn’t blame him. He must feel guilty for not having been there. As if he could’ve known. He squeezes both of her hands and mumbles something about speaking to the doctor. When she looks up, he has tears in his eyes.

  “What’s wrong, darling?”

  “Nothing, nothing. I was just so worried.” He kisses her forehead and steps out of the room.

  JOACHIM

  At the nurses’ station, Joachim demands to speak to a doctor. “The one responsible for… my wife,” he adds.

  “Dr. Hofstaedter is just finishing her rounds,” the lanky young man resting his elbows on the counter says. “She’ll be here any minute now.”

  Any minute turns out to be twenty-three minutes later by the clock hanging above the nurses’ station. He thinks of returning to Helena, who’s awake and alone all this time, but is afraid of missing the doctor. And afraid of being alone with Helena, not knowing what to say to her. The way she spoke to him! It was as if no time had passed. As if less than no time had passed, as if they’d gone back to before the end of things. She called him darling, not once but twice. Does that mean she’s reconsidered? There are plenty of cases like that, people’s whole lives flashing before their eyes and making them into different people afterward. If only it were that. But the way she spoke to him, it almost seemed like—

  “Mr. Schmidt?” A short woman with a dark, lined face and white hair offers him her hand and a mirthless, professional smile. “I’m Dr. Hofstaedter. Perhaps you could join me in my consultation room?”

  The lights in the consultation room are dimmer, and sitting in a comfortable chair opposite the doctor, he feels foolish for nearing hysterics a few minutes before. It’ll be all right. It’s probably nothing.

  “Doctor, have you seen my wife?”

  She nods and waits for him to continue. She probably doesn’t have time for this.

  “And you noticed… Did you notice
something strange about her?”

  “Mrs. Schmidt doesn’t—”

  “Excuse me, it’s Ms. Bachlein. She kept her name when we married.” As if that were important now.

  “Of course, of course. Now, you’re probably concerned because Ms. Bachlein doesn’t remember what happened the day of the accident, right? It’s perfectly ordinary for patients with head trauma to forget things like that. She may regain the memory later, or she may not. After all, it must’ve happened very quickly. Most likely she didn’t even have time to realize she’d been hit.”

  He nods slowly. He is, perhaps, the only one who knows. He could leave now and they’d let Helena walk out of here years behind on things. “And the other things?”

  “Pardon?”

  “What about the other things? Will she remember everything later?”

  “What other things?”

  “Dr. Hofstaedter, my wife just asked me where I was when she got hit.”

  “And?”

  “And we’re not together anymore.”

  The doctor exhales loudly through her nose. “Did you separate recently? She came in unconscious so the police pulled up her registration record, and you were listed as her spouse. Otherwise we would’ve asked Ms. Bachlein herself.”

  He has the impression that she’s missing the point, assuming he or Helena is offended by this forced encounter, and making sure the blame lands squarely on the police rather than her staff. He’d be a lot less worried if Helena were offended. “No, we just never got divorced.” No need to explain why right now. “This is the first time I’ve spoken to her in three years.”

  “I see.” For the first time, Dr. Hofstaedter sinks back into her chair. The V-shaped crease between her eyebrows deepens. See? he wants to say. I wasn’t getting hysterical; there really is something wrong. But this slight satisfaction is overwhelmed by concern for Helena.

  “Does this mean she has brain damage?”

  “Yes, most likely, but don’t be alarmed.” She waves her hand downward to indicate that he should stay in his seat, though he made no indication of getting up. “As I said, this kind of amnesia can happen after an injury to the head. She will, most likely, remember everything within a day, except perhaps the accident itself. I’m sure she knows exactly who she is, where she grew up and so on. Our older memories are more firmly embedded in the brain.”

  He nods again. “But…” He knows what amnesia is; everybody knows that. So what is it now, a big farce, some comedy where he has to pretend it’s a different year? “But do I have to keep it secret from her?”

  Dr. Hofstaedter cocks her head. “Keep what secret?”

  “You know—everything she’s forgotten.”

  The doctor laughs once, and her thick eyebrows go up like a cartoon exclamation point above her head. “Of course not! Reminding her of these things is the best way to help her. If she doesn’t start remembering them herself within a couple days, she should certainly see a specialist.”

  He smiles and nods a few times. Why is he disappointed instead of relieved? It might’ve been nice to pretend. And how perfectly they could’ve pretended. After all, it was always Helena who couldn’t let go of the past.

  “We’ll run a few tests over the next couple days to make sure there’s nothing else wrong with her, but she could be out of here by the end of the week.”

  “Great.”

  “My only concern is . . Frankly, Mr. Schmidt, I’d prefer to release a patient like this into someone’s care, at least until she’s a little clearer in the head. Does she have any family in Berlin?”

  He shakes his head without even processing the question. “I’ll look after her.”

  “That’s very generous of you, Mr. Schmidt, and you are technically her next of kin, but considering your estrangement—does Ms. Bachlein have any close friends you know of?”

