Free The Undertaking by Audrey Magee Page A

cards.
    ‘I’m going to be a father.’
    ‘Bloody hell, you’re a fast mover,’ said Faustmann.
    ‘Congratulations,’ said Kraft. ‘When is the baby due?’
    ‘July.’
    ‘We’ll be done here by then,’ said Weiss.
    They toasted him with vodka and dealt a new hand.

 
     
     
    14
    Katharina tied her scarf more tightly and moved up the line, closer to the ducks and geese hanging from steel hooks in the butcher’swindow. Mrs Sachs came towards her, a brown parcel under her arm, white string in a neat knot.
    ‘I got a duck,’ she said.
    ‘It looks big,’ said Katharina.
    ‘I’d have preferred a goose. More traditional.’
    ‘I’d be happy with either.’
    ‘You should have been here earlier.’
    ‘I didn’t know.’
    ‘Word went around last night.’
    ‘We didn’t hear.’
    ‘You would have heard if you hadn’t moved,’ said Mrs Sachs. ‘The new people in your old place got a goose. A big one.’
    ‘They’ll have a good Christmas then. And how are you, Mrs Sachs?’
    ‘Well enough under the circumstances. My son is outside Moscow. The cold is killing him.’
    ‘The cold is killing us all, Mrs Sachs. Have you any coal?’
    ‘We haven’t the luxury of a fireplace, Katharina. As you will no doubt remember.’
    ‘It’s a curse rather than a luxury, Mrs Sachs, when there is no coal and the wind blows into the apartment.’
    ‘How is your husband?’
    ‘Fine. Safe. We’re expecting a baby in the summer.’
    ‘Congratulations.’
    ‘Thank you. I’m very excited.’
    ‘How is your mother? I never see her now.’
    ‘She’s well, Mrs Sachs. Enjoying the new apartment.’
    Katharina moved up the queue, close enough to see the spikes of the S-shaped hooks digging into the birds, their flaccid necks shifting in the breeze from the open door. She craned her neck. There wereeight birds in the window, all of them ducks. In front of her were ten women. The butcher was still drawing on stocks from inside the shop. She turned to the woman behind her.
    ‘It’s nerve-racking, isn’t it?’
    ‘Awful.’
    A car stopped outside the shop and a woman got out, her hair and make-up perfect, her body sculpted by a woollen jacket and skirt. Her driver, in black uniform, shifted the queue to one side. The woman walked into the shop.
    ‘Who is she?’ said Katharina.
    ‘I think it’s more “what” than “who”,’ said the woman behind her.
    Katharina watched the suited woman point at the ducks in the window. The butcher removed three from the display. A woman ahead of Katharina started to cry, but fell silent as the suited woman left the shop, her driver carrying the ducks to the boot of the car. He drove off and the queue moved back to its previous position. The butcher served eight more women, then shut his door and pulled down his blinds. Katharina knocked at the door. He didn’t answer. The remaining women shuffled away, hiding their tears from their children.
    She climbed into bed when she got home as it was too cold in the apartment of high ceilings and large rooms without coal. She missed the cloying cosiness of their old kitchen. Her mother did too, although neither woman would admit it.
    She woke in the darkness of a winter afternoon. She got up, wrapped a cashmere blanket over her shoulders and went to the living room, braced for the cold, and surprised by the warmth. There was a fire in the grate. Her parents sat on the sofa in front of it, giggling.
    ‘There is more,’ said her father.
    She looked at the mound of coal still on the slate, waiting to be burned.
    ‘So I see,’ she said. ‘It’s fantastic.’
    ‘Go and look in the kitchen, Katharina.’
    On the counter, lying between the cooker and the sink, were a goose, a leg of lamb, sausages, a bag of potatoes, carrots, two turnips and a bottle of wine.
    She shrieked and embraced her father.
    ‘And there’s more,’ he said. ‘Let me show you.’
    He dipped his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
    ‘Stand in front of the fire