  “Not off the top of my head,” he says, though of course Magdalena is the first who comes to mind. Helena’s parents live about five hours from Berlin and would certainly come get her if they knew. Still, the lie seems somehow safer. “Maybe I have an old address book lying around somewhere,” he adds, though every trace of Helena was eliminated years before. The only thing she left behind was her wedding ring, and he keeps that in the cellar, out of sight, out of mind. But he feels that it will reassure the doctor to know he’s not trying to isolate Helena or prevent other people from taking care of her. They gave him her things the first time he came to see her; he could look through the numbers in her phone. It makes more sense for him to look after her, though. He’s right here and willing to do it, and she already knows her way around the apartment. She’ll feel at home. And maybe they’ll finally really be able to talk.

  Dr. Hofstaedter continues to watch him. He can’t tell whether she’s considering his proposal, or at a loss for words.

  “I think it would be best if I discussed the matter with Helena and let her decide,” he says. Looking at her watch, Dr. Hofstaedter is quick to agree.

  • • •

  At home that evening, he flops down on the sofa, exhausted. He spent longer than he expected at the hospital and he’ll have tons of work to make up tomorrow, but that isn’t the only thing hanging over him.

  He meant to tell Helena after he spoke to the doctor. He was going to break the news gently, say they’d had a fight and decided to separate for a while but he wanted to look after her until she was well again. At least until then. He wasn’t going to mention how long they’d been separated, not right away. He was going to let her get used to the fact of their separation first, before he mentioned the time that had passed.

  He was going to do all those things, but he didn’t.

  He thought, at first, that she was sleeping. But when he came closer, he saw that she was just staring up at the ceiling, wide awake.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said when she saw him. And she watched him with those wide, unblinking pewter eyes that were like a grip he couldn’t shake free of. He’d forgotten the matching, slightly asymmetrical beauty marks she has, one between the corner of each eye and her reddish brown hair. He focused on first one and then the other to keep from seeing the swollen right side of her face, divided in two by a little black fence of stitches.

  “I was talking to the doctor,” he said. And he told her she was going to be all right and it was normal not to remember about the accident right now and she was going to be out in a couple of days. He thought that would be the moment to bring up where she’d go when she got out, but she looked so helpless lying there, and when he left, she’d be all alone. So he talked a little bit about other things, about work and the weather and what was in the paper, just to keep her company a while.

  Then there was an instant, one brief moment, in which he thought she must know.

  She said, “I’m so glad you’re here, Joachim. Whatever happened before.”

  But when he asked what she meant, she only said that he was looking at her so strangely; they must’ve had a fight. “Or did you push me?” she asked, with that mischievous twist of her lips he’d forgotten how much he adored.

  “I’ll always be here,” he said, because it sounded like the right thing. “No matter what happens before or after.” He meant he’d always be there for her at a time like this, when crisis knocked down the barriers between them and eliminated normal social behavior. But seconds later, he hated himself for saying it. She was confused now, and wouldn’t understand how he’d meant it.

  He left in an awkward hurry, promising to bring her some books. Recalling that, he looks at his watch. The stores will be closed now, but he can get some in the morning. There’s that fitness studio campaign he needs to brainstorm, but he can bring his laptop to the hospital. They’ll understand. When he told his boss that his wife had been hit by a car, Mr. Braun said, “Oh, I didn’t realize you’d gotten married,” and Joachim knew he must be thinking of Leila, who’d come to the last office Christmas party, but didn’t bother to correct him.

  W
ord got around pretty fast, and Jean and Max, the colleagues he sees the most of outside of work, stopped by his desk to ask whether everything was all right. Jean is a talented French designer who speaks such abominable German that Joachim could’ve pretended the whole wife thing was a misunderstanding if Max hadn’t been there. Max is from Baden-Württemberg like Joachim, and has a nervous stutter that causes him to listen more than talk. Both of them were fleetingly aware of Leila as a female presence in Joachim’s life, someone stopping by to pick him up from after-work drinks or calling to see when he’d be home. Still, who was going to come tell him he wasn’t married, especially at a time like this? He mumbled something about a stable condition and thanked them for their concern. It was too much effort to explain everything to everyone. Even he didn’t really know what was going on.

  He was telling the truth when he told Helena he’d called her office. The first day at the hospital when they’d given him her shoes, purse, and stained clothing, he didn’t have the heart to say he wasn’t the one to take her things, that she wouldn’t want him to have them. Instead, he unlocked her phone with the same old PIN, the year she was born—it was just like her never to change it—and scrolled through her contacts. When he called the last place she’d worked, he was told she hadn’t been there in years, and hung up without giving his name. The entry “CuttingEdge Medien” was the only other one that sounded like a company, so he confidently reported the accident to the first person who picked up. When the woman on the other end asked who he was, he said he was her cousin, because Helena wouldn’t have said she was married. He knew that much about her, anyway. Even if she always accused him of not understanding her. The woman asked which hospital and what the visiting hours were; Joachim told her the hospital but added that they were only letting in family members.

  It was strange how you could lie without expecting to. When he’d tried to keep things from Helena in the past, he’d agonized over each word that came out of his mouth, analyzed how far it was from the truth and how likely she was to believe it. Whether he’d be able to take it back later, to circle around the truth at a distance, gradually spiraling toward it. But now that lies come out more naturally, he doesn’t regret having lied so clumsily to Helena; instead, he wishes he’d told her the truth after seeing Ester in that decrepit bar.